Talk:Social science

first talk

I've started a long series of sections on the rise of social science, which are, at best, rather sketchy and limited, but an improvement over the placeholder status previously, which were not much better than dictionary entries.

One clear lack in what has been done so far is a section on the critiques of social science, both as a concept and in application. While the current material references the controversy surrounding social science an sich, it is far from sufficient to provide a NPOV on what is a very contentious subject.

There is also a need for broadening the base of the history to include the various Marxist interpretations of history, literature and so on, since these also tend to be framed in scientific terms.

I'm writing this note so that we don't have someone coming ripping through with a bee in their bonnet, trying to NPOV it by adding "some" and other weak qualifier words, when the better approach is to provide a cogent summary of opposing views, links to pages where the particulars of those opposing views are elaborated and explained etc. Stirling Newberry 22:54, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

--- Delete folklore, history, and communications? --- These fields should not be listed as "major social science fields". I agree there may be some overlap with social sciences, but by and large they fall under the aegis of "humanities". Convince me otherwise...

"The social sciences are also known pejoratively as the soft sciences in contrast to the hard sciences." - While they may be "known" as soft science they are in fact little different to the science of physics. Many theories in physics undergo various changes with thinking at the time, if physics was a hard science then fact would be fact and things wouldn't change as often as they do. Like physics, social science also derives theories from what is observed and measured, and many of these theories, like theories of Gravity, are open to change over time. There is no need to dismiss Social Science as a soft science on this ground when quite clearly the same could be applied to numerous aspects of Physics.

Memetics

Is memetics a branch of sociobiology? If so, why list memetics along with Chris Meehan? ? Moreover, The fact that sociobiology can be applied to human populations surely doesn't make sociobiology a social science. More argument than that would be needed, anyway. (You can apply physics to human beings, but that doesn't make physics a branch of anthropology.) --LMS

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While memetics was created by sociobiologists, and its first application was sociobiology, it's unfair to say its a branch. It can be as well used to non-social behavior.

And sociobiology is social science. It's strictly opposing the way some people are doing social science, so it seems to be something different from others, but its just social science with solid mathematical and biological basis. --Taw

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I don't know enough about sociobiology to debate with you, even if I wanted to. :-)

But you say that memetics can be applied to non-social behavior. But when applied to social behavior, it is always a branch of sociobiology--right? If so, we can remove it from the list, because the relevant (social scientific) part of sociobiology will include the relevant (social scientific) part of sociobiology. So, please debate the point more with me, or I'll remove the memetics link and you'll be unhappy. :-) --LMS

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Uhm, you're right here. I merged both entries. --Taw

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Memetics is a separate field from sociobiology. In sociobiology the evolving entities are genes, while in memetics they are memes. Sociobiology attempts to reduce human behaviour to biology; while memetics treats humans as products not only of biological evolution, but of cultural evolution also. Read Blackmore, The Meme Machine, for a more detailed discussion of how memetics and sociobiology are different. -- Simon J Kissane

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Memes are not completely different from genes, rather special type of genes. Their effect is similar, but they spread in different way. Wilson (On Human Nature) said that for sociobiology it is no difference, whether human behavior is gene based or culture (read: meme) based. So it's wrong to say that there's only genetic sociobiology. --Taw

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Okay, well that's very different from what Blackmore says in her book; she argues they are distinct. She argues that while sociobiology may have made some room for cultural elements, the work of Wilson, etc., ensures the genes were always in control, and does not allow for any truly independent cultural evolution; while memetics allow culture to be truly independent of genes, and even allows culture to change the genes. She distinguishes memetics and sociobiology as such. -- Simon J Kissane

Announcing policy proposal

This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

history belongs under humanities, not social sciences

I plan on removing history from the list/discussion of social sciences. This is not a snub at a valuable field of academic research. It is simply a recognition that for historical and methodological reasons it is more accurately classified with the humanities. Note the discussion "what are the humanities?" at the National Endowment for the Humanities website.

Uhm, some universities in the East classify history as a social science, especially when tangible evidences like primary sources, like artifacts, are used to discover unknown events. Can that be reconciled?

It's not only universities in the East that do this, the University of Tromsø in Norway f. ex. also classifies history as a social science - the institute of history is placed under the faculty of Social Sciences. I personally find the exclusion of history from the social sciences to be totally misleading, in particular because History applies theories from other Social Sciences (notably Political Science and Psychology) and because the other Social Sicences in fact use historical works both to make their hypotheses and to test their hypotheses.

Finally, history should be mentioned and described under "Social Sciences" if not for any other reason, then simply because there in fact isn't a consencus as to whether history is a Social Science or part of the Humanities. Not mentioning history, and not explaining the debate, would in fact be wildly misleading. The idea that History is "more accurately classified with the humanities" is not objective, and therefore shouldn't form the basis for removing content from Wikipedia.

--Misha bb 16:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)Misha BB

Note, I'm tempted to remove "Communications" as well even though there are researchers with appointments in that field who are doing psychology and political science research. Journalism, media studies, and rhetoric are not social sciences. --128.150.93.218 18:21, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Economic history is an example of a field of historical investigation that best belongs in the social sciences. While one example does not add much weight to the argument of keeping a history section under the social sciences, I think one can finds lots of examples of scholars that utilize the tools of historians in social sciences other than just economics. The question I suppose is whether there is sufficient justification to group these efforts under the rubric of "History" (as practiced by social scientists).

I tend to view academic borders as rather permeable and thus I believe the benefit of having multiple views of such a core discipline as History displayed in a number of places outweighs the risk that this will make it more difficult for a reader to grasp the importance of the discipline and its proper place among acadmic disciplines.

Having said this, if I were pushed up against the wall (by a gang of dean-thugs?) and forced to make a decision about where History should "go", I would say "Its a humanities, send it to the building with all the nice ivy".

Joel Kincaid 15:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

"Criticism"

This is not an appropriate title. Also, the joke isn't very good :).

--- Well, it made me laugh for a second, but then again it kind of belittles the work of real scientists who study human behavior. Does anyone have a reference to this actually being circulated among academia, or was it something one scientist has quipped among friends? I've never heard it before Even if it were true, it doesn't apply to the social sciences. There is no singular discipline called "Social Science." With the exception of Political Science, none of the standard social sciences (Psychology, Sociology, Ecenomics, etc.) contain the word science in their names. Only collectively are they referred to as "Social Sciences." If that makes them not science, then neither are Biology, Physics, or Chemistry because they are collectively referred to as "Natural or Physical Sciences." One must also be careful not to confuse legitimate Politcial Science with political punditry passed of as expertise (a la folks like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and James Carville). Most of the stats and studies quoted during election years come not from real Poli-Sci researchers, but from partisan think tanks. Similar care must be taken to seperate legitimate scientific psychology and sociology from pop-psychology and self-help movements.

I'm removing the most of the criticism section. It's all unsourced arrogance on the part of natural scientists as far as I'm concerned and obviously written by someone whose never read a social science article in their life. By the way: postmodernity. Vesperal 05:31, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with the comments above. This section is not at all useful: Even if one wanted to spend time cleaning this up not much would be accomplished. What I take from this section is a sense that there are folks here that wish to explore the problems of methodology, which is a legitimate area of debate. Perhaps this section could be replaced by a section on pointers to various pages regarding the methodologies of various social sciences, as well as pointers to issues in the philosophy of science, scientific practice, etc.

Joel Kincaid 15:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that the criticism section is an important aspect to this article. Many prominent scientists have vocally apposed the classification of social science as a science, Richard Feynman for example. One of his main arguments is that in fields such as psychology, its early theorists have for the most part been debunked. On the other hand sciences like physics have a long chain of theories that stem back to a fundamental set of axioms posed by Newton. Modern day psychology follows the scientific method more closely then before however the field is still in its infancy in this respect. This is just one example of where the criticism arises from; the article does a good job of articulating others.

One part of this section that I definitely think needs to be cited and explained is the use of mathematical proofs in social sciences. Is it talking about game theory or something else entirely? This is a major counter argument to the criticism of social science and needs to be addressed.

But overall I think that this article is fair and balanced enough that the flag concerning its neutrality should be removed.

