Need a word..."science"?

[Liar]

From the South (or was it North?) Dakota abortion thread, but I move this question here, because it's beginning to stray a little bit too off topic for that discussion...

Science is concerned with observing and understanding natural phenomena. It does not concern itself with questions that are outside its methodology to examine. Science can tell me life exists at a cellular level. It can test to see if the cells are respirating.

I've seen this definition in threads here, litterature elsewhere, and in pop-sci mags, so I don't wish to dispute it. It's just that I'm at loss...for another word.

If "science" in English only apply to the domain of nature and natural phenomenas, what is the proper terminology for the study of things not so natural? Etymology, psychology, linguistics, politics, philosophy, history, communication and so on?

My dictionary fails me, probably because I don't know how to look for it. There is no disctnction in Swedish, so I dunno where to start.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Letar du efter ett engelskt ord för "vetenskap"?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

From the South (or was it North?) Dakota abortion thread, but I move this question here, because it's beginning to stray a little bit too off topic for that discussion...
I've seen this definition in threads here, litterature elsewhere, and in pop-sci mags, so I don't wish to dispute it. It's just that I'm at loss...for another word.

If "science" in English only apply to the domain of nature and natural phenomenas, what is the proper terminology for the study of things not so natural? Etymology, psychology, linguistics, politics, philosophy, history, communication and so on?

My dictionary fails me, probably because I don't know how to look for it. There is no disctnction in Swedish, so I dunno where to start.

Social sciences are: Economics, Psychology, Sociology, Poly Sci and anthropology. These are broadly defined as studies of how man relates to other men. to be a social science, you have to use a methodic, rational approach. Much like applying the scinetific method to the study of how humans relate to each other, but with the critical difference that the social sciences do not demand the same empirical standards of a hard science to move from a hypothesis to a theory. Basically, you are studying man, with means you have the inherent flaw of a sometimes irrational subject

You other examples fall broadly into the category of the humanities. these disciplines will include such broad areas as religion, philosophy, law, art, muci, history (although some demand it be called a social science).

The humanities are a group of academic subjects united by a commitment to studying aspects of the human condition using a qualitative approach. Basically, these disciplines study humanity, without any attempt to be objective or demand empirical evidence to support their investigations..

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[Liar]

Basically, you are studying man, with means you have the inherent flaw of a sometimes irrational subject

Ah, don't I know it. On the other hand, hard science are taking shots at analyzing chaos, so what the hell.

Thanks a bunch for the answer.

Not quite sure I understand why those five you mention as social sciences are separated from the ones called humanities though. I see the same methodology used and the same type of questions asked when studying them. I read scientific studies about art, religion, history and philosophy Maybe what I'm thinking of here are actually sociology sub-categories in a different academic hierarchy than I'm used to.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Ah, don't I know it. On the other hand, hard science are taking shots at analyzing chaos, so what the hell.

Thanks a bunch for the answer.

Not quite sure I understand why those five you mention as social sciences are separated from the ones called humanities though. I see the same methodology used and the same type of questions asked when studying them. I read scientific studies about art, religion, history and philosophy Maybe what I'm thinking of here are actually sociology sub-categories in a different academic hierarchy than I'm used to.

You can use scientific methodology in any of them. But you aren't limited to scientific methods, which I think is the key difference. I can use scanning electron microscopes to determine what pigments, and burshes and strokes Manet employed. I can, by forensics even tell you where he probably was when he did a particular work. But science can't look at a manet and appreciate the simplicity and beauty of the authors work. Nor can science really tell you why he painted sometihhing, what emoptions he felt or was trying to express.

It's really a question of methodology.

Hard science is rigrously objective and methodical.

Scoail science uses many of the tools and methodology of a hard sceince, but it dosen't dmeand the same level of evidence.

A humanity is free to use sceintific methodolgy, but it's just as free to explore a WAG.

 

[thambok]

It boils down to scientific methodology.

If the analysis is being made using accepted scientific methodology, then it is science. If a qualitative approach is used, or if it plays a part in the analysis, then it does not qualify as science.

One of the common misconceptions is the difference between Laws and Theories. If one accepts all theories as Laws, then the line blurs significantly. Theories are not the end all, be all answer. They are the best answer currently, given the scientific observations that have been made.

 

[kendo1]

You may be thinking of the para sciences, such as parapsychology: the study of mental phenomena outside the sphere of ordinary psychology; hypnosis, telepathy, etc.

ken

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Vetenskap = "knowing-ence". It means science for history, culture, medicine, psychology, whathaveyou.

 

[Liar]

It boils down to scientific methodology.

