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> > I think the question of what's really science is also an important one for science museums to consider.
Yup, in practice "the sciences" vs "social science" are very different.
That said, I find it intriguing that social science wouldn't be considered a factor in any NSF endeavor when all science is a human and therefore implicitly social endeavor.
.
Maria Mortati, not a scientist, social or otherwise
.
(415) 235-8994
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On Jun 24, 2012, at 12:15 PM, Richard O Brown wrote:
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
>
> Thanks, Charlie. That Washington Post Editorial you mentioned, while
> focused on "political science", bluntly asserted, "the NSF shouldn’t fund *
> any* social science." (
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congress-should-cut-funding-for-political-science-research/2012/06/04/gJQAuAJMEV_story.html
> )
>
> It's been a very interesting year for the status of "social science". A
> provocative news feature in *Nature* last month looked at the deep
> structural problems in psychology, and described the major Reproducibility
> Study currently underway to assess how just bad that problem is (
> http://www.nature.com/news/replication-studies-bad-copy-1.10634). I
> attended last month's convention of the Association for Psychological
> Science, and there was a lot of talk about fundamentally changing the
> field's approach to establishing and replicating new results, in
> recognition that the current system is broken.
>
> Of course, the basic question of whether "social science" is really science
> is as old as the field. In 1974, Richard Feynman famously tagged
> educational and psychological studies as "cargo-cult science", and he
> explains why he calls them pseudoscience in this clip from the wonderful
> 1981 documentary, "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out":
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaO69CF5mbY
>
> I think the question of what's really science is also an important one for
> science museums to consider.
>
> -Richard
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Charlie Carlson <[log in to unmask]
>> wrote:
>
>> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
>> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
>> institutions.
>>
>> *****************************************************************************
>>
>> Congress is considering eliminating NSF funding for all Political
>> Sciences. It passed the house and is on its way to the Senate. The
>> discussion and debate runs the gamut, and certainly bears some relationship
>> to the scientific value of many other aspects of the social sciences, where
>> many similarly parallel situations and observations arise. It will be
>> interesting to see how the arguments play out on the American political
>> stage. The NY Times ran an op-ed piece of interest, and the Washington Post
>> had one a couple of weeks back, June 6th. I found the NY Times a bit
>> surprising.
>>
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/opinion/sunday/political-scientists-are-lousy-forecasters.html?ref=nationalsciencefoundation
>>
>> There's some truths in many of the accusations and claims by both sides
>> (and I'm sure we all have our own opinions), and I agree with the likely
>> fact that all science basically comes to something ultimately unknowable.
>> But one key factor, after many years of NSF research support, is that
>> apparently prediction and foresight still amount to something equivalent to
>> random chance when it comes to human social behaviors.
>> C
>>
>>
>> The opinions and thoughts expressed here are my own and should in no way
>> be construed or attributed to the Exploratorium or related organization,
>> and do not represent an institutional position.
>> Charles Carlson
>> Senior Scientist
>> exploratorium
>> 3601 Lyon St.
>> San Francisco, CA 94123
>> [log in to unmask]
>> Tel: 415-561-0319
>> Fax: 415-561-0370
>> http://blogs.exploratorium.edu/whyintercept/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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