Are Natural Sciences more Reliable than Social Sciences - Essay Example

Reliability of Natural Sciences as Compared to Social Sciences Introduction Scientific knowledge represents the natural globe. What people learn in scientific disciplines is an element of the representation. This moderately typical articulation of the concept of scientific understanding has a link with the natural sciences. The natural world is mysterious and complex, and natural scientists know the challenges that are involved in arriving at dependable scientific solutions to the issues they address. The society and mankind are considerably more unpredictable and complex. Therefore, only those adopting an all-round explanatory doctrine would at the present still uphold the 19th century scientific perspective that social and human phenomena observe natural laws which can be determined and applied to assist the society together with its traditionally pre-ordained path. Nevertheless, serious modern social scientists may legitimately assert that, they are all as scientific as their natural science contemporaries in their method and approach (Lislie 1985, p.19). This paper will provide a discussion on whether natural sciences are more dependable as compared to social sciences. Reliability of social sciences In natural sciences, developing a theory is a procedure whereby numerous facts are grouped into theoretical constructs which aim at effective prediction and still are potentially falsifiable through subsequent observation, as stated in the principle of Karl Popper. Social sciences and natural sciences have some general theories in common. The theories include; the dominance of logical way of thinking, and the assumption that a rational and intelligible outer world exists. In this respect, the natural sciences are at par with the social sciences (Lislie 1985, p.19). According to Rosenberg (2012, p.10), natural sciences do not have the type of increasing progress and reliability given to them. This is because; they normally take advantage of science accounts that were advanced in Kuhn’s work, which after its publication, has been at the top of regularly cited social scientists’ work on method. A bigger percentage of the social science’s work infer Kuhn as maintaining that, rather than through progress, scientific account starting from Einstein to Aristotle is typified by a series of theories, change, and paradigms which substitute one another devoid of any improvements on their precursors. The lack of improvements is due to the fact that, they comprise of irreconcilably varied conceptual structures, and correct translation amid them is unattainable. Impartial basis for translation is lacking, no theory-free words to explain observations which would enable the scientists to compare hypotheses for analytical success. Hence, the argument that natural sciences are more reliable and portrays continuous improvements in analytical success is controversial, for any of such alleged expressions solicits the query against theories which have been superseded. Moreover, the reliability of social sciences is supported by the claim that, natural sciences intend to primarily provide causal theories regarding underlying mechanisms, while social sciences aim at seeking a comprehension of behaviour through making it logical. They reveal its significance or meaning. The understanding of human conduct which enables people to comprehend it better is not basically causal, and it is also not provided through the invention of generalizations or laws of any appealing sorts. Unlike natural sciences, social sciences have a specific stopping place, which is intelligibility. The latter associate themselves with the aspect of human conduct that is ordinarily depicted as action rather than mere movements at or of the body surface. Speech, suicide and jumping are some of the topics of given social sciences, and those that fail to address individual action, talks about its consequences as well as its accumulation into large-scale institutions and events. In this case, it is clear that social sciences revolve around human behaviour and the society (Rosenberg 2012, p.11). Machlup (1988, p.60) further says that, the people who maintain that natural sciences are more exact as compared to social sciences have a partial understanding of both of them, as well as an indistinct idea of what is meant by exactness. Different people have different definitions of exactness most of which are not valid. Based on intellectual history, exactness implies the likelihood of developing a theoretical scheme of idealized forms having abstract creations of variables and links amid variables, from where most or every proposition concerning certain connections may be deduced. This kind of systems is not present in a number of natural sciences such as areas of biology, whereas they are present in at minimum one social science like economics. From this argument, social sciences cannot be said to be inferior to natural sciences. Inferiority of social sciences Drawing from Lislie (1985, p.19), social sciences lack two essential aspects of natural sciences namely; experimentation and feedback to society from science. Social scientists are not in a position to experiment through replication of phenomena and verification that similar causes in similar situations produce similar results. They