If the analysis is being made using accepted scientific methodology, then it is science. If a qualitative approach is used, or if it plays a part in the analysis, then it does not qualify as science.

So, according to this, studies of society, culture, language, ideologies, and so on, can be science, if the proper methods (and no other) and high demands for evidence are applied?

 

[Liar]

Vetenskap = "knowing-ence". It means science for history, culture, medicine, psychology, whathaveyou.

When I grow up, I'm gonna be a professor of whathaveyou.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

So, according to this, studies of society, culture, language, ideologies, and so on, can be science, if the proper methods (and no other) and high demands for evidence are applied?

That would require that you were inquiring about something that has an answer that can be reached by testing. If, for example, you are trying to determine if the Anasazi practiced annibalism, you could prove or disprove it, to a high degree, by testing copralites. If human myogloban is present in the fecal remains, the person ate human muscle tissue.

But you could not answer the question of why they practiced canibalism, using science. That requires an inference that you cannot prove or more correctly, that you canot test and disprove.

So science can aide in the study of antropology. We know at least some anasazi practiced cannibalism. Sincve that is now an accomplished fact, rather than a theory, anthropologists can incestigae what caused it. But that investigation precludes a scientific methodology, because the answer is one of human motivation, whih is properly the scope of other disciplines.

 

[ishtat]

/

But is there any usefulness in all this categorisation? where would you put for example Logic, Philosophy or Pure Mathematics.

 

[kendo1]

In a dictionary?

 

[JamesSD]

I like threads that I actually feel smarter after reading!

 

[Colleen Thomas]

But is there any usefulness in all this categorisation? where would you put for example Logic, Philosophy or Pure Mathematics.

It's extremely useful.

The first law of motion is real. There is hard science to back it. It can be tested, proven or disproven. You find precious few people who refute the law. You could insist all day that the safe, suspened above your head won't fall if you cut the rope, but if you ever try to prove your assertion, you're going to end up a pavement pelt.

Likewise, Boyle's law of partial pressures is real. It exists. And the diver who disreguards it will probably ide a very painful death.

Those are laws of hard science.

Social science does not present such definite laws.

Adam's smith invisible hand of the market place is widely accepted by econimists, usually with the notation under ideal conditions. But not everyone subscribes to it, just the majority. This law then of Economics, is the kind of laws you gfet from social science. They are concensus rules that have obvious exceptions or come with stipulations.

The humanities give you very few laws. That's because the very nature of many of them, philosphy for example, is to question everything.

It follows then that a law of hard sceince will find an infestismal number of detractors.

A law of scoial science will find more, but still retains concnesus.

A law of the humanities is really nothing more than the most loudly shouted and repeated opinion.



If you want application, take a glance at the thread this was moved from. The arguments for the pro life position range from very strong arguments to wild naked assertions. The disparity in the quality of the arguments, to a good degree, is represnative of the school the argument is drawn from.

No one disputes that when sperm meets egg a Zygote forms. (Hard science)
The further you move into the social scienses or humanities as the crux of your argument, the more dispartite and vociefous the opposition becomes. Until you get nothingmore than two or more people trying to shout their opinon the loudest.

Pure Mathematics is one of the hard sceinces I believe. Philosophy is a humanit, Logic, is a humanity as well I believe, in that it is clasically one of the disciplines that was studied as part of the overall educational program needed to be dgood citizens.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I don't like playing definition games like this generally, where someone offers a definition and we all then try to think of exceptions to prove it inadequate. The word "science" is used quite casually for the most part. "Computer science" is a systemetized and logical body of knoweldge, for example, but it doesn't include much experiment. Neither does mathematics, although it's generally called "The Queen of The Sciences".

What all hard sciences should have in common is that they're based on observation, measurement, and experiment, and the information they contain is logically consistent. The big, defining qualities of any scientific theory is that (a) it be predictive--suitable for experiments. Given a set of initial conditions, we can say what will happen (a goal not always possible to meet in all sceinces), (b) it be heuristic, which is, it leads to more useful knowledge, and (c)--most often neglected--it be falsifiable. That is, there must be a possibility of disproving the theory. Any theory that is beyond falsification is simply not a scientific theory because it can't stand up to the scientific methodology of challenge by experiment or observation.

This is Intelligent Design's main shortcoming as a "sceince". There's simply no way to prove it's not true, so it's not a science. There are countless ways to prove that evolution's not true, but none of them have ever been observed.

The "hardest" natural sciences like physics and chemistry, meet all the criteria of being observational, logically consistent, predictive, and falsifiable. They fall off from there, with some sciences being observational but not always suitable for prediction (geology and astronomy), down through the social sciences which are observational and logically consistent but whose predictive powers are quite weak. (They're trying though.) At the far end you get things like Political Science which is really not a science at all.

