How relevant are political science studies?

Senator Tom Coburn wants the National Science Foundation to stop wasting the federal research dollars it receives from the government on political science studies.  Not surprisingly, many political scientists are vehemently opposed to this cut off in funding, pointing to current Nobel Prize winner, Elinor Ostrom as a case in point.  Ostrom frequently received federal funds through the National Science Foundation.

However, others in the field agree that a lot of studies being done and federally funded have little public benefit and are, just plain junk food political science.  Easy to take in, but of little import.

Senator Coburn believes money given to the National Science Foundation should not be used for things like "What impact does YouTube have on elections, but rather be used for cancer research and other hard science, the very things for which the NSF was created.   

We are living in an age when there are way too many studies, most just plain silly, paid for through federal grant monies or commercial/special interests looking for a way to sell their product or point of view.  Too many end up with conclusions that most of us would consider "obvious".  Take this one for example.

 Or how about this one?

What would we do without studies?   

Comments

[Mark]

Ouch! My degree is in Political Science and I have to admit that there is a lot of junk out there. However, there is some useful purpose to bringing rigor to the study of such things as better ballot design, deviation among polling place accessibility and how about fair redistricting.

Perhaps it is the process that junk gets funded and not social science itself that is flawed.

[Eric M.]

My degree is also in political science. When promoting myself in the business world, I describe it simply as a liberal arts degree. The problem with that is all the "science" I was forced to imbibe from would-be scientists studying human behavior in the realm of politics. It didn't leave a lot of time for the classics.

The study of political "science" may be (at times) perfectly valid. Funding it from the public trough is not, simply because the government is not, cannot be, and must not become, the arbiter of what is worthy of scientific or academic scrutiny. And, in my mind, the same would ring true for any other social science.

[Term papers]

Nice Article but sorry i dont like politics as much as you..!

[Small Business News]

I think study of the political science may have perfectly..
simply because the government worthy of scientific academic to others social science ..
Thanks that's great :)

[College Term Papers]

Thanks for this info, this issue has been bugging me like crazy for the last couple of days :)