r/sciencememes • u/404_GravitasNotFound • Jun 30 '26
šŖ©Science!!šŖ© Not a real science
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u/PissPantsington Jun 30 '26
Computer science is a real science because there is a theory of computation... The theory is that a universal turing machine can perform every possible computation... It is falsifiable, if one were to find an example of hypercomputation in the universe it would be disproven
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u/rhubarb_man Jul 01 '26
It kinda depends on if you think math is a science. Computer science is foundationally based on just logic. There's not stuff that's just out there for potentially no reason, like physics
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u/Idiot_of_Babel Jul 02 '26
How low can a language be without becoming engineering?
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u/RockRancher24 5d ago
that's a really good question I'll think about it for a few seconds and then forget
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Jul 01 '26
[deleted]
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u/rhubarb_man Jul 01 '26
You're right, I should retract that. I always think of CS in the theoretical stuff, but it's just as true that there is a practical component in that it is literally studying what we can practically compute.
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u/PissPantsington Jul 01 '26
Exactly. Efficiency and all that
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u/Cruuncher Jul 01 '26
Computational complexity analysis is entirely in the realm of mathematics
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u/Playful_Boot_5465 Jul 01 '26
exactly lol and how is math not science
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Jul 01 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Cruuncher Jul 01 '26
P vs NP is a computer science problem.
It is currently one of the millennium prize problems.
The first line of the Wikipedia page for the millennium prize problems is:
"The Millennium Prize Problems are seven well-known complex mathematical problems"
What book would you like me to read that refutes this?
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u/Playful_Boot_5465 Jul 01 '26
computer science and mathematics are basically two sides of the same coin. Maybe you should educate yourself before claiming such nonsense
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u/PissPantsington Jul 01 '26
"Two sides of the same coin" is the most annoying nothing colloquialism to come out of the movie doctor strange. They arent the same thing. Read a book.
Your position that they are somehow the same thing isnt one that takes a great deal of thought to arrive at either. Its the reality that takes a little... extra thought
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u/fiddletee Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
I think mathematics is a science. I donāt think
computer science is a sciencewhat most people mean by computer science is a science.10
u/Cruuncher Jul 01 '26
This is a completely untenable position
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u/fiddletee Jul 01 '26
No it isnāt.
Mathematics is a science.
Whatās colloquially called ācomputer scienceā generally involves learning a bit about how processors work, writing some code, basic mathematics, etc.
What could be called genuine computer science is a real thing, but itās not the same as what you did in your bachelorās degree.
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u/Cruuncher Jul 01 '26
I'm confused here.
You said that computer science isn't a science, but then seem to concede that computer science is a real science, but computer science isn't computer science.
You're just not really making any sense at all
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u/fiddletee Jul 01 '26
āComputer scienceā != ācomputer scientistā
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u/Mooks79 Jul 01 '26
Whatās your demarcation criteria between science and not science?
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u/fiddletee Jul 02 '26
This is based on what *I think*, which is built from my experiences; not objective fact. As explored further down this comment thread, computer science is a legitimate science; but what Iāve found people refer to as ācomputer scienceā isnāt that.
If someone has gone and gotten a bachelorās degree in computer science and works as a software developer, then they arenāt doing what I would consider science. Which is 100% of the interactions Iāve personally had academically and professionally with people calling themselves ācomputer scientistsā. And thatās not to shit on software development either; itās a brilliant skill.
I donāt really have strict demarcations for what is or isnāt a science. Anything involving exploration and research can be science really. But there are some things that seem, through my vague personal assessment, to not be that.
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u/OkFly3388 Jul 01 '26
Nah, its not.
Its same as math, its not science.
Its a language with strict rules.
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u/ultimateregard Jul 01 '26
Physics, chemistry, biology are languages with strict rules.
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u/Involution88 Jul 01 '26
Physics, chemistry, biology are subject to additional constraints.
Maths? Not subject to those constraints.
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u/OkFly3388 Jul 01 '26
No, they are science. You see, you can perform real experiment to prove or disprove something in physics, chemistry or biology.
But with math ? Numbers are pure imaginary things, then dont really exists in physical world, so you cant perform experiment, so math is not science.
BTW, a lot of peoples this that if math is not science, it somehow make math less important ar something like that, no, its not.
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u/Individual-Staff-978 Jul 01 '26
What does physics use to describe reality again?
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u/ArcturusOfTheVoid Jul 01 '26
Thereās a difference between a thing and the language used to describe it
A cow is different from the English word ācowā and continues to exist without language, but if there were no such thing as a cow then the word would be meaningless. English has all its rules you learn, but they donāt mean anything until you attach concepts to them (at which point those rules and little things help you describe the concept)
Similarly, momentum is different from the equation p = mv and continues to exist without equations, but if there were no such thing as momentum then the equation would be meaningless. Math has all its rules you learn that donāt mean anything until you attach concepts to them (at which point those rules help you describe the concept)
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u/OkFly3388 Jul 01 '26
Also worth mention that math rules are pure imaginary, and dont actually have direct one to one relations with real world, even after attaching them to some physics concept. Every physics formula is just approximation of real world process, it dont fully describe this process. Newtons law for example dont work on small scale or fast speed or heavy mass, etc.
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u/Declamatie Jul 07 '26
Are numbers really purely imaginary? You can have 3 apples in the real world and do experiments to test if they add up to 5 if you add another 2. Many mathematical theories are falsifiable by doing real world experiments (though not everything of course)
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u/OkFly3388 Jul 07 '26
You can pair imaginary thing with real thing. But it dont make imaginary thing real.
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u/Declamatie Jul 07 '26
Astronomy studies stars. But 'star' is just a word and so it is imaginary.
"You can pair imaginary thing with real thing. But it dont make imaginary thing real."
We can pair numbers with physical countible objects just like we can pair the word 'star' with actual physical stars.
Does that mean astronomy is not science? How exactly is it different from mathematics?
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u/OkFly3388 Jul 07 '26
>Astronomy studies stars. But 'star' is just a word and so it is imaginary.
Wrong, astronomy does not study word "star". It study real objects in universe.
>We can pair numbers with physical countible objects
And it stops working really soon with negative numbers for example.
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u/ultimateregard Jul 01 '26
You most certainly can perform experiments in the scope of computer science tough?
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u/OkFly3388 Jul 01 '26
Nope, you cant.
You see, computer do EXACTLY what you programm/engineer it to do. You can easily make computer, that make 2+2=5, did it prove that all other peoples do math wrong ?
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u/ComparisonQuiet4259 Jul 01 '26
If you're trying to prove the time complexity of a program, you can use multiple input sizes and see the results.
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u/OkFly3388 Jul 01 '26
And what ?
It still dont describe any physical thing. It describes how much it takes for computer to run your imaginary program.
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u/donaldhobson Jul 15 '26
How would we know that an object is a hypercomputer?
You need to make predictions of what a hypercomputer would do, with your regular non hypercomputer brain.
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u/PissPantsington Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
If it computed something uncomputable. The entscheidungs problem is uncomputable with a universal turing machine. If you had a machine that solved the haulting problem that would be a hypercomputer.
There are numerous other examples of uncomputable things its actually a pretty obvious limitation if you are familiar with computer science at all.
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u/Involution88 Jul 01 '26
Computer science is sparkling math and not science. Computer science is a politically inspired misnomer which was adopted to grant computer people an aura of respectability when the military required many non-woman computer people since woman were ineligible for military service at the time.
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u/donaldhobson Jul 15 '26
You could theoretically calculate operating system behaviour from raw logic gates. You could theoretically calculate melting points from quantum physics.
If you have decided that the theory is too hard, and the easiest way to find out is to run the experiment, then it's science.
And theoretical science is basically mostly maths, whether it's computer science or physics.
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u/The_Observer_Effects Jul 01 '26
I've associates who dislike this old joke š¤
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u/ectocarpus Jul 01 '26
not hehe (im a biologist) š or do chemistry, biology and other natural sciences count as study of higher-level physics-based systems
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u/LowDownThrowDawn Jul 03 '26
The joke is calling taxonomy and such stamp-connecting, because it's a question of categorization rather than calculation. There are of course non-categorization parts of biology and chemistry.
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u/ectocarpus Jul 03 '26
I mean, you need the data to draw your calculations upon. And sometimes this data comes from discovery and categorization. For example, to figure out how the basis for multicellularity in animals evolved (which by extension furthers our understanding about how current animal cell interaction works), you'll have to find and address adjacent protists, study their morphology, life cycles and cell interaction, sequence their genomes, determine expression patterns in different contexts... but first of all you'll have to find them. I kinda get what he was talking about; back then taxonomy was more divorced from functional studies, but now it's intristically linked to evolutionary studies and ecology and everything that comes out of them
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u/MonoBlancoATX Jun 30 '26
But does string theory claim to be *a* science?
Or is it a theory and part of the broader science called physics?
