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If you notice the date you will understand why this topic has engaged me!

Is there really a solid basis which would allow the study of politics to describe itself as scientific? In most countries the subject, Politics, is studied under the heading of Politics, Government or similar- without the qualification Science, and it is often part of an Arts course. Is it possible to characterise political action and suggest theoretical conclusions regarding politics that would follow scientific pathways? Such elegant theories would always be at the mercy of the assassin or bribery and fraud. Or would those be factored into the final result!

Whilst I do feel that this an interesting topic of debate (ie What is Science?) please move this to NQS if Political Science is seen as inappropriately clogging up the Real Science columns.

Political science is a science in the sense that it uses the scientific method to answer empirical questions regarding politics. It doesn't answer normative questions. A question a political scientist might ask is, "Which voting system is the ost democratic?" or "Is gun control correlated with a reduction in violent crime?" Another question might be "Under which conditions does war arise?", perhaps one of the most interesting questions we have scientific theories regarding. In answering these questions, political scientists apply the same scientific methodology as any other scientist would in other fields.

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Are you an Academician who teaches Economics, Political Science, Management, or Public Administration?
Are you a Research Scholar, doing research in any of these subjects? (Economics, Political Science, Management, Public Administration)
Are you a University student or College student, who has Economics, Political Science, Management or Public Administration, either as Core or Optional Subject?

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If any aspect of the study of politics makes it a science because it uses scientific tools, Michaelangelo was a scientist because he used a hammer and chisel. A ouija board is scientific because a metric was used in its layout and production. The term "Political Science" is an oxymoron.

Isaac Asimov used an ultimate form of behavioral science, another oxymoron, as the subject of his Foundation Trilogy. In the story, man had finally reduced all aspects of human behavior to a set of math characters with which predictions could be made. I don't know if Asimov believed this possible or not but it made for an interesting story.

Making any behavioral study scientific is about as unlikely as finding the God particle. The term Political Arts would be far more accurate, meaningful and actually useful.

Some people just seem to think being classified as a science somehow adds a layer of credibility to the subject. I think Texas Hold'em is useful and meaningful. And I think there are some principles involved, such as statistics and plotting odds, that are scientific but, if you win at the game, why be concerned with trying to get it classified as scientific? If you lose, by all means study the odds and stats. That may help you get a little better but it won't make you any better at detecting a bluff. That's an art. Does Doyle Brunson give a twit whether Hold'em is scientific or not. He didn't need to study Poker Science to win. He was born with the ability to read a face and body language like a book. The same can be said of many of our great leaders.

Anonymous may be correct in stating that a political "scientist" might ask which voting system is the most democratic or is gun control correlated with a reduction. Sure, and there will be all kinds of answers. But, how much will any of these answers affect the outcome of an election? Or the course of our future? The answer is: Squat.

"Under which conditions does war arise?"

If there are two or more human beings in contact. The conditions of war are present.

As a prospective Ph.D. candidate, I have pondered this very question for quite some time and there is some degree of ambiguity in the answer. Essentially, it is a social science, but seldom regarded as a "hard" science like physics or biology. There is much room for interpretation and disagreement within the discipline, due to the complexity and relative unpredictability of collective human behavior (not to mention ideology). Moreover, a degree in political science is technically an Arts degree (i.e., B.A. or M.A.). On the other hand, answering many questions in politics involves the scientific method and a reliance on quantitative data. Most published works are peer-reviewed and can often form a general consensus on a particular question. Thus, perhaps the best answer is... 'no' with a 'but' -- 'yes' with an 'if.'

Okay, so there is much room for interpretation... You can say that about anything. There is nothing we do today that isn't somehow connected to some science. So... why bother arguing about it? Just classify everything as science. Squabbling over whether something is a science is just a waste of time. It contributes nothing to the subject over which the squabble is occurring. Spend that time researching the subject rather than its putative classification and you get some useful advancement. Spend it squabbling and you get what? A more definitive squabble. Meanwhile, the subject is ignored. I don't care if you call virology a craft. Don't spend all your time gas-bagging over what to classify it. Get your butt back into the lab and come up with an antiviral. That's what pays the bills and treats the diseases.

It's come to the point where we seem to value the design of the package more than we do the contents.

"Everything" is not science. And assuming that everything is science is dangerous, for a number of reasons. I'll discuss one.

For good or evil, science is taken as a de facto "Underwriters Lab" seal of approval. Alleging or implying that an idea or theory is "scientific" carries baggage in our culture. It means that the idea has undergone some sort of "fitness for use test."

I'm not saying this is the way it is defined or they way it should be. I'm saying this is the way it *is*, regardless of what we wish.

