🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BEVAN.92Nov17144906@beluga.cs.man.ac.uk>, bevan@cs.man.ac.uk (Stephen J Bevan) writes:
|> In article <Bxt9GA.Iyp@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
|> 
|>    In article <BEVAN.92Nov11113345@hippo.cs.man.ac.uk>, bevan@cs.man.ac.uk (Stephen J Bevan) writes:
|>    |> What are "etc." in this case?  I'm still waiting to see any mention of
|>    |> a "science" that isn't (IMHO) a "natural science".
|> 
|>    Well, there are some who consider the social sciences (anthropology,
|>    sociology, psychology) to be sciences.
|> 
|> But why?  What attributes do they possses that makes them a "science"
|> that computer science (sic) does not have?  (Maybe we need somebody
|> who considers them as a science to answer this question).

The classical answer here is straightforward and centers around the
use of the hypothetico-deductive method and deductive-nomological
explanations.  One may argue (and I certainly would at least in
some cases) that these are ill-applied in various social sciences,
but the fact that they *are* a central part of the methodology, and
the fact that the gathering and analysis of empirical evidence
plays a central role in theory acceptance/rejection, and the fact
that one attempts to formulate *empirical* theories in these
disicplines all argue that they *are* sciences.

For a brief but reasonable treatment of the fundamental issues,
some good little books are

	Philosophy of Natural Science (Carl Hempel)
	Philosophy of Social Science (??? I forget the author)
	Philosophy of Biological Science (David Hull)

all part of a series published by Prentice-Hall.

The degree to which (or the specific areas in which) computer science
exhibits these characteristics is still pretty unclear to me.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm