<p>Of course computer scientists are scientists, by any definition of the word. Take the wiki definition: the broad “one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge” (most definitely true) or the more narrow “an individual who uses the scientific method” (also true). As the wiki article notes, “Scientists are also distinct from engineers, those who develop devices that serve practical purposes,” which is an important point. Yes, some CS practitioners have the goal of developing more practical devices (just like physicists, chemists, and every other scientist), but a large portion (if not the majority) don’t share that goal necessarily. CS is an extremely broad field, with subfields from the theory of computation to databases to systems to artificial intelligence. Each of these has theoretical foundations, as well as applied ones, and researchers in the field can engage in either or both. Anyone who thinks that computer scientists are just glorified engineers don’t know what CS is.</p>
<p>Some might be seeing CS as “less legitimate” than physics for this reason: physics is one of the natural sciences, which is what most people think of when they think “science,” whereas CS is one of the formal sciences, which include mathematics, logic, and statistics. The difference between the two is captured in one of Einstein’s quotes:</p>
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<p>This applies to computer science as well. We know, provably, that some things are not computable (computability); that some processes are intractable (complexity); that parallelism is often the only solution; that X amount of information can be captured by at minimum Y data (information theory); and so on. Both physicists and computer scientists are attempting to seek truth and acquire knowledge; the former looks to the natural world (or if you’re a string theorist, your buttocks :p), the latter to the mathematical structures (broadly construed) that we already know, in many cases using computers as a platform for experimentation.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to say that one field is more important than another. But if we’re looking only at the effects on the world, physics can’t compare. Computers have changed the course of civilization forever. Physics, too, will likely have long-lasting effects, but in terms of what each field has contributed, I don’t think 400 years of physics research can match what CS has done in the past 50.</p>
<p>Of all the sciences, physics is always seen as the “most probing” for asking the most fundamental questions about the physical world, but math and all its subfields, including CS, ask even more fundamental questions, independent of the physical world. This perception of physics is very common; one computer scientist, who works in AI, told a story about an awards ceremony for the Benjamin Franklin Medal (given to scientists in all fields):</p>
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<p>But by the same token, everything (including your brain) is a computational process. In fact, one theory of the physical universe is that it’s one big computer, and the laws of physics are simply “necessary algorithms.” In this view, everything is a computational (even deterministic) process, and physics itself is attempting to figure out what that process is. You can look up “computational universe theory” and “mathematical universe hypothesis.”</p>
<p>It’s important to note, also, that the majority of physics today employs computational methods, and much of it uses only such methods. For example, the LHC would be useless without the enormous parallel-distributed computing that processes the data it produces; this computing is the result of decades of research in CS. So physicists owe computer scientists quite a lot.</p>
<p>IMO physicists are just mad that their research costs millions or billions of dollars whereas computer scientists can buy their equipment for $300 at Best Buy. ;)</p>