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This week, Jane of See Jane Compute considered the question: Is computer science really a science? She wrote:
The more I thought about it, the more I realized how complex this question really is...Computer science is in many respects a tool. It's a discipline that has its reach into many other disciplines. And that's one of the coolest, most interesting things about it. But that's also what makes it so hard to classify, to quantify.
Jane's further tackling the question in a series of posts. And we thought it would be a great question for this week's reader poll...so please weigh in!
Want to know the results? We'll publish them exclusively in next week's ScienceBlogs Weekly Recap—the fun e-newsletter that brings you the top posts, quotes, photos and videos from the previous week on ScienceBlogs. (Click here to subscribe to the newsletter.)
Comments
It's hard to say. Many of the simpler theories in the field (Halting problem, Universality of Turing machines) can be proven mathematically, and in theory they all can.
In practice, most of the cutting-edge work follows the same pattern of results as other sciences: from data arise theories which are used to further understanding and collect more data. The scientific process isn't followed quite as rigorously as in other fields, however, as we have a built-in tool to reduce bias - the computer from which we collect data.
One quote that bears repeating by one of the pioneers of the field, Edsger Dijkstra, "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
A famous computer scientist
Posted by: Cecil | March 31, 2008 10:02 AM
It is definitely not a science. You don't have to perform an experiment to answer a hypothesis.
Posted by: Sean | April 2, 2008 2:04 PM