Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-w5vf4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-04T20:59:04.390Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Reply to “Myths About the Physical Sciences and Their Implications forTeaching Political Science”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2005

Mariusz Ozminkowski
Mariusz Ozminkowski
Affiliation:
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Well, let us admit, we all suffer from at least a mild case of “social sciencesinferiority complex.” So it seems does Kim Quaile Hill in his spirited defense of the “lessexact” part of academe. He finds his students' skepticism about (maybe even disdain for)political science troubling and frustrating. He is unhappy with students questioning thevalidity and certainty of social sciences. He fights back. However, his solution to theproblem is not only ill-conceived, but it has the potential of harming his (our?) own cause.Instead of dealing with students' skepticism of the scientific character of social sciences,he blames that skepticism on students' misperceptions and misconceptions about physicalsciences. Still, initially his argument sounds convincing when the misconceptions are framedin terms of scientific illiteracy, pseudo-science, and superstition. The first impressionis—of course, how one can appreciate social sciences without a good understanding of sciencein the more traditional hard-sciences sense. Yet, we quickly discover that is not theauthor's point. It is the opposite. It is not so much about distrusting physical sciences,but rather about trusting it too much. With so much faith in physical sciences, socialsciences are perceived as soft, inaccurate, and uncertain.

Information

Type
Departments
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , January 2005 , pp. 3 - 5
Copyright
© 2005 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Gross Paul R., and Normann Levitt. 1988. Higher Superstition. The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Hill Kim Quaile. 2004. “Myths Aout the Physical Sciences and Their Implications for Teaching Political Science.” PS: Political Science and Politics 37 (July): 467– 471.Google Scholar
Kuhn Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn Thomas S. 2000. The Road Since Structure. Philosophical Essays, 1970–1993, with an Autobiographical Interview. Edited by James Conant and John Haugeland. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nagel Ernest. 1961. The Structure of Science. Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation. New York & Burlingame: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
Popper Karl R. 1979. “Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach.” Chap. 6 in Of Clouds and Clocks. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 206– 255.Google Scholar
Szaniawski Klemens. 1994. O nauce, rozumowaniu i wartosciach. Pisma wybrane. [Of Science, Reasoning, and Values. Selected Papers]. Warszawa: Wydawnictowo Naukowe PWN.Google Scholar
Taylor Charles. 1985. Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar