Is “social science” science?
I assume by “science,” you mean testable, objective study. People often refer to that as “hard” science, as opposed to “soft” science, another term for “social science”. Generally people have tried to make the soft sciences “harder,” partly because they recognize the value of objectivity and clearly defined terms, and also because the hard sciences enjoy greater prestige than the soft sciences. So over the years, some social sciences have become quite hard. Various aspects of psychology, anthropology, economics, sociology, information science, and economics are extremely objective and quantified. In some cases, the softer parts of those fields have split off and become recognized as separate fields. For example, in psychology, people increasingly refer to “cognitive science” to refer to the hard parts of the study, i.e., brain chemistry, structure, “software”, etc., while “counseling psychology” refers to the practice of healing people by talking with them, now often referred to as an