Science is sexy and science is poswerful so everything wants to be a "science" now. Instead of teaching homemaking, they teach "domestic science". Instead of nutrition we have "food science". They're not hurting anyone, but they're not really "sciences".

 

[Liar]

The humanities give you very few laws. That's because the very nature of many of them, philosphy for example, is to question everything.

Ah, but what I look at when I do scientific studies of philosophy is not to ponder the real- or unrealness of the philosophies themselves. Instead, what I study is how the philosophies, ideologies and social identities function in the context of the culture they are in. There are quite precise methods to detect patterns and statistical topology when it comes to the behaviour of people and cultures. Not as exact as measuring physical phenomena. But certainly as exact as for economy and psychology.

Which is why I mean that most modern culture studies like sociolinguistics, religion studies (not religious studies, which is what the clerics do), art analysis and so on is actually just categorized sociology. I don't see the distinction there between those studies and social science.

 

[thambok]

*WARNING! GEEK CONTENT!*

I don't like playing definition games like this generally, where someone offers a definition and we all then try to think of exceptions to prove it inadequate. The word "science" is used quite casually for the most part. "Computer science" is a systemetized and logical body of knoweldge, for example, but it doesn't include much experiment. Neither does mathematics, although it's generally called "The Queen of The Sciences".

While I agree with the intent of your words, I have to disagree with your representation of Mathematics.

Experimentation is still very much ongoing with Quantum math, and many non-euclidian varieties of mathematics. Many accepted mathematical theories have been both disputed and proven incorrect. Looking over the history of math since the Roman era, the advances have been incredible, and have provided the foundation for most of the advances in other hard sciences.

The same is true for Computer Science to some extent, at least as regards hardware theory. Photolithography is a key component of both Computer Science and chip manufacturing. Researchers are pushing daily trying to find mask chemistries and light wavelengths that will allow for smaller gate dimensions, as the current methods are running out.

Most people refer to Computer Science as an all-encompassing subject, covering everything from Information Systems to Hardware Theory and Computer Engineering. In truth, the fields are FAR apart.

One of the issues is the focus recently on applied science, as opposed to pure science. Pure science seeks to discover for the sake of discovery and expansion of human knowledge, whereas applied science tries to find a useful application for the results that pure science has developed. Both have a much needed in the field of research, but they are not interchangeable.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I don't consider mathematics a science in the strict sense of the word. It's more a symbolic system, and even mathematicians argue whether the things they talk about are real or just ideals. After all, there is no such thing as "The Number Two". It's a concept and a symbol. But because all natural sciences speak the language of mathematics, it's kind of traditional to consider it part of the science family.

I think any natural scientist is struck at some point by how miraculous it is that the natural world comforms to mathematical laws. It's something we all take so much for granted that we don't even notice how amazing this is, but it was an idea that no one considered before Galileo and Newton. Before that, it was thought that things did what they did because of God's will or because of their "natural tendencies" (Aristotle) Galileo and Newton showed that all things obeyed the same simple mathematical laws, and this idea hit the world like a thunderbolt. For the first time people started measuring--that is, they turned qualities into numbers so that the mathematical relationships could be seen, and that was the start of real science.

 

[Liar]

Good points, Doc.

My only problem though is that I'm currently being forced to write about the field of research I'm studying, in English, a language which I'm merely a self taught hack in. And I need to know if defining what I do as science will make people go "Huh?". So I don't play the definition game by choice but by nessecity.

 

[thambok]

Ah, but what I look at when I do scientific studies of philosophy is not to ponder the real- or unrealness of the philosophies themselves. Instead, what I study is how the philosophies, ideologies and social identities function in the context of the culture they are in. There are quite precise methods to detect patterns and statistical topology when it comes to the behaviour of people and cultures. Not as exact as measuring physical phenomena. But certainly as exact as for economy and psychology.

Which is why I mean that most modern culture studies like sociolinguistics, religion studies (not religious studies, which is what the clerics do), art analysis and so on is actually just categorized sociology. I don't see the distinction there between those studies and social science.

The final, and arguably most important, step in scientific method is whether an experiment is reproducable. A crucial piece is the control of variables. If too many variables are left unchanged, the results will have no high statistical significance over chance.

When you measure patterns and statisitics, the science is not philosophy, economics, psychology, sociology, etc. It is the application of physics, mathematics, biology, etc. to the subject of those fields.

