Talk:Political science/Archive 1: Difference between revisions

Since academia has a heavy left-wing bias, academics sometimes treat political science as if it was the study of change. This is because academics don't like conservativism. In fact, however, non-change is always an option for any society.

I've removed the above from the main article. It is probably true as far as it goes (as a statement of present-day Western academics, anyway, as far as I know), but any potentially inflammatory remark like this needs to stated very diplomatically and fairly (see neutral point of view). I don't feel confident enough of my knowledge of political science to try to make an improvement. Anybody? --Larry Sanger

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This is still in the main article. My recommendation is to remove it because, as you said, it is clearly inflammatory. As one who took a couple of political science classes 25 years ago, I don't think it is even true that political scientists assume anything about "change".

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As a professional political scientist, I recommend it's removal. It is, in fact, true that political science as a discipline has more liberals than conservatives (conservatives, disliking government, are less likely to make a profession of studying it, so it's really just a self-selection process). But more importantly, the statement about change is probably false. Societies are dynamic systems, so non-change is not an option. Advancing technology, increasing or decreasing wealth, immigration or emigration, all will create changes. The political question between conservatives and liberals is not so much whether there will be change, but what kind of change to encourage or discourage and how to respond to the changes that actually happen.

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I'm removing this line from the article

Some people have questioned whether "political science" is a science at all, since "science" generally suggests a formal discipline and strict training in a systematic method, whereas much of politics is improvisation: undisciplined, informal and without system.

This is a cheapshot disguised in NPOV-speak. I'm not a political scientist, so I'm not the right person to make the defense, but I know enough about political science to know that most political scientists would dispute this. -- RobLa

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With regard to immediately above by RobLa: It contains a fallacy anyway. Scientists studying politicians or political process would not be involved in the "improvisation: undisciplined, informal and without system." They would be measuring the above or trying to measure the above as a step in the scientific method.

So I tend to agree. It is an opinion and cheap shot thinly veiled in npov speak mechanics. Good practice though! I hope they keep trying. 8) The first line is ok as a leadin to an alternate discussion about metrics and who is measuring with reference to scientific method etc. A lot of people like to equate science with math and clean answers. The problem (IMHO) with this tendency (which I have) is that no science would ever happen if scientists were not attempting to measure the inscrutable, fuzzy, and unknown. user:mirwin

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The definition was hopelessly sophomoric and said nothing about why poli sci was not simply economics or church social organizing. So I mentioned violence - the primary thing that poli sci is supposed to be containing... and the thing that makes it different from quantitative tradeoffs. I don't recall exactly where the "stupid rule of thumb" came from, but it's clearly on the mark. Decision science becomes political science at the moment you lose an eye, or anything else irreplaceable that you'd rather have than any amount of cash...

--- I shuffled things around and added a bit about game theory. The intro paragraph always bugged me, and the new prose that others added today seemed a much better start.

It still needs more work, though. I agree that the prevention of violence still needs to be explained and integrated further, which is where I started going with game theory. The idea behind good government is to change the rules of the game such that violence doesn't pay. -- RobLa