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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: science and social science
Message-ID: <209@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Jun-85 15:08:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubvax.209
Posted: Mon Jun 17 15:08:58 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Jun-85 23:57:16 EDT
References: <814@gloria.UUCP> <1310015@acf4.UUCP> <833@gloria.UUCP>
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, CA
Lines: 29

In article <833@gloria.UUCP>, colonel@gloria.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) writes:
> > >If being wrong is a symptom of not being a science, social science
> > >qualifies easily.
> > 
> > No.  Only many social SCIENTISTS.
> 
> Just my luck to wake up a Platonist.  Does anybody else believe that
> social science "exists" apart from the people who do it?
> 
> 		SMASH EXISTENCE!

I concur both with the Colonel's sentiment and his call.  But the "Only
many social SCIENTISTS" line could imply that the standards of the writer
of that line only permit the work of some current social scientists to
fit his definition of social science.

Which is ok, since every evaluation of scientific merit involves subjective
standards of adequacy.  And since social science lacks a core set of ideas
in which lack of belief by an individual amounts to non-membership in the
class of social scientists (a science can't be a science if everybody can
be a scientist), social science standards include a lot of subjective
variation.

As far as believing that social science "exists", I'd say it does "exist"
apart from the people who do it.  It also "exists" in the history of the
people who did it.

Tony Wuersch
{amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw