AXLER.Upenn-1100%Rand-Relay@sri-unix.UUCP (12/19/83)
From: AXLER.Upenn-1100@Rand-Relay (David M. Axler - MSCF Applications Mgr.)
For better or worse, there really isn't such a thing as a prototypical
science. The meaning of the word 'science' has always been different in
different realms of discourse: what the "average American" means by the term
differs from what a physicist means, and neither of them would agree with an
individual working in one of the 'softer' fields.
This is not something we want to change, in my view. The belief that
there must be one single standardized definition for a very general term is
not a useful one, especially when the term is one that does not describe a
explicit, material thing (e.g., blood, pencil, etc.). Abstract terms are
always dependent on the social context of their use for their definition; it's
just that academics often forget (or fail to note) that contexts other than
their own fields exist.
Even if we try and define science in terms of its usage of the "scientific
method," we find that there's no clear definition. If you've yet to read it,
I strongly urge you to take a look at Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions," which is one of the most important books written about science.
He looks at what the term has meant, and does mean, in various disciplines
at various periods, and examines very carefully how the definitions were, in
reality, tied to other socially-defined notions. It's a seminal work in the
study of the history and sociology of science.
The social connotations of words like science affect us all every day.
In my personal opinion, one of the major reasons why the term 'computer
science' is gaining popularity within academia is that it dissociates the
field from engineering. The latter field has, at least within most Western
cultures, a social stigma of second-class status attached to it, precisely
because it deals with mundane reality (the same split, of course, comes up
twixt pure and applied mathematics). A good book on this, by the way, is
Samuel Florman's "The Existential Pleasures of Engineering"; his more recent
volume, "Blaming Technology", is also worth your time.
--Dave Axler