Examining the Practicality and Validity of Social Sciences

[Tallus Bryne]

Would Feynman consider computer science a science?

I think this answers your question:

 

[nazarbaz]

Yeah I think that last example is an example of sociology in action, I met someone who was a political science and sociology double major. He said he found sociology to be more basic and political science to be more applied. anyway I think it's kind of interesting to see what's going on in those fields...

Both political science and sociology could be fundamental research if you want them to be so. They would be mere verbiage though, if the "problem building" is mediocre at first.
Nothing really deep in humanities and social science could come from a problem solving agenda : this is what a corporation or a government is expecting from us, not what we should do to understand ourselves.
I don't know if truth about democracy (an illusion and, per se, an unreachable goal) is of any use to modern political systems.

 

[Pythagorean]

I don't know if truth about democracy (an illusion and, per se, an unreachable goal) is of any use to modern political systems.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "political systems", but political parties and politically-interested business owners with think tanks and public representatives (i.e. propaganda generators) get a lot of use out of social theory to further their agendas, whether for ideology or greed.

 

[paisiello2]

I think this answers your question:

So Feynman does not consider social science nor computer science as real sciences. The OP, however, implied that computer science was a real science.

 

[saminator910]

I think this answers your question:

So according to him, "science is the study of the behavior of nature". I can see how economics can be considered a science, as others have stated. Humans are elements of nature, and much of economics involves studying the interactions between people. But by that definition it is also hard to disqualify something as science, because humans did arise naturally, and I would consider them a part of nature.

 

[Delong]

So according to him, "science is the study of the behavior of nature". I can see how economics can be considered a science, as others have stated. Humans are elements of nature, and much of economics involves studying the interactions between people. But by that definition it is also hard to disqualify something as science, because humans did arise naturally, and I would consider them a part of nature.

I think economics is a practical science like computer and exercise science or rocket science. It's studying how to do something better and not the underlying basics of a natural phenomenon.

 

[Romulo Binuya]

Science is about the established rules of empirical, stable, and demonstrable protocol. Social sciences may not be considered science because they are not stable i.e. repeatable experiments that yield same results, but social sciences are useful nonetheless.

For example there is no single all-encompassing definition of the Hawthorne Effect but the experiment provides useful insights. Likewise, management theories such as Theory X Theory Y and MBO maybe has no experimental basis but they provide useful insights too.

Social scientists maybe "physics envy" i.e. the desire to obtain all possible data but considering ethics they can't. The nature vs nurture study was locked in Yale University until 2066, the experiments of Harry[/PLAIN] Harlow somehow caused the emergence of animal's right movement in America. Just a couple of example of what happen when ethics is considered in social science investigations.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Science is about the established rules of empirical, stable, and demonstrable protocol. Social sciences may not be considered science because they are not stable i.e. repeatable experiments that yield same results

Not necessarily, many things aren't possible to repeat in a lab setting on demand. The formation of a star for instance. Instead we really on models which we construct from observation and smaller scale experiments. We can then use these models to create predictions and test those predictions by looking at the relevant phenomena in nature.

Social sciences are sciences in the sense that they are all about observation, model building and testing of those models. Hell most social science papers use more rigorous statistical analysis than most fields of biology.

 

[saminator910]

Honestly, I think the reason some people don't consider fields such as economics and other related fields to be science is because they don't fit with other more popular preferences on what is a science. When most people think of a scientist, they may think of someone doing work in a lab, and fields such as physics, biology, and chemistry come to mind. When someone thinks of economics, they think of money, not a classical "scientific" idea. In reality, as stated previously, the nature of the work of some social scientists is very similar to many other "scientists" in classic scientific fields, specifically those working with data, and theoretical concepts. I cannot say the same for fields such as law, many concepts are only somewhat repeatable, whereas I could argue that fields like psychology and economics have more solid scientific bases.

 

[paisiello2]

I think the distinction between the hard and soft sciences is that the former has very specific laws based on very specific isolated variables while the latter has so many variables unaccounted for that the results are very much open to interpretation. And different sciences fall on different spots along the spectrum between hard and soft.

 

[Romulo Binuya]

Yes both natural sciences and social sciences talk in terms of mathematics. And social sciences must be more rigorous in the calculations to account as much as possible all relevant variables to produce repeatable experiments that yield the same statistics.

There are more reasons to be rigorous considering that even in natural science not all calculations lead to acceptable theories. Example, plasma cosmology is a mathematical extrapolation from the lab to Hubble distance that was proposed by Alfven. I supposed its mathematics is correct as it was done by a Nobel laureate, but it was being rejected because ostensibly the observations don't support it. Just my perspective in comparing natural sciences and social sciences.

