Actually, I take exception with that characterization of science. Science is merely systematic study, everything else that you claim is science is only part of one kind, or more likely one imagination, of science. There are many notions of science in the world, and the word has many basic meanings, some extend to your definition, most do not. The basic meaning that all hold should derive from its origin in latin as scire, which means to know through distinguishing or to know through comparing as we use the word today 'discriminate', yes... science discriminates. The division that is widely recognized is between science and the arts. The arts create things in the world, which is why government is an art, whereas political science studies the world as it is or as it was, it studies history in order, in some cases to discern, how it will be. The 'special' or predictive sciences are the ones where the emphasis is put on experimentation, because experimentation is based in an assumption of repeatability, and predictive sciences should show the same findings to be true for all times given their initial conditions..... In any case, I think that before we go around assigning labels, we should first examine the practices to see what people are really doing. In any case, we aren't scientists, we are researchers and our research takes many forms. If you want to be a scientist, that is fine though, don't be surprised if it ends up as much of a dead-end as the 'pure sociology' of the late 60's. On Oct 17, 2006, at 4:49 PM, Sam Tilden wrote:
Nancy and all,
I think I take exception to this characterization.
1. Science as I understand it is the systematic study, observation or experimentation of a subject so as to determine the nature or principles of what is being studied. A person who does this is a scientist.
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