Genealogy - art or science or a mixture of both? Or neither?

After I thought about the relationship of genealogy as a discipline to
either art or science, I decided to look online and see what was there.
To my surprise (not really) it turns out that the subject is not widely
discussed. I did find one Blog post on the subject called "Genealogy is an Art"
from the year 2000. Right out of the chute, I must say that I disagree
with this Blogger's assessment. Although genealogy, in my opinion, is
not an art, it is only partially a science. What is certain is that
genealogy can only overcome its inherent limitations as a discipline to
the extent that its methodology becomes scientific.

One of the main challenges of genealogy as a serious pursuit originates
in the failure of many, perhaps most, of its adherents to follow any
sort of rigorous methodology. Genealogy should be considered a branch of
History (with a capital "H"). But it is notable that there is only the
most tenuous connection between the mainstream of historical research
and genealogy as a discipline. There are a mere handful of schools and
only one university that award degrees in genealogy. There are two
four-year programs, one at the Heritage Genealogy College,
a privately operated school in Salt Lake City, Utah and Brigham Young
University, in Provo, Utah. Other schools offer associate degrees and
class credit.

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