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I think where some contention originates from, compared to for instance the German and Dutch terms 'Wissenschaft' and 'Wetenschap', is how the Angelo-Saxon 'sci

I think where some contention originates from, compared to for instance the German and Dutch terms 'Wissenschaft' and 'Wetenschap', is how the Angelo-Saxon 'science' nowadays emphasises universality and systemisation, whereas the former encompass more broadly all 'practices of knowing' [0]. From this point of view, Sozialwissenschaften is less the act of pinpointing universals, but rather engaging with the plurality of social life and knowledge making. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaft https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaft

chaostheory 3y ago
It’s clear cut and dry. None of the social studies can replicate their theoretical models. That’s why they’re not considered a science. It has nothing to do with naming in other languages. Are they still useful? Yes, they still give us a needed picture. However, until we can build a near perfect simulation of the world at the atomic level, social studies will be likely remain as an alchemy or astrology instead of a chemistry or astronomy. There are just too many variables not being accounted for and they depend on too many other disciplines that are also still relatively young like computer science and chaos theory.
- dleeftink 3y ago
  From this view, science (singular) is only achieved or perfected once reality can be (nearly) mapped 1:1, which, as we know, is not a realistic goal ("all models are wrong, some are useful"). Beyond replication, wissenschaften (plural) additionally encompasses descriptive methods, which is less about predicting social dynamics and more about summarising sociality to a certain level of achievable granularity. Hence why I brought up the difference and why I think language differences are important--the ways in which scientists, academics and researchers understand practices of knowing and knowledge building informs their scientific process and the models of reality they hold as true. Besides, models frequently 'drift' and are rarely cut and dry[0], just as blanketing all social science models as irreplicable is simply not true (see Lotka's Law or the Barabási–Albert model; statisticians contributing greatly to social science) [1][2]. More problematically, and not necessarily directed to your views alone, is the continued 'dunking' on 'non-scientific' disciplines. Why are humanist methods held to indefinite scrutiny, while similar criticism could as easily be directed elsewhere? For instance, dismissing physics as 'not a science' because models fail to predict quantum phenomena, mathematics as 'not a science' because there are limits to provability, machine learning as 'not a science' because source corpora are subjectively chosen, and so on (just examples, not my critiques of them). It is precisely why I regard computational social science as important, seeking to bridge the seeming incompatibilities between exact and inexact phenomena. Even after more than a century of social science, we are only at the cusp of understanding the foundational patterns that make up social life, with contemporary computational methods and data collection capabilities offering new levels of detail into phenomena that were previously difficult to investigate. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_drift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_drift [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabási–Albert_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabási–Albert_model
  - RF_Savage 3y ago
    And some how people seem to have a strong urge to dunk on social sciences but not economics, even if the fields are rather similar. And economic models often are even harder to fit into real world data.
    - chaostheory 3y ago
      Economics is a social study despite all the math
  - chaostheory 3y ago
    Science isn’t perfect, but they have repeatable theoretical models. That’s literally what separates them from the social studies. > It is precisely why I regard computational social science as important, seeking to bridge the seeming incompatibilities between exact and inexact phenomena. Yes, this is what I meant with a near perfect simulation. We agree here > Even after more than a century of social science, we are only at the cusp of understanding the foundational patterns that make up social life This is what’s meant for social studies lacking repeatable theoretical models
lmm 3y ago
There's a perfectly good English term for that, Natural Philosophy. What these people do could perhaps be called "Social Natural Philosophy". But if you don't have the ability to do a controlled experiment, you can't do science (or else the term loses all meaning, e.g. is history a science? There are plenty of historians using rigorous methods (often more rigorous than social science, frankly), and it's certainly a "practice of knowing"; nevertheless we would generally say no).
- dleeftink 3y ago
  I agree about the controlled experiment aspect, but before we arrive at that stage social description allows us to explore a range of possible theories. In any case, the language example used here was more to demonstrate the historic and perceptual differences as to what amounts to science, and that for some social science is not necessarily an oxymoron. Edit: wissenschaft and wetenschap are furthermore direct translations, while natural philopsophy moreso indicates a field or discipline (akin to 'Naturphilosophie' or 'wijsbegeerte'). While this can be regarded as 'just semantics', the categories are subtly different enough, at least to a second-language speaker.
- noelwelsh 3y ago
  No. There are many methods beyond the controlled experiment. The natural experiment is one, which is extremely important in epidemiology for example. You don't show smoking is harmful by setting up a control group to smoke incessantly for 30 years. Your view of science is far too narrow.
  - lmm 3y ago
    Your view is far too broad. There are many rigorous (and less rigorous) fields of study that are not sciences; if everything is a science then the term becomes useless. (I'm quite content with saying epidemiology is not a science; it draws from scientific knowledge but involves non-scientific study as well, much like history).

