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0 pointstextman5y ago0 comments

Might be that I am older than most of you, but when I was in high school the term was "social studies" then later it evolved to "social science" so the university crowd could legitimize it to get more funding. there obviously is no science in it.

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boomboomsubban5y ago

"Social studies" refers to a variety of different social science and humanities subjects taught in public education. The term comes from US lawmakers around 1900.

"Social sciences" are generally considered the "science of society," and the term comes from philosophers in the mid-1800's.

disown5y ago

> "Social sciences" are generally considered the "science of society," and the term comes from philosophers in the mid-1800's.

Some of the philosophers named it "science" of society in order to piggyback off the reputation of real science.

Because real science has such a great reputation, everyone from creationists ( creation science ) to social "scientists" ( social science ) have tried to associated themselves with science to gain credibility.

Social science isn't science. Neither is creationism.

Real science ( as most people understand it ) deal with natural laws and the natural world.

boomboomsubban5y ago

Society is an observable phenomenon that we are able to run experiments on and acquire empirical evidence about. Those experiments have so far been much more difficult to run, rely on poor measuring tools, and the limited data we have acquired is given too much weight. That's still science though.

They very much are a part of the natural world, and presumably have some kind of "natural laws" guiding them. Creationism is not, as it is about things outside our observable world

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pas5y ago

That's just ignorance of how science works. There are no experiments in astronomy either ... or are there?

Natural experiments. Just as much as they happen in economics and sociology. And even though stars and black holes might be simpler than humans, it doesn't mean the soft sciences are not science.

That said exactly because of the additional complexity the bar should be higher for what's acceptable as research, viable methods and appreciable results.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

boomboomsubban5y ago

"Social studies" refers to a variety of different social science and humanities subjects taught in public education. The term comes from US lawmakers around 1900.

"Social sciences" are generally considered the "science of society," and the term comes from philosophers in the mid-1800's.

disown5y ago

> "Social sciences" are generally considered the "science of society," and the term comes from philosophers in the mid-1800's.

Some of the philosophers named it "science" of society in order to piggyback off the reputation of real science.

Social science isn't science. Neither is creationism.

Real science ( as most people understand it ) deal with natural laws and the natural world.

boomboomsubban5y ago

They very much are a part of the natural world, and presumably have some kind of "natural laws" guiding them. Creationism is not, as it is about things outside our observable world

1 more reply

pas5y ago

That's just ignorance of how science works. There are no experiments in astronomy either ... or are there?

Natural experiments. Just as much as they happen in economics and sociology. And even though stars and black holes might be simpler than humans, it doesn't mean the soft sciences are not science.

That said exactly because of the additional complexity the bar should be higher for what's acceptable as research, viable methods and appreciable results.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse