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.
It’s all kind of a subset of sociology. Why do groups make decisions? It’s down to individual psychology. But that’s similar to saying all science is derivative of physics. It’s technically true, but it does us more favors to split it up.
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.
No, computer engineering tends to focus more on hardware. When I was doing that kind of thing in college, computer engineering did things like chip design and logic boards and so on. I had courses on DSP and VLSI, multiple assembly languages, RISC vs CISC systems, and so on. In my university, it was considered a subspecializqtion of electrical engineering, with the first two years of undergraduate study being identical.
When I switched over to CS, I was doing things like numerical analysis and software systems architecture.
Both majors used math, but CE (as an EE major) required students to go through (iirc) calculus 5, and I think that CS majors could stop at calc 3 but would end up having to do different kinds of math after that.
That’s why informatics is by far the superior term. Computer science is such a boring terms anyways, you don’t call maths “number science”, biology "living beings science " or chemistry “atoms science” either.
Accordingly, universities in continental Europe usually translate “informatics” as computer science, or sometimes information and computer science, although technical universities may translate it as computer science & engineering.
Although, we both eventually got into the jobs for what we studied for. We’ve made that jokes both in university and when we got into respective fields.
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.
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that more broadly would make sense to me. But i still wouldn’t consider polsci to be polsci, i would consider it to be a sub set of sociology.
It’s all kind of a subset of sociology. Why do groups make decisions? It’s down to individual psychology. But that’s similar to saying all science is derivative of physics. It’s technically true, but it does us more favors to split it up.
i think calling it “political sciences” is probably reasonably accurate.
But yeah. Naming is just hard.
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.
No, computer engineering tends to focus more on hardware. When I was doing that kind of thing in college, computer engineering did things like chip design and logic boards and so on. I had courses on DSP and VLSI, multiple assembly languages, RISC vs CISC systems, and so on. In my university, it was considered a subspecializqtion of electrical engineering, with the first two years of undergraduate study being identical.
When I switched over to CS, I was doing things like numerical analysis and software systems architecture.
Both majors used math, but CE (as an EE major) required students to go through (iirc) calculus 5, and I think that CS majors could stop at calc 3 but would end up having to do different kinds of math after that.
No, that’s machines with math
Think of it more like programming without electricity.
That’s why informatics is by far the superior term. Computer science is such a boring terms anyways, you don’t call maths “number science”, biology "living beings science " or chemistry “atoms science” either.
All of thoose are different. Computer science, computer engineering, software angineering and informatics are all different conceptually
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatics
^From the same link. Central notion is transformation of information
Now,
Also
My geophysicist friend laughed at me for a little long when I said “I’m a computer scientist”.
I never took that degree/job position or whatever seriously anyway. I’ve always giggled at software engineering too. I just call myself a programmer.
One is your education and one is your job. It’d be like me chirping someone with a geophysics degree who’s working at Starbucks.
lol, okay that made me chuckle … I liked that.
Although, we both eventually got into the jobs for what we studied for. We’ve made that jokes both in university and when we got into respective fields.
Yeah, polisci has gotten as far as the “observation” part of science and kinda has to stop there for moral reasons.
What’s voodoo about political science?
All the zombies