are also not able to observe regularities like in astronomy and based on the principles of astrophysics; correctly predict recurrence like the return of Halley’s Comet in a particular point of time and space. At best, social scientists can observe certain phenomena which neither of them depicts similarities in situations that are certainly not identical, but have many features in common. From a repetition of similar studies, stochastic function can be developed with some analytical capacity. This probabilistic temperament of social sciences is very far from natural sciences’ positivistic picture. Social sciences are also offset from natural sciences by the fact that, the theoretical constructs of the later have a response impact on the community that they seek out to represent. Though far from becoming a society’s mirror-image, however social scientific society and mankind theories such as Freudianism and Darwinism form part of the cultural setting where individuals are nurtured, thus changing their mind-sets, values and behaviour, gradually creating new social links. The predictive worth of these theories cancels itself because; if individuals sense they are manipulated through theories, there is a likelihood of self-protection thereby nullifying what such theories tried to predict. Inanimate nature does not in any way react in a similar way to manipulations made by natural scientists. Sometimes living things do react, but biologists are very aware that viruses and pests get used to and endure substances designed to eliminate them (Lislie 1985, p.20). Yang (2012, p.62) maintains that, undergraduates of liberal arts tend to see the social sciences or humanities’ epistemology as more difficult as compared to the natural sciences’ one. They perceive understanding in the natural sciences as mainly realistic and having less to do with the evaluative assessment that is found in social sciences and humanities. Thus, if teachers continue relying on outdated modes of teaching such students, there is no assurance that teaching will necessarily thrive in conforming to the objectives of a really liberal education. Furthermore, the reliability of natural sciences is seen in the sense that, they have given gradually more reliable knowledge regarding the physical universe since the 17th century. From accurate predictions of planets’ positions, natural scientists have continued to integrated elucidation of chemical substances’ properties and comprehensive classification of molecular life’s biology. On top of methodical explanation and accurate prediction, natural scientists have given an accelerating use of technologies in controlling characteristics of the innate world. This type of sustained and actually accumulating expansion of knowledge and use appears to be lacking in ht e human behaviour’s sciences. In different social sciences, there appears to be times where advancement to cumulating knowhow has been attained like in Adam Smith’s work, Wealth of Nations. However, successive developments have certainly not confirmed such evaluations. Therefore, the conclusion is that, there is something missing in social sciences, may be their methods are not sufficiently scientific. They ought to adopt techniques that more effectively uncover laws, which may be developed in the laws’ direction, which may be joined in theories which elucidate them along with their exceptions (Rosenberg 2012, p.6). Machlup (1988, p.57) further asserts that, natural sciences and social sciences are contrasted and compared on a number of scores and their discussions are habitually unsystematic. One of such scores is invariability of observations. It is not possible to have too much science unless recurrence of phenomena occurs. A number of conditions and factors are naturally invariant but social phenomena are variable. Such a claim is not reasonable; neither does it set out the central matter that natural features give more invariance as compared to social phenomena. However, the main disparity lies in the amount of factors that are taken into consideration in predictions and explanations of social and natural events. Explanation of social events considers more factors than that of natural events. Conclusion The reliability of social sciences is at par with that of natural sciences when it comes to things like the dominance of logical way of thinking, and the assumption that a rational and intelligible outer world exists. Social sciences are also reliable in giving a better understanding of human behaviour. However, natural sciences are considered more reliable as compared to social sciences in that, they involve carrying out of experiments and gives feedback to society. Also, the theoretical constructs of natural sciences impact their community. Natural sciences are also reliable in teaching because they are realistic and have less evaluative assessment. References Lislie, EA 1985, Validation in the social sciences by international comparison, International Social Science Journal, 37(103), pp. 19-29. Machlup, F 1988, Are the Social Sciences Really Inferior? Society, 25(4), pp. 57-65. Rosenberg, A 2012, Why a Philosophy of Social Science? [Online] Available at: http://faculty.washington.edu/lynnhank/pss.pdf [Accessed 20 November 2012]. Yang, AS 2012, Science as a Matter of (Liberal) Art, Liberal Education, 98(2), pp. 60-63. Read More