How does a social science differ from a natural science?

[Masha]

Multiple times I have debated with people who are professionally natural scientists (biologists and a physicist), and they have very little respect for the social sciences. They think that the social sciences are placeholders, as is philosophy too, for when we have a more technical, hard-boiled way of dealing with social problems.

They will, somewhat grudgingly, agree that morality is (said with other words) "sacred", and that there is a space that "real" science theoretically should/can not touch.

Anyone know a good resource that lays this dichotomy bare, in a way that would undermine such natural scientific chauvinism, or have an answer to this question yourself?

[GiantMonkeyMan]

There's an assumption in science that if you repeat the same steps then you will achieve the same results. If you add a measured amount of acid to a base you get a predictable amount of salt and water, you need to apply X amount of force to overcome the inertia of object Y etc. In contrast, social sciences can often be interpretive with no two case studies ever being the same. But what links them both as sciences is not the results but rather the methodology used to gather those results. I know there are essays and books written about the similarities and differences in the two but I can't off the top of my head remember any.

[Alet]

They will, somewhat grudgingly, agree that morality is (said with other words) "sacred", and that there is a space that "real" science theoretically should/can not touch.

This reminds me of those Christians (Muslims, etc.) who argue that science and religion are totally compatible, insofar as "science answers different questions than religion does". I'm afraid you won't be able to convince them because this is essentially an ideological matter. They have no reason to understand the social domain scientifically, on the contrary they have many reasons to interpret it on the level of superstition and leave it unquestioned. Their common sentiment is, therefore, that humans are "just too complex" to understand them, although the very same people ironically get enthusiastic about pseudo-scientific fields like evolutionary psychology and so on. Of course, this is a disgusting position. Like every science, the social sciences are constituted by their practical use. One cannot prove their scientific nature, one can only believe in it, and must believe in it, as it relates to one's partisanship in social controversies. Remember that Lenin said that there are no unbiased social sciences in class societies.

The contempt for social sciences as opposed to natural sciences is laughable. It implies the notion that science is about observing "the irrefutable truths" and predicting phenomena on the basis of "the laws". They fail to see that there are no neutral observations for the simple and banal reason that we are all humans, who happen to be engaged in social controversies. We can only assess objective processes in relation to our consciousness, which is constituted by a set of ideological axioms. Social sciences, historical materialism in particular, were never about simply observing processes that are outside of our control, they were never about predicting inevitable results. Instead, dealing with social controversies requires an active agency in these antagonisms. Nothing about the social domain is inevitable. This doesn't mean that social sciences are unscientific, quite the contrary, the point is to make the social domain knowable in order to change it. We want to have an influence on social processes, that's why social sciences are of use to us. Fuck what the natural scientists say, we don't need their respect.

[RedMaterialist]

Multiple times I have debated with people who are professionally natural scientists (biologists and a physicist), and they have very little respect for the social sciences.

Tell them social sciences deal with the social and political revolutions which will completely overturn their neatly arranged pre-conceptions about social reality. But tell them not to worry, when they wake up and find the dictatorial proletarian government in charge, they can still study DNA and gravity waves.

[Luís Henrique]

Multiple times I have debated with people who are professionally natural scientists (biologists and a physicist), and they have very little respect for the social sciences. They think that the social sciences are placeholders, as is philosophy too, for when we have a more technical, hard-boiled way of dealing with social problems.

They will, somewhat grudgingly, agree that morality is (said with other words) "sacred", and that there is a space that "real" science theoretically should/can not touch.

Anyone know a good resource that lays this dichotomy bare, in a way that would undermine such natural scientific chauvinism, or have an answer to this question yourself?

There are several different natural sciences, as well as several different social sciences.

Paleontology and geology are natural sciences, but they cannot rely on repeatable laboratory experiments. Quantum physics is a natural science, but it needs to realise that observation interferes withe the observed phenomena. Medicine is a natural science, but it deals with phenomena such as "placebo", which cannot be contained within the idea of "objectivity".

So, different sciences need different methods. Even if they are different natural sciences.

Now, it is true that social sciences are belated and disavantaged when compared with natural sciences. And that there even are social scientists who despair and declare that social sciences are not science, after all. But if ever they become more advanced, it will be not by skirting the necessary differences in their methods, and reducing them to some kind of "social physics" (like Comte proposed) or social physiology or social ecology, or even social evolutionary biology (such as Dawkins "memetics", for instance).

Luís Henrique

[Alan OldStudent]

Multiple times I have debated with people who are professionally natural scientists (biologists and a physicist), and they have very little respect for the social sciences. They think that the social sciences are placeholders, as is philosophy too, for when we have a more technical, hard-boiled way of dealing with social problems.

They will, somewhat grudgingly, agree that morality is (said with other words) "sacred", and that there is a space that "real" science theoretically should/can not touch.

Anyone know a good resource that lays this dichotomy bare, in a way that would undermine such natural scientific chauvinism, or have an answer to this question yourself?

Start out by asking them what "science" is. It sounds to me like they may have a rather rigid definition that they themselves have never questioned. Without some common terminology, the conversation will go nowhere.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Multiple times I have debated with people who are professionally natural scientists (biologists and a physicist), and they have very little respect for the social sciences. They think that the social sciences are placeholders, as is philosophy too, for when we have a more technical, hard-boiled way of dealing with social problems.

They will, somewhat grudgingly, agree that morality is (said with other words) "sacred", and that there is a space that "real" science theoretically should/can not touch.

Anyone know a good resource that lays this dichotomy bare, in a way that would undermine such natural scientific chauvinism, or have an answer to this question yourself?

The biggest difference between "social" and "natural" science is that in social science, the object of study is also itself a subject (or collection of subjects). This has a number of implications, but none of which do away with their usefulness or legitimacy. Humans differ depending on social conditions, and social science itself changes the social conditions under which the science takes place. A photon does not change depending on what society, time period, class, gender etc it is, and it is certainly not aware that it is being studied (let alone gains some kind of self knowledge from these studies). I think this is a problem for natural scientists, who in their fields of study are usually looking for objects which have persistent properties that respond to specific causes in specific ways (a photon, an atom, a molecule or a cell). I don't think that social science is flawed because of this, but I think this fact nonetheless creates anxieties for the naturalistic scientist. It also seems to create anxieties for many social scientists who want their work to replicate the form of "hard" science.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Anyone know a good resource that lays this dichotomy bare, in a way that would undermine such natural scientific chauvinism, or have an answer to this question yourself?

There is a difference in that some things can be isolated and tested, but when it comes to the science of history or studying aspects of society, it is difficult to test theories in the same way because it's not like you can recreate certain historical trends or developments or isolate out the variables in the same way as some things in basic "hard science".

There is also a lot of mechanical materialism in the natural sciences. Things like giving biological explanations for relatively recent phenomena or social behaviors is probably going to be looked at by future generations they way that eugenics is looked at by most people today.

But there is a bigger issue too of the way that bourgeois ideology relates to the natural world and the study of it. The whole concept of sciences being broken down into seemingly distinct things is pretty modern and developed with industrial capitalism. There's a practical bourgeois function of this - the separation from those who study and those who have to power to put scientific study into motion comes out of bourgeois social and class divisions... doers, thinkers, and the owners who employ them both. So just as labor is broken down into smaller parts so that the capitalists can maintain ownership of the total production process while workers only have influence over a small incomplete section (as individuals... compared to artisans or craftspeople), breaking scientific inquiry into bits also helps focus "study for the sake of knowledge" into bits that have practical uses for capital. An environmental scientist is not involved in engineering the machines that impact the environment... these are separate fields and they might consult with each other but most of their work is isolated as professions or areas of study when in real life both are connected. The state or university might employ the environmental scientist and private companies employ the practical scientist and the professions are treated as separate and if the engineer brought up environmental concerns it's something outside their function and not part of their mandate as an employee of a university or company.

The ideological function is also to create a buffer between areas of study and to represent a view of the world where there is no "totality" - there are many discreet areas of study that don't overlap - as if Economics has no effect on Sociology even though all societies must have some kind of economic engine in order to reproduce themselves and this informs how people interact with each other on a social level. A geologist studies the earth and can do so in a "pure-science" way while ignoring the economic uses and ramifications (and probably what petrol or mining interests are funding that university department or research team). No matter what conclusions come from the "pure" scientific research, because capital still has the power to utilize that research or ignore it, policy and the use of knowledge is safely buffered from the results of study.

This sort of division of areas of study also de-fangs social sciences because studying social phenomena in a kind of artificial isolation can only give small glimpses or slivers of insight at best. At worst it's used to obfuscate the actual functioning of things and becomes an apology for the status-quo. Studying human behavior as if the only factors are biology leads to all sorts of bad science.

Academic science is probably much more inter-diciplinary than I am making it sound here, I am using broad-strokes. But it doesn't matter how big-view science might be because the practical effects of study are still controlled by the relations of capital. This is how every scientist can be convinced that human-made environmental change is a huge issue, but it doesn't matter in real terms because they have no economic or political power.

Marx may have talked about some of this - his attempts at "scientific socialism" are basically an attempt to re-connect study of society/politics with history and economy (like earlier bourgeois-scientists did). And so maybe there are some things about this in John Bellamy Foster's books - but I haven't read them. I read "A People's History of Science" which talks a lot about the development of science in capitalism... but it's been a while so I don't remember any specifics. A lot of what I remember from it is about how knowledge was stripped from the (pesant/artisan) population and centralized in bourgeois academies as the process of the population loosing access to the commons and more individual production as they were transformed into the working class and capitalist took control over how and what to produce.

[ckaihatsu]

I find that most problems regarding the social sciences, and all scientific investigations in general, are due to a certain steadfast obliviousness regarding matters of *scale* -- for example we wouldn't find the institution of 'private property' within the domain of *psychology* since institutions are by definition at the mass, *social* scale, and not at the *individual* scale.

Fortunately this aspect is addressed and shown here:

The branches of science (also referred to as "sciences", "scientific fields", or "scientific disciplines") are commonly divided into four major groups: natural sciences, which study natural phenomena (including fundamental forces and biological life), formal sciences (such as mathematics and logic, which use an a priori, as opposed to factual, methodology), social sciences, which study human behavior and societies,[1] and applied sciences, which apply existing scientific knowledge to develop more practical applications, like technology or inventions.

Natural and social sciences are empirical sciences, meaning that the knowledge must be based on observable phenomena and must be capable of being verified by other researchers working under the same conditions.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branches_of_science

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Academia often has trouble with 'active' (self-initiated, 'spontaneous') roles within its models, and it should be apparent to any student that the regular academic treatment is to make *fixed* categories that are then only subject to *other* components in the model -- more like hard science, in other words.

The very existence of individual self-awareness and active roles in society (as from one's consideration of political philosophy) is *very* problematic for any strictly 'hard science' mindset that would prefer to just see everything on a naturalistic unimpeachable 'autopilot', from 'God' forward.

Adding to this character is the fact that the *institution* of science feels less threatened when it can explain developments in terms of known quantities that are already 'validated' and referenced in its pre-existing models -- events like revolts and revolutions from the bottom-up can't be readily explained in terms of the status-quo, or what we're used to seeing 'naturalistically'.

Also, a consistent shortfall is that the social sciences (besides economics of course) tend to not consider matters of *material* -- as in production and consumption, and any and all possible approaches to such, for the good of society and for the individual.


And:


History, Macro-Micro -- politics-logistics-lifestyle

Worldview Diagram

[Masha]

Wow, there have been some fantastic replies in this thread! I want to write a longer follow-up post soon, but I don't have time right now. In the meantime, thanks for all the great replies!

[ckaihatsu]

Yup -- forgot to include the following graphic, which *explicitly* situates 'social science' within an overall *paradigmatic* context (meaning that the whole 'paradigm' is applicable to any historical / societal treatment).

(And, given the placement of 'social science' *within* larger (objective)(empirical) 'science', while itself relatively *greater* than any given 'cooperation/competition', one can readily see why 'social science' easily lends itself to the prevailing, dominant worldview for any particular society / civilization.)


Humanities - Technology Chart 3.0

Humanities-Technology Chart 2.0

[Masha]

The consensus here seems to be that the social sciences differ from the natural sciences in the following ways:

· “The biggest difference between “social” and “natural” science is that in social science, the object of study is also itself a subject (or collection of subjects).” (SCM)
o “Humans differ depending on social conditions, and social science itself changes the social conditions under which the science takes place.” (SCM)

· “[M]ost problems regarding the social sciences, and all scientific investigations in general, are due to a certain steadfast obliviousness regarding matters of *scale* -- for example we wouldn’t find the institution of ‘private property’ within the domain of *psychology* since institutions are by definition at the mass, *social* scale, and not at the *individual* scale.” (Ckaihatsu)

· Methodology
o How they gather results.
o The “social sciences are belated and disadvantaged when compared with natural sciences” (Luis Henrique)
o “There is a difference in that some things can be isolated and tested, but when it comes to the science of history or studying aspects of society, it is difficult to test theories in the same way because it’s not like you can recreate certain historical trends or developments or isolate out the variables in the same way as some things in basic “hard science”.” (Jimmie Higgins)

· The “social sciences can often be interpretive with no two case studies ever being the same”, while with natural sciences, “if you repeat the same steps then you will achieve the same results” (GiantMonkeyMan).