Science has been successful, but despite this success, society has a strong ambivalence towards it and those who practice it. As many people don't know very much about it, its activities are (to them) utterly indistinguishable from magic. To them, scientific answers are no different than the answers that come from magic, except that they come with this implied warranty. Of course scientists do not view things this way. But most people do, regardless of anything they say. This is why so many advertisements make use of scientific sounding language and the imagery of science to sell their products. Things don't have to actually be scientific to sell the product.

There are many kinds of products - cars, shampoos, medicines (and things alleging to be medicines), but also ideas can be products and religion constitutes one of ideas. Regardless of the product, there are people who thrive on sowing confusion about what science says and how it works. Enter agnatology.

If science and the philosophy of science were isolated activities carried out in ivory towers and have no greater affect than the front gates of universities, it would not be important. But it isn't. As you noted, science is related to most real things. Results that are claimed and believed to be scientific can affect the spending of millions, even billions, of dollars. They can also determined how we perceive the problems we face - even whether we perceive them - and how we set about addressing them.

Understanding what is and what is not science is crucial for our success as a society. Carl Sagan suggested an apt obituary for humanity - "They accept the products of science; they rejected its methods."

Nor is it a matter of just "working things out in the lab." All good science makes predictions that have the potential to disprove it, if it is wrong. Creationists (YECs and IDers) produce tons of certifiable stupidity - and the common person is incapable of discerning this from actual science. Like, you know, they use a lot of scientific words and they have, like, you know, PhDs and stuff. They must have something intelligent to say.

But science does not require absolute certainty in its predictability. Predictions can be (and often are) probabilistic. I don't know enough about political science, but my best guess would be that it's not real science. Almost certainly, they are attempting to lend credibility to their arguments by confusing them with real science. That's not to say that there isn't any real science involved with poly sci. There could be. It seems very possible though that poly sci could be made more scientific than what it is. As we learn better ways to do social simulations using massive agent technology, political "science" may be able to glean important insights concerning the likely consequences of intended policies.

[quote=Iztaci
It's come to the point where we seem to value the design of the package more than we do the contents.
[/quote]
That design being the sound of our own voice in opinion and subjectivity, as we denounce the surroundings of the package.

Fallible;

Everything I said to anomoniminous (the one who is a "potential" PhD candidate. Whatever the hell that is.) was in strict context with his post. It was tongue in cheek. Isn't that called for when talking to a potential PhD candidate?

I have previously posted several very strong opinions on what qualifies as science and what does not, in my opinion. Like: "The term Political Science is an oxymoron.", which I posted earlier in this thread. Let me clarify that for you. Political science is not only junk science, it's just junk, period. It ranks right up there with nutritionism and psychotherapy... and the babble that immediately follows your post by another aminomenous who is also a genius.

I think you're wrapped a little too tight. If you're worried about these snake oil hucksters affecting the spending habits of of billions, good luck. You're going to get a lot of nosebleeds for nothing. You can educate the monkeys til you blow an aorta and they're still going to go straight for the shiney sh**. They will still be buying Swamp Root Tonic and other Brain Foods and Colon Cleansers by the ton when you're dead and buried. You won't affect the sales of The Secret an iota. You can go to the Harmonizers2000 website right now and buy an EMR shield that works its magic with "imploded water".

The pity of it all is this. You have a lot of educating to do, if you're going to get this all straightened out, and you're admonishing me that "everything is NOT science"? I've been harping on that since I popped into this forum.

I've been to your web and like it a lot. It's on my favorites bar and I've followed several of your excellent links which I've also bookmarked. In other words, I think you know what you are talking about. You just have the sense of humor of the typical civil engineer and you take it all a little too seriously. Haysoose Christo! Loosen up a little. Humans have been this way since before they were human.

Oooops. Sorry about the reference to Harmonizers. I just tried to go there and got a notice of intent to sell the domain. Perhaps they ran out of imploded water. Anyway, you can buy it for 2900 bucks, and if you know how to make imploded water, you might make a ton of bucks.

http://www.harmonizers.com/

It could be that I'm wrapped too tight. There are things I could relate right now that would not excuse my wrapped-too-tightedness, but would at least provide insight into why I consider the issue to be so important, among the most crucial of my life. I don't, however, wish to relate anything about where I work.

I did miss the irony in your post. 1) I don't remember who posts what and treat ever post individually, and 2) there are some things that are so ridiculous that it is indistinguishable from parody. (There's a name for this that I don't recall right now.)

OTOH, I do recall that you and I are discussing something on the evolution thread. I think you mistakenly interpret my posts as criticisms of you. It is not clear to me what your positions are. The only way to tell is to poke around the edges, mostly by articulating what I think and why I think it. I speak clearly and harshly against the misapplication of science. It has taken me years - decades even - to develop this approach and this tone.

By nature I am conciliatory and compromising. For the longest time, I was trying to compromise with creationists and the like, trying to find common ground to start at. This is back when I actually had some respect for them and erroneously believed that they had respect for me. I actually believed that they were 'searching for truth' and that most of them were smart people who just hadn't thought through the issues clearly. This is true for a very small number of them. For most of them, they are either deeply dishonest, deluded, or utterly irrational. Willful ignorance, coupled with extreme arrogance and an delusional paranoia about scientific conspiracy theories contribute to their inexorable quest for utter planetary stupidity. Almost every single thing these people 'know' is wrong.

The problem seems intractable, but the engineer in me refuses to accept "it can't be done" as the right answer. Nor can my feeble moral sense allow me to shut my mouth or just sit on my hands while the Endumbening continues. I know there are some who will never be reached by any amount of evidence or logic. I get it. I really do. But I was a creationist myself. I thought I understood stuff that I didn't. And somehow I figured it out. So can others.

Enter you. You point out (in so many words) that I am disrespectful towards creationists (among others). I am harsh - and sometimes, yes, disrespectful. I consider it disrespectful to spout stupidity and call it the word of God. And we're not doing anybody any favors by pretending that legitimate scientific theories should be discussed on equal terms with creationism. I do not sense that I am being unduly harsh with creationists. In fact, I'm pretty sure that most of them are quite intelligent and qualified - in something completely removed from science.

Creationism is the issue that I harp on, because it's one I have studied a lot. But there are many, MANY others. You are a relative newcomer to this forum. We have had people come in here promoting many different kinds of stupidity. There are some people who have flooded the net with their stupidity. They go to various science-related forums and post their silliness and try to keep it discussed. The intent is to create the illusion of respectability.

More generally, I am interested in the relation between science and society - how to make it more effective, how we use it, how we judge science from non-science. I want to work in my own area of science, but I also want to help other people understand how science works. I want to figure it out myself and I want to relate what I find out or figure out to other people.

The Internet is a staggering tool for acquiring and vetting knowledge. But it's also a powerful tool for the promulgation of false knowledge and inanity. It's a mistake for us to think that things will work themselves out without a conscious, meticulous effort by someone to set things aright. There is some great stuff out there in the wilderness. talkorigins is a great place. snopes is another. wiki, fedstats, many others. But they are dwarved by the massive influx of stupidity onto the net. For every scientist posting on the net there are dozens of preachers who took 3rd grade science and feel qualified to put those idiot scientists in their place. It's an issue, but the first step is to get the good information out there - and to refine it repeatedly until it's in a form that people can understand.

Excellent post! You lay it all out here and make your view easy to understand.

What’s even better, is that with this explanation, I can pinpoint our misunderstanding. It may have been the result of an unintended implication on my part or an unintended inference on your part but that doesn't matter a whit. What matters is that we can now establish a point of reference.

Here’s what happened: For whatever reason, you got the idea I was criticizing you for a lack of respect for creationism and/or creationists. Zounds! If I wrote anything that indicated that, I profoundly apologize. I would never (Intentionally) do that. I, in fact, have zero respect for anything that even resembles creationism. And, I have no respect for the great majority of creationists. None. I make exception only for a couple of friends who got into it, like I did many years ago, and haven’t seen the utter fraud yet. I know it’s PC nowadays to utter nonsense banalities like: “I disagree with your religious views but I ‘respect’ them.”. Bologna! How can you respect something you reject? In my case, something I abhor. When I argue with a creationist, my intention is clear and unobstructed. It is to demolish the idea. Respect be damned. Eviscerate, excise and dispose. And my intent is not necessarily to enlighten my antagonist either. That result is usually unlikely. I do it for the slim chance that someone with a still-formative mind is reading the thread and thus sees another side to the debate.

What I was trying to say, albeit clumsily, was this. The typical creationist tirade is saturated in logical fallacy, tautology, presuppositional apologetic, etc, etc. Gross, gross generalizations abound. It occurs to me that in an argument with these folks, we should avoid, at all costs, these same logical mistakes. Several years ago I composed a lengthy retort to a proselytizing ignoramus and spent a lot of time referencing and backing up my claims . Satisfied at last, I re-read my post for a final check and to my dismay, I found several generalizations. To say I was devastated would be over-dramatizing it and I hate that sh** so I’ll just say I was exceedingly disturbed. I let it rest for a few day then returned and corrected the generalizations. As you might guess, the thread had wandered in the interim and my post got no response. What I was trying to point out in my post to you was what I thought to be a minor logical quibble and a couple of generalizations. I can assure you there was no desire to protect your antagonist. None. Zip. Nada. Squat.

Now that I better understand what motivates you in these debates, I look forward to some elegantly presented eviscerations.

Ellis, about politics. It comes from 'poly', meaning many; and 'tics', meaning blood-sucking insects.

Of course it's a joke! After all, I have run for office--four times.