Political Science is the study of political systems and behaviours employing the scientific method. It’s a sub field of social science and a very new one, at less than 150 years old. Political philosophy is of course much older.
The issue with considering these to be anything like the ‘hard sciences’ is that it is impossible to even try to control for all variables. Plus, whenever sociologists, for example, make a bad prediction, they just write it off as differences in personality or some other similar thing.
God forbid they actually just falsified their hypothesis. It’s important that people understand how to think about the social sciences, don’t get me wrong, but they’re pretty overwhelmingly ineffective for creating a proper framework for understanding the world around you.
Theories in social science and theories in hard science are totally different.
Theories in science have a shit ton of evidence behind them and haven’t been falsified.
Theories in social science, on the other hand, are all in competition with each other because they all have their positive and negative aspects that make them better for application in some situations than others.
And yes I know that we still use a newtonian idea of gravity in many cases, but that’s completely different as it just tends to make the math easier in practice. It’s not that we actually still believe in newtonian ideas.
Can you provide an academic paper? I think I understand the concept, but I fail to see it being meaningful with relation to the examples I posed of why the social sciences aren’t scientific.
The issue with considering these to be anything like the ‘hard sciences’ is that it is impossible to even try to control for all variables. Plus, whenever sociologists, for example, make a bad prediction, they just write it off as differences in personality or some other similar thing.
God forbid they actually just falsified their hypothesis. It’s important that people understand how to think about the social sciences, don’t get me wrong, but they’re pretty overwhelmingly ineffective for creating a proper framework for understanding the world around you.
Theories in social science and theories in hard science are totally different.
Theories in science have a shit ton of evidence behind them and haven’t been falsified.
Theories in social science, on the other hand, are all in competition with each other because they all have their positive and negative aspects that make them better for application in some situations than others.
And yes I know that we still use a newtonian idea of gravity in many cases, but that’s completely different as it just tends to make the math easier in practice. It’s not that we actually still believe in newtonian ideas.
Depends. A proper computer science course is basically math with machines. At the highest level, it may have zero programming at all, and the machines in question are entirely abstract.
Software Engineering is, well, engineering (setting aside the whole debate on what makes a “real” engineer).
It used to be that universities crammed both under “computer science”, and you had to look at the curriculum to figure out which one they were actually teaching. They tend to separate the two more clearly these days. Neither is really “science” in the strictest sense, but the term stuck now.
“Real” scientists try to put a spin on it akin to “You can’t properly hypothesise, reason or make predictions about anything based on a sample size of ~200 countries that are totally outside of your control and are very different from each other”. Few more arguments get thrown into a pot.
Doesn’t stop political scientists from mostly accurately describing things, so no harm is done here. The harm lies within pushing that opinion on general public, highlighting the that “proper” scientists don’t see any value in social “sciences”, hence contributing to public ignorance about societal problems.
And with how lousy political views of “rational”, “logical”, “critically thinking” people in STEM sometimes are, it’s awfully ironic.
Speaking as a disgruntled Russian STEM scientist who is horrified how willingly some of his collages ate Putin’s reasons for actions both against Ukraine and within Russia, including against fellow scientists (WTF, where’s professional solidarity?!).
Physics majors have every right to dunk on polisci. Too many majors throw around the word “science” to try to give their made-up voodoo legitimacy.
Political Science is the study of political systems and behaviours employing the scientific method. It’s a sub field of social science and a very new one, at less than 150 years old. Political philosophy is of course much older.
Really? They have control groups? Blind and A/B testing? Hypothesis that they set out to reject?
I’m sure they have methods but are they scientific?
The answer to all your questions are
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes - Whatever goes against my political allegiances.
Yes - They all just have an n < 50.
The issue with considering these to be anything like the ‘hard sciences’ is that it is impossible to even try to control for all variables. Plus, whenever sociologists, for example, make a bad prediction, they just write it off as differences in personality or some other similar thing.
God forbid they actually just falsified their hypothesis. It’s important that people understand how to think about the social sciences, don’t get me wrong, but they’re pretty overwhelmingly ineffective for creating a proper framework for understanding the world around you.
Theories in social science and theories in hard science are totally different.
Theories in science have a shit ton of evidence behind them and haven’t been falsified.
Theories in social science, on the other hand, are all in competition with each other because they all have their positive and negative aspects that make them better for application in some situations than others.
And yes I know that we still use a newtonian idea of gravity in many cases, but that’s completely different as it just tends to make the math easier in practice. It’s not that we actually still believe in newtonian ideas.
Emergence in action.
Wdym
Emergence. As in when something becomes greater than the sum of it’s parts. Sapience. Life. Consciousness.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=16W7c0mb-rE
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UebSfjmQNvs
Can you provide an academic paper? I think I understand the concept, but I fail to see it being meaningful with relation to the examples I posed of why the social sciences aren’t scientific.
You make those claims without ever having looked into polisci studies. Not really looking to reject your own hypothesis.
A literature review comes first in science. I asked questions. I did not make claims.
it should be a sub field of sociology instead of science.
Sociology isn’t called social sciences, though arguably you could call it that.
I think sociology is part of a field called “The Social Sciences” which includes sociology, psychology, polisci etc.
The issue with considering these to be anything like the ‘hard sciences’ is that it is impossible to even try to control for all variables. Plus, whenever sociologists, for example, make a bad prediction, they just write it off as differences in personality or some other similar thing.
God forbid they actually just falsified their hypothesis. It’s important that people understand how to think about the social sciences, don’t get me wrong, but they’re pretty overwhelmingly ineffective for creating a proper framework for understanding the world around you.
Theories in social science and theories in hard science are totally different.
Theories in science have a shit ton of evidence behind them and haven’t been falsified.
Theories in social science, on the other hand, are all in competition with each other because they all have their positive and negative aspects that make them better for application in some situations than others.
And yes I know that we still use a newtonian idea of gravity in many cases, but that’s completely different as it just tends to make the math easier in practice. It’s not that we actually still believe in newtonian ideas.
Yea computer “science”? Bitch you mean programming?
Depends. A proper computer science course is basically math with machines. At the highest level, it may have zero programming at all, and the machines in question are entirely abstract.
Software Engineering is, well, engineering (setting aside the whole debate on what makes a “real” engineer).
It used to be that universities crammed both under “computer science”, and you had to look at the curriculum to figure out which one they were actually teaching. They tend to separate the two more clearly these days. Neither is really “science” in the strictest sense, but the term stuck now.
so computer engineering?
No, the machines tend to be abstract. Such as an infinite paper tape that can manipulate symbols.
That experiment must be ludicrously expensive
This just in: theoretical physicists are not scientists.
What’s voodoo about political science?
“Real” scientists try to put a spin on it akin to “You can’t properly hypothesise, reason or make predictions about anything based on a sample size of ~200 countries that are totally outside of your control and are very different from each other”. Few more arguments get thrown into a pot.
Doesn’t stop political scientists from mostly accurately describing things, so no harm is done here. The harm lies within pushing that opinion on general public, highlighting the that “proper” scientists don’t see any value in social “sciences”, hence contributing to public ignorance about societal problems.
And with how lousy political views of “rational”, “logical”, “critically thinking” people in STEM sometimes are, it’s awfully ironic.
Speaking as a disgruntled Russian STEM scientist who is horrified how willingly some of his collages ate Putin’s reasons for actions both against Ukraine and within Russia, including against fellow scientists (WTF, where’s professional solidarity?!).