Should the social sciences actually be called 'sciences'?

[Rum]

Speaks for itself really. Sociology in particular seems pretty devoid of hard evidence based conclusions - lots of hypotheses of course. To a lesser extenT psychology too. As for economics!..

Perhaps they should be called something else, though I can't for the life of me think what..

 

[blutoski]

Speaks for itself really. Sociology in particular seems pretty devoid of hard evidence based conclusions - lots of hypotheses of course. To a lesser extenT psychology too. As for economics!..

Perhaps they should be called something else, though I can't for the life of me think what..

I think it's a semantic question. The use of the word 'science' has drifted. I think it was in the latter half of the 20th century that is shifted from generally meaning 'subject of knowledge' to 'natural sciences' specifically.

When I was a student in the 1970s, there were still universities that offered Batchelor of Arts in the Natural Sciences (such as math).

Even today, when I'm talking about a discipline such as physics... I describe it as a 'natural science' to distinguish it from political science or social sciences.

 

[steenkh]

Speaks for itself really. Sociology in particular seems pretty devoid of hard evidence based conclusions - lots of hypotheses of course. To a lesser extenT psychology too. As for economics!..



Perhaps they should be called something else, though I can't for the life of me think what..

Science can also be regarded as the set of best practices to gain knowledge about a subject. The social sciences are certainly worth gaining knowledge about, and sociologists try to apply best practices, so why not call it a scientific endeavour?

 

[Rum]

Perhaps it is a matter of semantics as Blutoski says, but the correct use of words when dealing with those of dubious rationality seems important to me. The fact that evolution is referred to as a 'theory' is leapt upon by many a denier and fundy!

I like 'scientific endeavour' though. It shows a direction of travel.

 

[jt512]

I would say that experimental psychology is a science in principle, but at present, its practitioners make so many mistakes in hypothesis generation and testing that it borders on what Feynman called a "cargo-cult science"—a field that just goes through the motions of science. In fact, when we wrote this paper we contemplated quoting Feynman on cargo-cult science, but thought the better of it; we were ruffling enough feathers as it is.

 

[Dancing David]

Speaks for itself really. Sociology in particular seems pretty devoid of hard evidence based conclusions - lots of hypotheses of course. To a lesser extenT psychology too. As for economics!..

Perhaps they should be called something else, though I can't for the life of me think what..

Um, seriously. There is plenty of science in social science. I would not judge by 'pop' accounts of what a social science is.

Now what some people call sociology and psychology is maybe not as 'science' as others. Yet using huge demographic data sets is part of good sociology . Psychology also includes things like visual perception, neurology and the biological functioning of the nervous system.

 

[macdoc]

I prefer to call them disciplines

And economics - voodoo - despite their pretensions

geology in science
geography not

for instance

Medicine draws heavily on the hard sciences and I think stuff like psychology are better grouped there.

History a discipline

Another possible grouping is Biological sciences.
versus
Physical sciences

 

[steenkh]

We should also be careful not to fall into the trap that many creationists have prepared for us, and make too strict distinctions between sciences. I have often heard the claim that only stuff that can be reproduced in a lab can be science. Suddenly geology and astronomy are no longer sciences because you cannot wait for a million years to see if mountains really form as expected, and you cannot put a star into a lab to see if it evolves the way astronomers claim.

 

[Beerina]

Someone mentioned economics. Someone has made repeatable predictions, and rather counter-intuitive ones, and has been shown correct.

The Amazing Theory of Raw Materials Scarcity.

Liberals may rest secure knowing Peak Oil is a load of BS.

Conservatives may rest secure knowing limiting immigration is the wrong thing to do, economically. Indeed, People are the ultimate resource in The Ultimate Resource...in an economically free arena.

Not trying to derail, but just point out not all economics is quasi-religious just-so stories.

 

[Pup]

History, if it's even close to a science, breaks down into two broad disciplines, one far more sciency than the other.

The more sciency one includes questions of fact, addressed by evidence like archaelogy, documents in archives, etc. There's hard evidence, which can overturn previous conclusions derived from less complete evidence, and any debate can be backed up by objective evidence. It addresses questions like the real author of a manuscript, the position of enemy lines in a battle, the identification of a discovered body, etc.

Then there is the less sciency one, consisting of theories about motivation, like what caused a war, or whether human behavior is primarily based on economics or something else, with occasional argument about who was "right," or "the best." No previous believed facts get overturned, usually, but instead a new theory is advanced to explain the old ones, and the theory is only defensible based on its own logic.

 

[Trakar]

Speaks for itself really. Sociology in particular seems pretty devoid of hard evidence based conclusions - lots of hypotheses of course. To a lesser extenT psychology too. As for economics!..

Perhaps they should be called something else, though I can't for the life of me think what..

Generally, any organized topic study employing and categorizing its understandings according to the methodologies and practices of science is considered a branch of science.

Sociology, as well as many areas of business and economics (which also appear to lack a lot of definitive, hard evidence support to many observers) do employ scientific processes and categorization.

 

[Trakar]

I would say that experimental psychology is a science in principle, but at present, its practitioners make so many mistakes in hypothesis generation and testing that it borders on what Feynman called a "cargo-cult science"—a field that just goes through the motions of science. In fact, when we wrote this paper we contemplated quoting Feynman on cargo-cult science, but thought the better of it; we were ruffling enough feathers as it is.

With human psychology, the problem being faced is that (understandably) many experimental practices on humans are generally considered unethical, which severely limits to rigor of a lot of psychological hypothesis generation and testing.

 

[jt512]

With human psychology, the problem being faced is that (understandably) many experimental practices on humans are generally considered unethical, which severely limits to rigor of a lot of psychological hypothesis generation and testing.

If you read our paper, you'll see that the problems in the field is experiencing have nothing to do with such ethical constraints.

 

[Trakar]

If you read our paper, you'll see that the problems in the field is experiencing have nothing to do with such ethical constraints.

Actually, ethical constraints on direct experimentation with proper controls and variable limiting may well play a significant role in several of the issues raised in that study (to include replication issues, noisy data issues, and especially hypothesis testing issues). I'm not suggesting that stronger rigor is not desirable or possible, merely that many of the typical means of achieving such in other fields of science are very ethically problematic when it comes to many areas of human psychology.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Speaks for itself really. Sociology in particular seems pretty devoid of hard evidence based conclusions - lots of hypotheses of course. To a lesser extenT psychology too. As for economics!..

Perhaps they should be called something else, though I can't for the life of me think what..

Not that all research done in social sciences is good science, but you are drawing the false conclusion that we can't do hard science with multi-factorial problems, not to mention the contribution neurobiology science is making to understanding behavior.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I prefer to call them disciplines

And economics - voodoo - despite their pretensions

geology in science
geography not

...

So you can use the scientific process to study the effect of geology on traffic patterns in a city surrounded by water necessitating bridges, but you can't factor in the geographical aspects of rush hour?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

With human psychology, the problem being faced is that (understandably) many experimental practices on humans are generally considered unethical, which severely limits to rigor of a lot of psychological hypothesis generation and testing.

And that makes it a non-science, how?

 

[Bar]

Liberals may rest secure knowing Peak Oil is a load of BS.

Yeah. Because the Earth obviously has infinite quantities of easily extractible hydrocarbons. They seep in from alternate universes, of course.

Or were you being sarcastic?

 

[Meed]

Speaks for itself really. Sociology in particular seems pretty devoid of hard evidence based conclusions - lots of hypotheses of course. To a lesser extenT psychology too. As for economics!..

Psychology is not at all 'devoid of hard evidence based conclusions'. It's overflowing with them (obviously not all of which are useful or interesting). I don't know as much about sociology, but I know enough about it to know that it's not devoid of evidence based conclusions either.

Where did you get the notion that this was the case?

I would say that experimental psychology is a science in principle, but at present, its practitioners make so many mistakes in hypothesis generation and testing that it borders on what Feynman called a "cargo-cult science"—a field that just goes through the motions of science. In fact, when we wrote this paper we contemplated quoting Feynman on cargo-cult science, but thought the better of it; we were ruffling enough feathers as it is.

There are a lot of bad practitioners and a lot of good practitioners. And bad practitioners aren't limited to social science. Calling the whole field "cargo-cult" seems like a massive overgeneralization.

 

[epepke]

Yes, because the social sciences are sometimes good science. A lot of time they aren't, and they really suck. But it can happen.

So it comes down to a decision. Are you willing to put up with a lot of stuff that sucks in order to allow the occasional good stuff? Or you you want to dismiss it all and give up the good stuff categorically just so that you won't ever be chumped by the sucky stuff?

My decision is that I like the good stuff, and I'm willing to put up with a lot of bad stuff to get the good stuff. Getting chumped by the bad stuff only embarrasses me, but I'm not so insecure that I can't take it, and I can deal with it if sometimes I get some good stuff, so bring it on! I'm smart enough to figure it out eventually. Maybe some people aren't, but then again, the majority of people don't matter at all. They just eat and have sex and pop out babies and squeeze out turds. And if they get pol sci degrees, well, maybe it keeps them off the streets and therefore away from decent people who deserve to live and be relatively unmolested.