Week 1 Discussion — Is Political Science a Science?

Hook

A chemist can repeat an experiment a thousand times; a political scientist studying a revolution gets one revolution. This week you learned the field's toolkit and its central distinction between empirical and normative claims, and that raises a question political scientists still argue about among themselves.

Your driving question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: Is political science a science? Take a position, support it with at least one reason drawn from this week's ideas (checkable claims, rules of evidence, the comparative method, or the empirical/normative distinction), and then state the strongest case for the other side as fairly as its best defender would. What would change your mind?

Option B: Pick one question you care about from your campus, workplace, or community (not a current election, candidate, or officeholder). Is it mainly empirical, mainly normative, or both? Argue whether political science's methods could answer it, and say what your answer suggests about whether the field deserves the name science.

There is no single right answer. Proponents and critics both have strong arguments, and the same question can look scientific from one angle and philosophical from another.

Expectations

Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.

There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.

Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:

1. Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
2. Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
3. Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
4. Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 1 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

No replies to classmates are required.

Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.

Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. Do not ask a chatbot to invent a study, a statistic, or a quotation for you; if you mention a fact, say where it came from, and keep living politicians and current campaigns out of your examples.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory political science
course. Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question
below. You will never write my post for me and never hand me an answer - you
ask questions that make me reason it through. Never invent a statistic, a
study, a court case, or a quotation. Never name a living politician or a
current officeholder, and never take a side on a live partisan question.

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
Option A: Is political science a science? I take a position, support it with
at least one reason drawn from this week's ideas (checkable claims, rules of
evidence, the comparative method, or the empirical/normative distinction),
and then state the strongest case for the other side as fairly as its best
defender would. What would change my mind?
Option B: I pick one question I care about from my campus, workplace, or
community (not a current election, candidate, or officeholder). Is it mainly
empirical, mainly normative, or both? I argue whether political science's
methods could answer it, and say what my answer suggests about whether the
field deserves the name science.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I tell an empirical claim (about what is, checkable, able to be
  found false) from a normative claim (about what ought to be, argued from
  values), and sort by kind rather than topic
- whether I avoid treating "empirical" as "true" and "normative" as "mere
  opinion"
- whether I can state the proponents' case (checkable claims, shared rules of
  evidence, comparison where experiments are impossible) and the critics'
  case (people react to being studied, few cases, values resist evidence) at
  full strength
- whether I notice when I am smuggling an ought into a statement of fact
- whether I can say what evidence or argument would change my mind

DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every answer "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint from the side I did not take. Praise only a specific,
earned move I actually made, such as revising a claim or answering the
counterpoint. Never accept a one-word answer - ask again, differently. Never
lecture, and keep both sides of the question open for me to weigh. Every message
you send before the summary ends with a question.

EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word answer is not a substantive exchange.

THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
  1. STUDENT NAME
  2. POSITION
  3. REASON
  4. EXAMPLE
  5. COURSE CONCEPTS
  6. COUNTERPOINT
  7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
  8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 1 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — telling empirical claims from normative ones, using this week's toolkit, and stating the strongest opposing view fairly — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.

What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:

1. Your position (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. For Option A, say whether political science is a science and give at least one reason from this week's ideas. For Option B, name your question, say whether it is mainly empirical, mainly normative, or both, and argue whether the field's methods could answer it. Use this week's terms (empirical claim, normative claim, political science, comparative method, smuggling, shrugging) correctly.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best argument against your own position that you can — the proponents' case if you sided with the critics, or the critics' case if you sided with the proponents. Argue it honestly; a weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it — saying what would change your mind is worth more than defending everything.
4. One thing you would still check (one or two sentences). What evidence or argument would settle it for you?

Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.

What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 1 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.

No replies to classmates are required.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.

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