Programming for the planet undoubtedly involves programming scientifically, but what kind of programming are we talking about and what makes it scientific? In what ways does it differ from other forms of programming, if at all? Is scientific programming, data science or machine learning fundamentally different to constructing a compiler or building a high-throughput web server? By considering how the scientific method (with its falsifiable hypotheses and repeatable and reproducible experiments) relates to scientific programming, I hope to explore how computer science and traditional programming techniques are coming up short in meeting the requirements of scientific programmers.