Is The Science of Science As A Field of Study In Its Own Right Alive Or Dead?

[Clifford Miller]

David,

Thank you.

Might you be able to help by suggesting as a starting point an author 
and a work in the philosophy of science which addresses a core of a 
science of science, please?  I will then be able to look it up on The 
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [SEP] which will then cite other 
works and authors.

Popper's attempts to establish criteria for demarcation of science from 
for example, Marxism, were [as I understand it] not successful.  I 
understand debate continued as to whether Marxism was a part of science 
or a theory of a political philosophy.

Is it the position now that a consequence of the failure of demarcation 
that everyone has given up attempting to identify, categorise and 
classify what qualifies as science and hence given up on a science of 
science?  If not, might you also be able to assist please by suggesting 
an author and a work I can look up on SEP which addresses 
identification, categorisation and classification of difference kinds of 
knowledge?

Whether or not one agrees physics and political science are both 
sciences, it is still helpful to understand the nature of the various 
brands of knowledge being offered and what makes them different from 
each other. In other words, should we not give up trying to understand 
the nature of what is being proferred to us as knowledge [science]?

However, as far as I can see so far, that is what has happened.  Or is 
that wrong?