I feel like I may have rambled a bit, so this may not make sense. I am watching the woman get undressed and I have other things on my mind. If I am not coherent, say so, and I will try to make more sense when I get back to it.

 

[thambok]

I don't consider mathematics a science in the strict sense of the word. It's more a symbolic system, and even mathematicians argue whether the things they talk about are real or just ideals. After all, there is no such thing as "The Number Two". It's a concept and a symbol. But because all natural sciences speak the language of mathematics, it's kind of traditional to consider it part of the science family.

I think any natural scientist is struck at some point by how miraculous it is that the natural world comforms to mathematical laws. It's something we all take so much for granted that we don't even notice how amazing this is, but it was an idea that no one considered before Galileo and Newton. Before that, it was thought that things did what they did because of God's will or because of their "natural tendencies" (Aristotle) Galileo and Newton showed that all things obeyed the same simple mathematical laws, and this idea hit the world like a thunderbolt. For the first time people started measuring--that is, they turned qualities into numbers so that the mathematical relationships could be seen, and that was the start of real science.

Determining a standard idea of what 2 means, is not science. Establishing the relationship of pi to all circles, IS science. It is the discovery of the order of things, of how things are related.

The Pythagorean Theorem is absolutely as much a scientific discovery as anything discovered through any other hard science.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

*WARNING! GEEK CONTENT!*



While I agree with the intent of your words, I have to disagree with your representation of Mathematics.

Experimentation is still very much ongoing with Quantum math, and many non-euclidian varieties of mathematics. Many accepted mathematical theories have been both disputed and proven incorrect. Looking over the history of math since the Roman era, the advances have been incredible, and have provided the foundation for most of the advances in other hard sciences.

The same is true for Computer Science to some extent, at least as regards hardware theory. Photolithography is a key component of both Computer Science and chip manufacturing. Researchers are pushing daily trying to find mask chemistries and light wavelengths that will allow for smaller gate dimensions, as the current methods are running out.

Most people refer to Computer Science as an all-encompassing subject, covering everything from Information Systems to Hardware Theory and Computer Engineering. In truth, the fields are FAR apart.

One of the issues is the focus recently on applied science, as opposed to pure science. Pure science seeks to discover for the sake of discovery and expansion of human knowledge, whereas applied science tries to find a useful application for the results that pure science has developed. Both have a much needed in the field of research, but they are not interchangeable.

Fair enough. I stand corrected on computer science. I never studied the subject and assumed it was all about software stuff.

And yes, you can consider every mathematical proof an experiment run against the laws of logic, so I'll willingly concede that too. I really don't know if quantum mathematics is proven on paper or in the physics lab, so I don't know what to say about that.

In any case, I don't think it makes any difference whether we call mathematics a science or not. It's just semantics. The labels only really matter when we're talking about thngs like Intelligent Design and parapsychology and UFOlogy and things like that, things that would like to be sciences but which are usually lacking.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Ah, but what I look at when I do scientific studies of philosophy is not to ponder the real- or unrealness of the philosophies themselves. Instead, what I study is how the philosophies, ideologies and social identities function in the context of the culture they are in. There are quite precise methods to detect patterns and statistical topology when it comes to the behaviour of people and cultures. Not as exact as measuring physical phenomena. But certainly as exact as for economy and psychology.

Which is why I mean that most modern culture studies like sociolinguistics, religion studies (not religious studies, which is what the clerics do), art analysis and so on is actually just categorized sociology. I don't see the distinction there between those studies and social science.

See doc's post liar. If you are asking a question that is, disproveable via experimentation, then you can apply the scientific method to you research.

If you say, a particular ideology functions in a particular way, within in a culture, how can I test that? I can't remove the ideology from the culture and run a test on the culture, sans the ideology. Nor can I try the ideology in a different culture to get a non biased test result. I can observe your postulations, but I can't test them in any meaningful way. If the ideology has a definitive function within the culture, I can't separate the idoelogy from the culture or vice versa. So I can't disprove your postulation, I can only provide evidence that is contrary to it, if such evidence is avialabe.

But what you are really doing is jerking my chain You are postulating instances in which the methodolgy of hard science could be used in social sciences of humanities. Which they can, but the body of the field dose not.

Philosophy askes if there is a god. I can't prove or disprove it. Yet it's a valid avenue of inquiry within the discipline. Sociology contends that covert or unintentional racism is a major cause of the dispropotionate number of black men in prison. The justice system hotly refutes that. Both provide evidence, but neither can defintively say, because the base premise itsn'yt testable or falisfiable. You get these lines of inquiry, across all the humaities and social sceinces, that simplty aren't testable by the scientific methodology, but are valid lines of inquiry within the discipline.