Talk:Social sciences
From Academic Kids
I've started a long series of sections on the rise of social science, which are, at best, rather sketchy and limited, but an improvement over the placeholder status previously, which were not much better than dictionary entries.
One clear lack in what has been done so far is a section on the critiques of social science, both as a concept and in application. While the current material references the controversy surrounding social science an sich, it is far from sufficient to provide a NPOV on what is a very contentious subject.
There is also a need for broadening the base of the history to include the various Marxist interpretations of history, literature and so on, since these also tend to be framed in scientific terms.
I'm writing this note so that we don't have someone coming ripping through with a bee in their bonnet, trying to NPOV it by adding "some" and other weak qualifier words, when the better approach is to provide a cogent summary of opposing views, links to pages where the particulars of those opposing views are elaborated and explained etc. Stirling Newberry 22:54, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)
--- Delete folklore, history, and communications? --- These fields should not be listed as "major social science fields". I agree there may be some overlap with social sciences, but by and large they fall under the aegis of "humanities". Convince me otherwise...
Memetics
Is memetics a branch of sociobiology? If so, why list memetics along with sociobiology here? Moreover, The fact that sociobiology can be applied to human populations surely doesn't make sociobiology a social science. More argument than that would be needed, anyway. (You can apply physics to human beings, but that doesn't make physics a branch of anthropology.) --LMS
While memetics was created by sociobiologists, and its first application was sociobiology, it's unfair to say its a branch. It can be as well used to non-social behavior.
And sociobiology is social science. It's strictly opposing the way some people are doing social science, so it seems to be something different from others, but its just social science with solid mathematical and biological basis. --Taw
I don't know enough about sociobiology to debate with you, even if I wanted to. :-)
But you say that memetics can be applied to non-social behavior. But when applied to social behavior, it is always a branch of sociobiology--right? If so, we can remove it from the list, because the relevant (social scientific) part of sociobiology will include the relevant (social scientific) part of sociobiology. So, please debate the point more with me, or I'll remove the memetics link and you'll be unhappy. :-) --LMS
Uhm, you're right here. I merged both entries. --Taw
Memetics is a separate field from sociobiology. In sociobiology the evolving entities are genes, while in memetics they are memes. Sociobiology attempts to reduce human behaviour to biology; while memetics treats humans as products not only of biological evolution, but of cultural evolution also. Read Blackmore, The Meme Machine, for a more detailed discussion of how memetics and sociobiology are different. -- Simon J Kissane
Memes are not completely different from genes, rather special type of genes. Their effect is similar, but they spread in different way. Wilson (On Human Nature) said that for sociobiology it is no difference, whether human behavior is gene based or culture (read: meme) based. So it's wrong to say that there's only genetic sociobiology. --Taw
Okay, well that's very different from what Blackmore says in her book; she argues they are distinct. She argues that while sociobiology may have made some room for cultural elements, the work of Wilson, etc., ensures the genes were always in control, and does not allow for any truly independent cultural evolution; while memetics allow culture to be truly independent of genes, and even allows culture to change the genes. She distinguishes memetics and sociobiology as such. -- Simon J Kissane
Announcing policy proposal
This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
history belongs under humanities, not social sciences
I plan on removing history from the list/discussion of social sciences. This is not a snub at a valuable field of academic research. It is simply a recognition that for historical and methodological reasons it is more accurately classified with the humanities. Note the discussion "what are the humanities?" at the National Endowment for the Humanities website (http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/overview.html).
Note, I'm tempted to remove "Communications" as well even though there are researchers with appointments in that field who are doing psychology and political science research. Journalism, media studies, and rhetoric are not social sciences. --128.150.93.218 18:21, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
