Comments on Which sciences are welcome?
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Which sciences are welcome?
A now-deleted question involved archaeology, linguistics, and history. There were some downvotes and critical comments, and the author deleted the question. I don't know whether the downvotes were because of the scope or for other reasons, but it sent me to the FAQ to see what we say about our scope, and it talks about science broadly.
I'm wondering if we have some people who think this community is about hard sciences and others who think it's about any sciences. I've been assuming the latter, but I don't see where we actually say so, and perhaps I've misunderstood.
Which sciences are in scope?
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That question was off topic for two reasons:
- There was no speculation. Paraphrasing loosely, this site is about "what if" questions with a foundation in science.
- It was about history. This is not what was envisioned by scientific speculation. Historical speculation is a very different field that we don't want to get into because there is usually no way to judge the results of making minor changes to history. There are so many possible outcomes, that you can usually construct a scenario for any result you like.
The problem with speculation about history is that you can't use the laws of physics and other sciences to judge what would happen. You are dealing with how human beings might have reacted to hypothetical situations. This only leads to pointless arguments about how plausible one reaction is versus another, which can never be settled. We don't want to go down this rathole.
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