Poll: Is Biology A Science?

[ParkourMcGhee]

Tell her to consider biology in medicine. I have to learn a bunch of stuff for my biomed eng course. It's pretty much fixed principles (ie: how mitochondria make energy, or how different types of muscles work or channels open etc etc etc), and we don't even have to know who found them out.

Wheras in arty subjects I'd say with them, that you can pretty much BS your way through at least 90% of them.

 

[Flamezdudes]

Sociology I don't think is a science, but Biology and Psychology definatly are.

 

[Faladorian]

This question hardly warrants an answer, but yes, biology is a science.

Also, if you look at the results, it seems like a few people were just being contrarian, and it's actually unanimous.

 

[Worr Monger]

Hm... I always thought that whole "logy" at the end of that "Bio" part automatically made it a science...

 

[Uszi]

If it ends with 'ology' it's a science.

Phew...

...good thing I didn't waste all those years studying ASTROLOGY.

Or SCIENTOLOGY.

Sociology I don't think is a science, but Biology and Psychology definatly are.

What makes Sociology not a science?

Okay, I can understand that. Though I would still argue that economics is still a social science. Figuratively speaking, every action has a reaction. There are tons of variables and nothing will be absolute, but I think various economic theories would be more akin to possibilities rather than actualities. If you drop a rock, it will always drop at the same gravity constant. If you drop a bunch of money into something, so many more things may occur. Again, I wouldn't know what exactly.

Social sciences won't ever be absolute like a natural science would be but they serve to rationalize and explain certain phenomena that occur with regularity within any society. An economist might, for example, search for how and why an interest spike would occur.

It should work out like that, but it doesnt. See an economist might look at trends, but I'm sure there are concrete examples where the element of chaos can completely cripple her/his argument.
*snip*

IMO:

In so far as economics is about looking at data and trends, forming hypothesis, and testing those hypothesis it is a science.

In so far as specific economists now subscribe to schools of thought, and defend their positions vehemently, and shift the goal posts when they're schools are dis-confirmed, and in so far as past results can be explained in either the positive or the negative by those "schools of thought," it is not a science.

Ergo, economics in practice is a non-science which attempts to use scientific principles, but ultimately fails.

 

[CrustyOatmeal]

this is the most one sided poll i have seen ever

 

[Chimichanga]

Your girlfriend is an idiot. Randall Munroe is an idiot. Smart, yes - but still a great big pretentious idiot.

To say it is not a science by comparing it to mathematically-based sciences is pure, arrogant, conceited snobbery - which I think is grounds to be dragged out into the street and shot.

It's like saying the color green is not a 'true' color because it is on the other side of the color wheel from red.

(To clarify: the dragged-out-into-the-street-and-shot part was more directed at that douche-bag Munroe who writes XKCD - except for a few strips, I hate both him and his webcomic with great prejudice)

*Toxicologist here*

 

[rayen020]

to be fair XKCD didn't say biology wasn't a science, just that it wasn't a base science. and even then said physics isn't a base science. Biology chemistry physics pychology and math all started as seperate branchs of learning. to beleive that they are or are not a science based on the discovery that one is simply an applied organic form of the other does not discredit it as a science.

Psychology and sociology are sciences in the same way theoretical physics and big bang cosmology are sciences in there is a lot of circumstancial evidence and reliable enough to study at length however any great discovery or paradigm shift can change it in an instant.

 

[irani_che]

All science is Math and Stamp Collecting.
While Biology is more of the memorising part.
it is still a Science and Stands Head and Shoulders ( if not Torso and Kneecaps) above Sociology, Anthropology and any psych degree below post graduate level.

There Pure Physics and Pure Biology have alot in common, I would put them together and separate from Medecine and Engineering, which are degrees in something more Practical

 

[UtopiaV1]

Everyone is going to repeat my opinion, so I'll start off by saying we need to define art.

Anyways, subsections of other sciences mean they are still science. If A is a B and all Bs are C then A is also a C.

But you can totally abuse that statement!

"All people are idiots, Einstein was a person, therefore Einstein was an idiot."

 

[irani_che]

to be fair XKCD didn't say biology wasn't a science, just that it wasn't a base science. and even then said physics isn't a base science. Biology chemistry physics pychology and math all started as seperate branchs of learning. to beleive that they are or are not a science based on the discovery that one is simply an applied organic form of the other does not discredit it as a science.

Psychology and sociology are sciences in the same way theoretical physics and big bang cosmology are sciences in there is a lot of circumstancial evidence and reliable enough to study at length however any great discovery or paradigm shift can change it in an instant.

If you are saying a Sociologist and a string Theorist are at about the same level in intelligence and "Science-ness" you are an idiot

or a pretentious sociology student- also idiot

 

[Carlston]

Yeah it's a science just like all the parts that make up math can't be removed for personal taste....

 

[similar.squirrel]

If it ends with 'ology' it's a science.

Tell a scientist that you think astrology is a science. Bring bandages.

 

[Canid117]

Please give me a reasonable explanation for it not being a science.

 

[rayen020]

Everyone is going to repeat my opinion, so I'll start off by saying we need to define art.

Anyways, subsections of other sciences mean they are still science. If A is a B and all Bs are C then A is also a C.

But you can totally abuse that statement!

"All people are idiots, Einstein was a person, therefore Einstein was an idiot."

"Only two things are constant; the universe and human idiocy. And i'm not sure about the first one."
-albert einstien

 

[Nannernade]

Of course it's a science, sociology and psychology well I've never really grouped them in with science but if they are well... good for them. =)

 

[rayen020]

to be fair XKCD didn't say biology wasn't a science, just that it wasn't a base science. and even then said physics isn't a base science. Biology chemistry physics pychology and math all started as seperate branchs of learning. to beleive that they are or are not a science based on the discovery that one is simply an applied organic form of the other does not discredit it as a science.

Psychology and sociology are sciences in the same way theoretical physics and big bang cosmology are sciences in there is a lot of circumstancial evidence and reliable enough to study at length however any great discovery or paradigm shift can change it in an instant.

If you are saying a Sociologist and a string Theorist are at about the same level in intelligence and "Science-ness" you are an idiot

or a pretentious sociology student- also idiot

No i'm saying niether are currently definitively able to be proven through expeirmnetation (except for that quantum entanglement thing but thats a whole other thread). String theory takes a hell of alot more brainpower than sociology(i will now be flamed by sociologist). i know, i am a theorectical physics student myself.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Psychology and Sociology are pseudosciences, that rely more on categorization and identification of possibilities. Biology deals with biological reactants, enzymes, proteins, what cells respond to, perpetuation of healthy cells, categorization and classification of millions of living creatures and their habitats, and the repeatability of experiments, hypotheses, and conclusions to yield a comprehensive understanding of how life works on a cellular level. Not how it starts, mind, just how it works.

 

[Sensenmann]

It is the simplest of the three main sciences indeed. Viruses, germs and pointless things about how plants work have to go somewhere. Human anatomy I can stand( ). But I only consider it a science because it I have to.

 

[New Frontiersman]

I think your girlfriend misinterpreted those XKCD comics, while the author sometimes makes jokes at the expense of the other sciences he does acknowledge them as science.

Biology does form hypothesis, conduct experiments, and follow the scientific method just like any other science.