What is social science?

[Politesse]

A big problem in the social sciences is the difficulty of quantifying much of what they study. So one tries to find numerical proxies, things that can be worked with numerically.

"Numbers" do not exist as natural phenomena; all field disciplines must find a way to quantitatively measure the processes they wish to understand. I prefer more direct and less arm-waving approaches than choosing arbitrary "proxies", though. If I want to know people's views on patriotism, my inquiry will begin with direct interview and move on to the material culture and behaviors observable proximate to that particular semiotic cluster. Starting with my "horse sense" and assigning patriotism based on, say, the number of patriotic buttons someone owns, is making too many assumptions of the data one has not yet collected. Note that Peter Truchin is not a social scientist and has no training in any social science field. I'm not saying he's a bad author, but a sociologist or anthropologist would take a very different road toward his books. I always find it interesting when biologists try to "correct" the human sciences... by employing methods they themselves would call sloppy if they were studying gazelles or streptococchus cultures.

 

[steve_bank]

An exercise in stimulus-response of social behavior if there there ever was one. Especially in the context of Internet social media.

You might call it the science of categorization.

There is the relatively new discipline of Data Science, and its practitioners are called data scientists. There are college degrees in Data Science. Data science is math and algorithms, nothing to do with physical science.

As this is a social science forum, it appears us humans derive identity, meaning, and value from categorical definitions no different than theists. Probably all unconsciously.

The thing is labels do not matter in science and engineer as well. What matters is results.

What science 'is' like most general definitions is contextual. I favor Popper's definition of what constitutes objective science. That is a repeatable experiment.

Both Chinese and Russian large scale systems derived form Marx failed telescopically. Is it a scientific observation to say communism has failed experimentally?

I know there are die hard Marxists who are out there.

Colloquially when one says something has been reduced to a science it means a processor methodology has been used and tested to the point where it is structured and demonstrated.

This aint exactly 'rocket science', it is common sense observation.

There is no pope of categories an definitions, meaning is derived by how they are used in a context.