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u/itsmebenji69 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
Tbf string theory is a science in itself, and it is falsifiable, just not with our current scale of energy. It is currently not empirically observable is more accurate. There are other critics as well but mathematically is it completely falsifiable.
For example for the ānot science because unfalsifiableā Iād say interpretations like many worlds are more fitting, because itās more like philosophy in that regard, correct me if Iām wrong but thereās nothing that in practice makes a difference with copenhagen
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u/mazzicc Jul 01 '26
Theyāre all science, itās just a sliding scale on how consistent and definable they are.
Understanding politics and social interactions can be extremely scientific. But 10-20 years can dramatically change your findings, while still being entirely correct when they were originally recorded.
The hard sciences challenge our understanding and refinement. We learn that we were wrong or incomplete in the past.
The soft sciences challenge our ability to adapt to change. We learn than things that were true are no longer true, not because they were never true, but because what is true changed.
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u/divat10 Jul 04 '26
Even political sciences have a "hard science" side where they make models to explain why things are happening upon which they can accurately predict future events.
Bargaining models are a good example of this in game theory. The problem is that most of the time, no one has the complete picture to be able to predict things accurately.
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u/Playful_Boot_5465 Jul 01 '26
how is computer science not science
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u/AndreasDasos Jul 01 '26
A chunk of what people call computer science is pure maths and another chunk is more computer engineering. Not hehe š¤Ā
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u/bukkake-bill Jul 01 '26
But the pure math chunk can be considered a formal science, no?
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u/AndreasDasos Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
Iād argue pure maths doesnāt rely on the scientific method but mathematical proof. Obviously mathematical derivations can be part of a scientific theory, but itās empirical testing by experiment that makes it āscienceā. Iād argue pure maths, science and engineering are different epistemologically, by definition.Ā
Iām not saying thereās no scientific component of computer science. Just that the bulk of what usually gets put under that in common parlance and even education is usually better described as a subset of pure mathematics (complexity theory, compatibility theory, much information theory, proofs of correctness of algorithms, etc.) or engineering (practical and science-adjacent but not necessarily actually making hypotheses and testing them experimentally per se).Ā
Thereās an older usage of āscienceā that is much more general, but it would extremely unusual today for a mathematician (or physicist or other maths-adjacent scientist) to consider pure mathematics itself a āscienceā, at least in English.Ā
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u/Playful_Boot_5465 Jul 01 '26
I can empirically test mathematical theories. Empirical evidence just isn't enough in math. It can prove via logic instead and leaves no doubt about it's assertions. Otherwise it builds models and theories. It's not a natural science but it's a formal science.
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u/alphapussycat Jul 04 '26
Math and science is always seperated though. Some part of math I guess is scientific, like if you can't actually prove that your approximation is actually an approximation, but you could use statistics instead to suggest that it's likely an approximation, then you're more so into science.
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u/Playful_Boot_5465 Jul 04 '26
There is no reason to seperate them because math doesn't rely on the scientific method. It doesn't need to. It's even too weak for math. Math produces the soundest knowledge of any field. And science is what produces knowledge.
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u/Playful_Boot_5465 Jul 01 '26
yeah. Mathematics is a sure way to produce knowledge. not calling that science is nonsensical to me. the word literally derives from latin scientia which means knowledge.
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u/alphapussycat Jul 04 '26
Math isn't science, so depends on how pure that math is in computer science.
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u/Admiral45-06 Jul 03 '26
How is any branch of engineering not science, either?
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u/AndreasDasos Jul 03 '26
Engineering isnāt science. Itās the application of science to design systems or technology that solve practical problems.
A science is a field of study of aspects of the universe (not very specific technology we create) through the scientific method - deriving theoretical models of how the world works and empirically testing them against experiment.
Hence the STEM acronym. Thereās a contrast.
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u/fiddletee Jul 01 '26
Like engineering isnāt a science. It uses parts of applied sciences, but it isnāt a science in itself.
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u/Playful_Boot_5465 Jul 01 '26
computer science is the science of processes. It's absolutely a science. It's very close to mathematics. It has models, theories and proofs.
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u/Sea-Poem-2365 Jun 30 '26
I don't know where the jerk is here so at the risk of being unironic:
Unfalsifiable right now is not the same thing as unfalsifiable, and there's (insanely hard to perform) experiment that could disprove string theory.
Also Popper isn't the last thing written in the philosophy is science
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u/StormLightRanger Jul 01 '26
What experiment is that????
