From a reader:

Jonah,
Love your stuff on this topic.
Science, as such, is not an object of science.
You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, touch it, smell it, measure it, weigh it, or bottle its essence and test its characteristics under laboratory conditions.
It is therefore not the task of science to recognize and define the boundaries of science. This is a job for metaphysics (the study of non-physical realities) and epistemology (the study of how we know what we know). Both of these are elements in the philosophy of science.
Without a sound philosophy of science, scientists don’t know when they’ve crossed the boundaries of their discipline and begun speaking as humanists.