Is Computer Science a Science?

First week’s content on Research Methods in Computer Science, raised on me many questions that I have never thought about before.

Firstly, I never thought about the nature of Science. Maybe this question can take a life to answer. Wikipedia presents Science as knowledge organized and testable predictions, about the universe.

It is a good starting point and it takes me to the second thing that I never really thought about. Tedre (2011) wonders what place Computer Science occupies in the domain of Science. For some scientists it is not a Science at all (like the natural ones), because according to them it deals with theoretical matters in the same way as Mathematics. Further, others say that it is about building things (engineering). Tedre points out that the foremost argument that Computer Scientists use when defending Computer Science is that like other Sciences it uses Scientific Methods. But this argument may not be enough.

I am particularly on the side of the argument that when looked closely enough, Computer Science deals with data, information and knowledge that can be viewed as innate to human beings and universe.

Source

Tedre, M. (2011). Computing as a Science: A Survey of Competing. Minds & Machines, 362-387.