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Is Political Science Really Young?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2005

Ido Oren
Affiliation:
University of Florida

Extract

Kim Quaile Hill (PS: Political Science and Politics, July 2004) seeks to debunk five “myths about the physical sciences” that “pose notable hurdles for appreciating the social sciences as legitimate scientific enterprise” (467). One of these myths is that “the physical sciences have always been highly successful in explaining their subject matter.” Hill complains that political science students are “ignorant of the history of science” and therefore they fail to “appreciate the differences between young and mature scientific disciplines…. If students can appreciate that all sciences were once youthful—as political science still is today—they will have a useful perspective by which to understand why and how the knowledge base of our discipline is limited” (469).

Type
Departments
Copyright
© 2005 by the American Political Science Association

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References

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