Need a word..."science"?

[dr_mabeuse]

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.

Well, everyone likes to refer to what they do as a "sceince" these days. If you sweep the floors, you're engaged in "janitorial science." When I write porn, I guess I'm engaged in "titillatory science."

Those other things you mentioned--etymology and psycholinguistics and history--would probably be considered social sciences, but you could also refer to them just as "disciplines", which suggests systemitized knowledge and methodology and logical consistency without the lab-coast-and-clipboard connotations.

 

[thambok]

I agree that discipline is a good word to use.

 

[thambok]

When I write porn, I guess I'm engaged in "titillatory science."

I emphatically think of the stories here as true art.

 

[Liar]

Well gee, at least now I can't say that I can't decide what to write due to lack of input on the matter. Dicipline ain't bad. Do I get to use the belt?

Thanks folks, it's been helpful. Or at least interresting.

 

[thambok]

What is the subject of what you are writing?

 

[Liar]

What is the subject of what you are writing?

I'm supposed to describe the socioliguistic and rhetoric analysis research that is conducted at our uni. It's a major bitch. I wish I was more interrested in looking at zygotes thru microscopes instead of dealing with how zygotes developed into living and breathing dudes function. Seems much more orderly...

 

[cantdog]

the burden of my songs

I been sending posts into the ether about the divide between "hard" and otherwise inthe sciences, now, for a couple years on these boards.

As mentioned, it comes down to the scientific method. Doc has been the most clear on that, strangely.

The "softer" the science, the less it can answer up to the criteria demanded by empirical methods.

One can hardly investigate personality or consciousness with classically hard scientific tools, because the very location of personality and consciousness is unknown, let alone any measurement of them. Social sciences, such as the various anthropologies and psychologigies, are similarly divorced from the reproducible and measurable.

Some practitioners of these sciences find that to be a crippling disability. But that is primarily, as I have argued, hokum. So what if there is no objective measure of the social, the political, the personality, the mind? One can hardly deny the existence of consciousness, or personality, or social and cultural systems, merely on the basis that they cannot be objectively observed.

I am pleased to discover that there is a word in Swedish which isolates this sort of knowledge from the objective and measurable kind. In English, we have "wisdom" and we have "knowledge". The line between those is not the same as the that between the hard and the soft sciences. But I think the two different cleavage lines are allied, somehow.

Wisdom traditions, the investigation of the unmeasurable, rely on the same methodology as the best of the soft sciences. The basis of them both is dialogue, truthfulness, analogy, intuition. Even when the burden of a soft science paper seems to be the statistics of the thing, it's important to note that the data points are derived in the first place from interview and dialogue, not objective measure and replicable observation.

I see this as inevitable, given the subject matter, and no problem at all.

 

[thambok]

I'm supposed to describe the socioliguistic and rhetoric analysis research that is conducted at our uni. It's a major bitch. I wish I was more interrested in looking at zygotes thru microscopes instead of dealing with how zygotes developed into living and breathing dudes function. Seems much more orderly...

If I understand correctly, you are reporting on research that has already occurred, or is currently in progress?

In that case, I would imagine the reporting methods would not vary, aside from the methodology used. The good thing about technical writing is its detail. Very little is left to subjective interpretation. You won't use the phrase 'scientific analysis'; you will describe the scientific analysis.

If your concern is what ot call the research.... then 'research' works.

"ACME is currently conducting research into the fields of Sociolinguistics, as they affect the flight pattern of the swallow. Specifically, Drs. Smith and Jones have hypothesized that the widget call causes a larger increae in acceleration for the African Swallow, than the European Swallow."

Please forgive the Monty Python references. It was the first thing that came to mind. But, does that make sense, or am I WAY off base?

 

[Liar]

I am pleased to discover that there is a word in Swedish which isolates this sort of knowledge from the objective and measurable kind. In English, we have "wisdom" and we have "knowledge". The line between those is not the same as the that between the hard and the soft sciences. But I think the two different cleavage lines are allied, somehow.

Sorry to shatter your illusions then, because my whole problem is that in Swedish, there isn't such a disctinction. it's all "vetenskap". Which would translate directly to "knowledge", but is used the way you use "science". That's why I had to ask to figure out which the semantic difference in English is.

Other than that, interresting input, cant.