· “There is also a lot of mechanical materialism in the natural sciences. Things like giving biological explanations for relatively recent phenomena or social behaviors are probably going to be looked at by future generations the way that eugenics is looked at by most people today.” (Jimmie Higgins)

· Goals
o The social sciences are about understanding and influence social phenomenon.
o The natural sciences are about understanding and influence natural phenomenon.

· Object of Study
o [Natural scientists are] “usually looking for objects which have persistent properties that respond to specific causes in specific ways (a photon, an atom, a molecule or a cell).” (SCM)

And most commenters also agree that:

1) “Natural and social sciences are empirical sciences, meaning that the knowledge must be based on observable phenomena and must be capable of being verified by other researchers working under the same conditions” (Wikipedia)

2) The idea of science being about finding ultimate truth is just as ridiculous as philosophers looking for first causes.

3) The reasons why people might have a strong distinction between natural and social sciences, with a hefty dismissiveness towards the social sciences, is by and large ideological.
a. This ideological belief structure emerges from false consciousness, which exists to make people feel secure and to repress responsibility for the state of the society they are subjects of.
b. You cannot directly talk people out of their ideological beliefs. You can only plant a seed and move on.
c. “One cannot prove their scientific nature, one can only believe in it, and must believe in it, as it relates to one’s partisanship in social controversies.” (Alet)
d. Agreeing on the meaning of the term “science” would be a good first step to planting that seed. “[T]hey may have a rather rigid definition that they themselves have never questioned. Without some common terminology, the conversation will go nowhere.” (Alan Oldstudent)
e. “The *institution* of science feels less threatened when it can explain developments in terms of known quantities that are already ‘validated’ and referenced in its pre-existing models -- events like revolts and revolutions from the bottom-up can’t be readily explained in terms of the status-quo, or what we’re used to seeing ‘naturalistically’.” (Ckaihatsu)
f. Philosophical idealism in academic social sciences is common.
i. “‘[S]ocial science’ easily lends itself to the prevailing, dominant worldview for any particular society / civilization.)” (Ckaihatsu)

4) Every science is constituted by their practical use.

5) “It implies the notion that science is about observing “the irrefutable truths” and predicting phenomena on the basis of “the laws”. They fail to see that there are no neutral observations for the simple and banal reason that we are all humans, who happen to be engaged in social controversies. We can only assess objective processes in relation to our consciousness, which is constituted by a set of ideological axioms.” (Alet)

6) The main failure people who hold this belief make is they fail to deal with social controversies with an active agency, instead deferring to the authority of the repeatability and solidly depoliticized nature of the natural sciences.
a. In doing so, they typically project the standards of natural sciences onto other sciences.

7) There isn’t even methodological consistency within the natural sciences, let alone the social sciences.
a. E.g. “Paleontology and geology are natural sciences, but they cannot rely on repeatable laboratory experiments. Quantum physics is a natural science, but it needs to realize that observation interferes with the observed phenomena. Medicine is a natural science, but it deals with phenomena such as “placebo”, which cannot be contained within the idea of “objectivity”.” (Luis Henrique)

8) “[T]hey *may* have a rather rigid definition that they themselves have never questioned. Without some common terminology, the conversation will go nowhere.” (Alan Oldstudent)

9) There is a political purpose to hyper-specialized disconnectedness of sciences in modern capitalism.
a. To depoliticize it (though of course, it still remains essentially political in nature, now most people don’t see it that way).
b. To absolve bourgeois scientists of the guilt for their active participation in the perpetuation of class society.
c. To use “pure”, “objective truths”, to transform society in terms of the ruling ideology.
d. Understanding the relationship between politics, economics, psychology, etc. is essential for having an authentically, non-fragmentary scientific worldview.

10) “The very existence of individual self-awareness and active roles in society (as from one’s consideration of political philosophy) is *very* problematic for any strictly ‘hard science’ mindset that would prefer to just see everything on a naturalistic unimpeachable ‘autopilot’, from ‘God’ forward.” (Ckaihatsu)

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Great comments, everyone. I feel like I have a lot better understanding of the difference between different domains of science, as well the importance of understanding the inter-relatedness and practicality (contingent upon the material conditions of a society, which exists historically) of categorically distinct sciences.

Thanks again!