This is maybe as good a definition of science as one could hope for, from the journals of early Canadian fur trader David Thompson:
Both Canadians and Indians often inquired of me why I observed the sun, and sometimes the moon, in the daytime, and passed whole nights with my instruments looking at the moon and stars. I told them it was to determine the distance and direction from the place I observed to other places. Neither the Canadians or the Indians believed me, for both argued that if what I said was truth, I ought to look to the ground, and over it, and not to the stars.