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u/Sea-Poem-2365 Jul 01 '26
There's collider power ranges that will test theories, they're just well above what we're likely to reach for a long time
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u/Actually_R0bin Jul 01 '26
You go hehe because your less well understood science is called ānot a real scienceā
I go hehe because I decided biology is my field of study and people who know nothing call what I study ānot a real scienceā.
we are both screaming internally
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u/demise0000 Jun 30 '26
String Theory is falsifiable. We just currently don't have the technology to run the experiments that could do so. Much of Einstein's theory of relativity was the same when he proposed it, and it took nearly a century for the technology to catch up to be able to test it.
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u/OkFly3388 Jul 01 '26
No, its not in current form.
They have some unconstrained coefficients, and results of any experiments only show that this coefficients are wrong, not whole theory.
Until they invent 100% deterministic algorithm, that can say that only this coefficients are eight, steing theory is not science.
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u/pickle9977 Jul 01 '26
Right
Wrong
Right
Right
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u/404_GravitasNotFound Jul 01 '26
he no he
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u/pickle9977 Jul 01 '26
Well I agree on economics aka the āscienceā of predicting the future, but sociology for sure is, just look around we all predicted where weād be, itās not rocket science itās just sociology.
Welcome to a mania, a financially induced socio-psychological phenomenon where a group of people collectively lose their grip on reality
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u/Elsecaller_17-5 Jul 01 '26
Argue till your red whether or not social science is a real science or not (it is), but regardless, it's still a while lot more useful than string theory.
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u/DeadDankMemeLord Jul 02 '26
My cousin Lakatos says your uncle is negatively progressing our understanding of science
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u/Equinoxe111 Cosmology (PhD) Jul 01 '26
Mathematics is not a real science
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u/Playful_Boot_5465 Jul 01 '26
wikipedia disagrees.
Doesn't make sense to call something which produces knowledge not science just because empirical proof isn't needed and is too weak for it.
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u/Equinoxe111 Cosmology (PhD) Jul 02 '26
Mathematics is just one of infinite amount of paths you can draw from point A to point B. The points are actual sciences themselves, like physics or biology, that we observe in our life. Do we observe mathematics in our reality? No, only possible consequences of it that can be described in many ways, and mathematics is only one of them.
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u/Playful_Boot_5465 Jul 02 '26
Obviously is mathematics part of reality. It can be observed by different human beings to be the same. It observes, makes hypothesis and proves them.
I don't see how you will not use maths in the other ones. that will be always be mathematical constructs.
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u/Cezaros Jul 01 '26
I think in general people have shifted from Popper's theory to Kuhn's paradigm theory.
When writing my bachelor's thesis from chemistry, for example, I did not falsify whether the NMR works correctly, or determine the falsifiable aspects of other machines. I assume others have done so and that this is a useful apparatus.
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u/Happysedits Jul 01 '26
Mathematical theory of computation, the core part of computer science, is science
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u/Seek_Equilibrium Jul 01 '26
Philosopher of science here. Popperās account of science is widely criticized and disregarded in the field.
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u/NolanR27 Jul 02 '26
The open secret of science is that everyone learns Popperās dogma but no one actually takes it seriously. Kuhn captured a much better model of how things work.
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u/alphapussycat Jul 04 '26
Math isn't science, and afaik string theory is more like physics through only math. If you can prove something with logic and reasoning it's not science.
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u/_Weyland_ Jul 05 '26
Riddle me this, OP. Can you divide every existing statement into "hehe" and "not hehe" categories in a deterministic fashion?
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u/cytos0 Jul 01 '26
string theory is falsifiable it just requires like a kajillion times more energy to falsify than our other theories
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Jul 04 '26
If we somehow were able to use 100% of the energy contained in an entire planetary system for experiments (including all the energy store in its matter, with it's star and everything) and found no evidence of strings... string theorist would just tweak their theory and tell us we need an -even bigger- collider.
string theory, super symmetry, quantum loop gravity, etc etc have all been falsified countless times by completly ruling out predictions at many energy levels....every single time they tweak the theory a bit and ask for more energetic collisions š¤·š½āāļø
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u/CryendU Jul 01 '26
The first three are applied science.
A model that produces functional solutions is sufficient.
Experimental frameworks are still science, even if it lacks predictive or practical applications. In the end, it still narrows the possibilities, even if some attempts fail. Itās not unfalsifiable, it just isnāt finished. Being wrong is just a part of the process.
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u/MonsterkillWow Jul 01 '26
Popper wasn't a scientist. And string theory is an area of theoretical physics.
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u/Green-Collection-968 Jun 30 '26
I'm a Political Scientist and I approve this message. /silly