tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6052097781213973653.post4164530697679313759..comments2023-10-25T02:52:26.716-07:00Comments on Tzimiskes: On the Necessity of NSF Funding for Political ScienceTzimiskeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13002441291627298737noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6052097781213973653.post-30851768938056521962012-06-08T14:02:40.271-07:002012-06-08T14:02:40.271-07:00"I'd also like to add that I can't re..."I'd also like to add that I can't really think of an explanation for why political science gets so much criticism compared to other observational sciences like Astronomy other than that the critics either don't understand the scientific method or -> they simply don't like the conclusions reached by applying scientific principles to the study of human society <-." <br /><br />Social science is a partisan endeavour in the USA. A majority of the country think it's a "socialist" science. Thought this presentation was pretty good:<br /><br />http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/jhaidt-819710-haidt-postpartisan-social-psychology/<br /><br />In Europe, social science is usually more respected since the way it views society is more in tune with people's perception of society (partial exception for Germany, where the tendency is that if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist).<br /><br />Also, the the way I understand the key difference between "hard" and "soft" sciences is the chaotic nature of the latter. <br /><br />"Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. -> In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable <-."<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory<br /><br />Economists in particular do their best to ignore the chaotic nature in society through modeling. Models are good, but knowing their limits is even better. A lot of economists don't, and policians love them for it (just tell me what to do!)Upandawayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04126829414289601470noreply@blogger.com