Is computer science really a science? Is there any part of the computer science community (academia or otherwise) that is using the scientific method and experimentation?
I think we'd all welcome a new, more accurate term, but no one has really come up with a good one. Maybe Applied Computational Philosophy?
The fatal error in computer science was that it modeled complex systems without truly understanding them. Computers simulated complexity. You might know more or less what was likely to happen. But the causes remained unclear. - Bruce Sterling, The Zenith Angle
I disagree.
Firstly "computer" used to mean the people that did computations, so, that untethers computation from the material doing those computations. And secondly, if you buy into the philosophy of it, computation is all around us, binds us in a way like the force in Star Wars.
But it is called computer science, who / whatever is doing the computation, not computation science, so I'm not sure that (either part of) your response applies.
Actually, I disagree with the grandparent (hence, I suppose, with Sterling) differently: I think that it's rather common to name sciences after gadgets, depending on how flexible you are about what is called 'science'. The first example that came to mind, just because I have a colleague who works on it, is cryo-electon microscopy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryo-electron_microscopy). It's fair to argue whether that's really a 'science' as opposed to just a 'technique', but I'm confident that there are other examples that are more clearly 'sciences'.
And yet, mechanical, civil, chemical, and electrical engineers have made great strides without such understanding, in fields where it is truly impossible to fully understand or model the forces at work, the materials in play, the structures in shape, or the physics in motion.
They manage to get by on approximations, so that's not it.
Computer science is about as useful a term as polymorphism (borrowed from biology). It serves to put lipstick on a pig.
Mechanics?
Its a nice quote, but science is all about modeling complex systems as a way of understanding them...arguably, human "understanding" of systems is just modeling of them.
I agree that the term is used too broadly. I don't regard myself as a "Computer Scientist". I'd argue that "Software Engineer" is another term that is too loosely applied, although it does have a definition.
What if the science of physics started with the Grand Unified Theory, knowing what the fundamental properties & rules of the universe were? would it still be science as we then worked from both ends of knowledge (basics up and complexity down)? how then would it be different from "computer science", where we start both with the basics (0, 1, NOR) and from the complexity of the behavior we see & desire, working both toward the middle for it all to come together and function?
I'd say yes, and this article is representative of my thinking on the subject (easier than trying to write an essay in a HN comment).
You can argue that they're both not sciences, but not in the same sense.
If you have any doubts please browse a few back issues of 'Communications of the ACM'.
If so, do those methodologies in physics also stop being "science" and start being a tool as well?
If you use a Bunsen burner in a method according to the scientific method, does it count as "science"? Or is it just setting fire to things?
Not sure where you're drawing the boundaries. Science is done with tools and methods, and mathematics is one of the most important tools of science, used to define some of the most important methodologies.