chaostheory 3y ago

It’s clear cut and dry. None of the social studies can replicate their theoretical models. That’s why they’re not considered a science. It has nothing to do with naming in other languages. Are they still useful? Yes, they still give us a needed picture. However, until we can build a near perfect simulation of the world at the atomic level, social studies will be likely remain as an alchemy or astrology instead of a chemistry or astronomy. There are just too many variables not being accounted for and they depend on too many other disciplines that are also still relatively young like computer science and chaos theory.

dleeftink 3y ago
From this view, science (singular) is only achieved or perfected once reality can be (nearly) mapped 1:1, which, as we know, is not a realistic goal ("all models are wrong, some are useful"). Beyond replication, wissenschaften (plural) additionally encompasses descriptive methods, which is less about predicting social dynamics and more about summarising sociality to a certain level of achievable granularity. Hence why I brought up the difference and why I think language differences are important--the ways in which scientists, academics and researchers understand practices of knowing and knowledge building informs their scientific process and the models of reality they hold as true. Besides, models frequently 'drift' and are rarely cut and dry[0], just as blanketing all social science models as irreplicable is simply not true (see Lotka's Law or the Barabási–Albert model; statisticians contributing greatly to social science) [1][2]. More problematically, and not necessarily directed to your views alone, is the continued 'dunking' on 'non-scientific' disciplines. Why are humanist methods held to indefinite scrutiny, while similar criticism could as easily be directed elsewhere? For instance, dismissing physics as 'not a science' because models fail to predict quantum phenomena, mathematics as 'not a science' because there are limits to provability, machine learning as 'not a science' because source corpora are subjectively chosen, and so on (just examples, not my critiques of them). It is precisely why I regard computational social science as important, seeking to bridge the seeming incompatibilities between exact and inexact phenomena. Even after more than a century of social science, we are only at the cusp of understanding the foundational patterns that make up social life, with contemporary computational methods and data collection capabilities offering new levels of detail into phenomena that were previously difficult to investigate. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_drift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_drift [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabási–Albert_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabási–Albert_model
- RF_Savage 3y ago
  And some how people seem to have a strong urge to dunk on social sciences but not economics, even if the fields are rather similar. And economic models often are even harder to fit into real world data.
  - chaostheory 3y ago
    Economics is a social study despite all the math
- chaostheory 3y ago
  Science isn’t perfect, but they have repeatable theoretical models. That’s literally what separates them from the social studies. > It is precisely why I regard computational social science as important, seeking to bridge the seeming incompatibilities between exact and inexact phenomena. Yes, this is what I meant with a near perfect simulation. We agree here > Even after more than a century of social science, we are only at the cusp of understanding the foundational patterns that make up social life This is what’s meant for social studies lacking repeatable theoretical models

lmm 3y ago

There's a perfectly good English term for that, Natural Philosophy. What these people do could perhaps be called "Social Natural Philosophy". But if you don't have the ability to do a controlled experiment, you can't do science (or else the term loses all meaning, e.g. is history a science? There are plenty of historians using rigorous methods (often more rigorous than social science, frankly), and it's certainly a "practice of knowing"; nevertheless we would generally say no).

dleeftink 3y ago
I agree about the controlled experiment aspect, but before we arrive at that stage social description allows us to explore a range of possible theories. In any case, the language example used here was more to demonstrate the historic and perceptual differences as to what amounts to science, and that for some social science is not necessarily an oxymoron. Edit: wissenschaft and wetenschap are furthermore direct translations, while natural philopsophy moreso indicates a field or discipline (akin to 'Naturphilosophie' or 'wijsbegeerte'). While this can be regarded as 'just semantics', the categories are subtly different enough, at least to a second-language speaker.
noelwelsh 3y ago
No. There are many methods beyond the controlled experiment. The natural experiment is one, which is extremely important in epidemiology for example. You don't show smoking is harmful by setting up a control group to smoke incessantly for 30 years. Your view of science is far too narrow.
- lmm 3y ago
  Your view is far too broad. There are many rigorous (and less rigorous) fields of study that are not sciences; if everything is a science then the term becomes useless. (I'm quite content with saying epidemiology is not a science; it draws from scientific knowledge but involves non-scientific study as well, much like history).