 

[pagetheoracle]

Social studies are the equivalent of software as computers are hardware. In other words they give us direction (or programs) and without them hardware would exist as do the rocks but would remain purposeless.

 

[flowerdave]

From the inside

IMO, social sciences are tools...

Far too many people enter the social science fields with a definite, impregnable, bias.

If most students (and eventually teachers on some level) entered the hard sciences with the same level of bias that I have seen in the soc. sciences, then the hard sciences would rapidly devolve into the cesspool of ideology that the soft sciences have.

In the hard sciences data and reproducibility rule (usually), in the soft sciences feelings and PC rule (almost all of the time).

Social science is not useless when done scientifically, but it's utterly worthless when approached as a form of social work.edit: I am an historian and political scientist, so I'm not antagonistic towards social science. I am DEEPLY troubled by the tendency in our field to relax the scientific standards, and freedom of inquiry, in service to preconceived views of "inclusiveness" and a fear of giving offense.

 

[bozone]

I'm partially of the school of thought that all science is either physics or stamp collecting. Medicine obviously has huge value but I think we need to figure out how to ensure the survival of the human race as time goes on and only physics can do that ultimately. Everything else we need to know is just a side effect of that. For example the geology of other planets etc.

 

[Rocket50]

This is arguable, but IMO I don't see any uses of history, literature and philosophy.

 

[Vannay]

This is arguable, but IMO I don't see any uses of history, literature and philosophy.

History is a way of knowing ourselves. What have we done in the past? What civilizations were lost to time? How did major civilizations fall so we can try to prevent the same thing happening to us? Literature is a way for humans to express deep complex thoughts and form stories from them. EVERYONE likes stories I don't care who you are.

 

[Casey A.]

I'm not qualified by any means, but I'll give my two cents anyways.

I think anything that applies the scientific method in a valid way is a science - really science is a philosophy that is very, very effective at describing the natural world. So when we say someone is a scientist, the way I see it is that the person is a natural philosopher in some form, reaching their conclusions through empirically-gathered data.

Now, science has grown so expansive, specialized, and effective that we can apply the method to things that aren't necessarily 'natural' in the strictest sense, like human behavior, money, societies, culture, and history, and that's where things get iffy, because there are so many biases surrounding those that it's pretty much impossible to separate ourselves from them.

I think we could absolutely turn those studies into valid, rigid, absolute sciences in the future - but only if we start building up, kind of like how we did with physics to chemistry to biology to psychology. We could continue - psychology to sociology to economics to anthropology. Just the lines start to blur, because we're encompassing more and more data.

What I'm trying to say is this - there is physics involved in economics just like there is in chemistry. But it's physics on such a gigantic scale that for now we can't process all of that information.

But - are those studies useful? I'd say, of course they are! If you've ever been mentally ill and have voluntarily taken medication, as I have, the benefit of social science is real and very powerful. I know my Vyvanse helps me concentrate. The study of economics is what keeps countries afloat and in equilibrium. I'd say a field of academia that could keep millions of people relatively prosperous is absolutely of benefit.

 

[jz92wjaz]

I agree with Casey. Social science relies on the scientific method. The term soft science is completely appropriate. It benefits me as a scientist by helping me understand my own human nature and recognize subconscious biases. I am now less likely to discount the opinions and ability of competent scientists that may not fit my preconceived notions of what a scientist looks like.

@StatGuy2000 The Republicans managed to nominate Romney, an Evolutionist who was willing to consider laws to combat man-made climate change. I believe that the days of a successful vocal anti-science right wing are numbered.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

This is arguable, but IMO I don't see any uses of history, literature and philosophy.

History is incredibly useful for understanding the present, especially in areas like politics. If you're looking at a modern day conflict then without the background history you're going to have no good idea as to the nuances of what is going on and how it could potentially be solved.

 

[Czcibor]

I think two things got mixed up here:
-hardness of science
-usefulness and practical application

Hardness is a problem:
-with beauty of science.
-when there is serious bias from individual scientist or even worse when there is a fad in whole community. Sure, it exists.

Actually some branch of physics can be very hard, have perfect formulas, good predictive record... and have no chance for practical application in foreseeable future. With social sciences, the only case when it hardness matters is when you may suspect that some branch simply can't have any usefulness because of being pseudoscience.

Possible conflict of interest: I'm an economist.