User: hatchback123 13:45, 29 January 2007

I suppose main thing that this criticism brought to my attention is that it should be stressed that "social science," as it is really a category of sciences, is moving toward a focus on the interdisciplinary nature of the sciences contained within it as sociologists recognize criticism for its relatively low empirical grounds and are motioning to relieve such criticism. Throughout its history, sociology has often been seen as a loose fluster of theories and ideologies. However, it lacks emperical grounds no more than the foundations of psychology, some might say. All "science" observe phenomena, but it is tougher to assign a falsifiability to the nature of sociology as it observes such intangible entities. Sociological nomenclature is often criticized for either being too common sense or rather too vague, but we do observe such things as "social forces" or "stigma." If we did not observe something there, we would simply not be trying to put our finger on it. Sociology is tough to do right because it simply IS the study of generalities. I do believe that it is possible to study and treat such general phenomena as real, but it can be unsettling to a skeptic scientific community that demands something more solid. I'm optimistic that sociology will continue evolve away from its' reputation as a "soft" or "pseudo"-science into a sharper image of mechanical nature that may clarify social phenomena's presence and illuminate the science's potential application in industrious societies. Good related links would be: "futures studies", "interdisciplinary science", and all of the individual social sciences ("political science," "history," "anthropology..."). "Social science" may be better as plural, "social sciences," as this term includes factors of all subsequent interdisciplinary sciences.

--Asher Keane

The Florida State University

Department of Social Sciences

User:Carmanahtree 09:31, 7 February 2007

I’m not sure if classifying the study of some phenomenon as “hard” and some as “soft” can be considered neutral. But I do think the author has a point about social sciences being “compromised more frequently by politics.” (ie. refusing to abolish slavery based on economics) Maybe the criticism should be limited to how the social sciences are used rather than what or how they study.

-drew

publication

would you like to publish this article? -- Zondor 22:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC) Citation needed for this article (Criticism) urgently because it seems to make unjustified claims.

Historical content

The historical analysis of the social sciences in this entry needs an extensive overhaul as far as I can tell. Although it starts well with an analysis of the influence of "scientific method" there is then a massive and unexplained jump from Newton at the end of the 17th Century to Comte in the middle of the 19th - some analysis of what comes in between (such as the development of social theory during the Enlightenment) is much needed. Also, after the reference to Comte the information becomes extremely patchy and refers only to one or two specific issues in a vast area. What has happened to the analysis of the rise of sociology and anthropology, developments in economics and geography and trends such as structuralism and behaviourism? I would suggest that a better breakdown of the historical section into specific periods or themes in the development of the social sciences might be beneficial. Mattcole 19:58(GMT), 3 Feb 2006

Good point. In addition, I think specific citations would be useful in the "20th Century" subsection that highlights various critiques of the positivist/scientific/mathematical paradigm. M. Frederick 21:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Mapping the sciences: scientific adjectives/name of the science(s)

Scientific adjectives is a sub-project of the WikiProject Conceptual Jungle, aiming at making an overview in a table of scientific adjectives and the various branches of (the) science(s) and qualify them by discussing them, improving the Wikipedia articles and make clear the interlinkages. Please feel free to add your contributions to the table. Best regards, Brz7 12:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

categories

hello, I've just deleted the list and put new sections with stubs in, plus added part on law. I'll try to fill out the stubs with stuff (just cut and paste from main articles at first I think) soonish.

I'd just like to say though, along with some of the comments above, classifying one subject or another as within the social sciences is a bit difficult to do rigidly, and things don't diverge neatly from the "Humanities". I think the "Arts" and social science can be said to be different; though in Australia, if you do an Arts degree, then that can include humanities and social sciences! I always thought that anything that isn't natural science is social science. This page, though, is really good as a pointer page to find out more on other subjects. Wikidea 07:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Cultural Studies not often considered in social sciences

Cultural Studies as practised in the English-speaking world is often not considered a social science but rather placed in the humanities. Someone should remove the cultural studies references. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.146.51.78 (talk) 07:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC).

Is education a social science?

It doesn't seem like it belongs under social sciences, but that's just my impression. I imagine that studies regarding how people learn do belong under some part of either social or cognative sciences. If somebody can clarify this I think we could improve this article a bunch. --Helm.ers 18:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)