Approaching the Differences Between Natural and Social Sciences

APPROACHING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NATURAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Science is generally understood as an endeavor to understand, explain and predict the world we live in using distinctive methods of enquiry in an attempt to construct theories. It is, however, not easy to find a set of features that define what separates sciences from other areas like fortune telling, etc. Okasha suggests that there are no fixed features defining different disciplines science, however there are some features which are possessed by most of the sciences. Based on some of these features, we will contrast two scientific branches, namely the natural and social sciences. According to authors such as Anzenbacher and Chmielewicz, both of them are real sciences, as opposed to formal sciences, the latter of which solve imaginary problems and include, for instance, mathematics or Theoretical Computer Science. Other authors separate real sciences into further categories such as literary studies or applied sciences, the latter including medicine and engineering. There are a number of similarities between the natural and social sciences, which include the use of similar methods and partly overlapping epistemological and ontological stances, i.e. stances regarding the creation of knowledge and the nature of reality. However, there are also a number of elements that distinguish the two, such as their different origins, subjects of study, and limitations. Following definitions of natural and social sciences, these elements will be contrasted in the following. Natural Sciences: 1. Definition: Ledoux defines natural sciences as „disciplines that deal only with natural events (i.e. independent and dependent variables in nature) using scientific methods“. While the employment of scientific methods is generally regarded as typical but not exclusive of natural sciences, it is the focus on natural events that distinguishes natural from social science. 2. Origin: According to Büchel (1992), the birth of natural science is marked by changing world views introduced by Renaissance thinkers who questioned earlier explanations about the world and turned to more systematic methods of investigation. 3. Subject of study: The aim of the natural sciences is to discover the laws that rule the world. The focus lies hereby on the natural and not on the social world, although the differentiation is not always simple. There are historically three core areas of the natural sciences: chemistry, biology and physics. Nevertheless this is not a final list of research areas, since many other disciplines were later born out of these. As more knowledge is created, more specific questions arise. This leads to the fact that early natural scientists were generalists from today’s perspective, and later specialized in newly emerging disciplines such as astronomy in the beginning, different engineering disciplines later, and rather recently (i.e. in the last century) created fields such as robotics or bionics. 4. Methods: Compared to the social sciences, the natural sciences rely more on mathematically based methods. The reason for this is the more uniform nature of natural sciences and the countability that enables the scientists to apply mathematics. While physics or chemistry rely to a large extend on controlled experimental settings, such settings cannot be created so easily for most investigations in economics or sociology. 5. Philosophical stances: With thinkers including Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, fundamental criticism of natural science approaches has emerged during the 20th century. Before Popper, the way in which knowledge is created was not questioned by most scientists, most of whom adopted an inductive epistemology, in which a finding is regarded as general truth when a sufficient number of

experiments have led to the same outcome. Criticizing this, Popper put forward that a theory cannot be confirmed by induction, but only falsified by a simple observation. Later, Kuhun gave a theory in which he described the paradigm shift. A paradigm consists of a set of fundamental theoretical assumptions and a set of particular scientific problems that have been solved by means of these theoretical assumptions. When a particular paradigm is insufficient to explain a specific scientific problem the paradigm shift takes place. Therefore, a new paradigm explains the scientific problems in a better way. 6. Limitations: Among the most common limitations of natural science research are technical and financial boundaries, both of which have been constantly pushed in history. Technical boundaries are related to the inability to conduct precise measurements. These boundaries have always been research foci themselves, and were pushed through the invention of the telescope, the microscope, the Geiger counter and many other measurement instruments. Social Sciences: 1. Definition: The disciplines of social sciences are viewed as those that deal with “human society, societal groups, individuals in their relationships with others or institutions of societies and material goods as expression of human cohabitation”. This definition shows the difficulty of grasping all aspects of social sciences as opposed to natural sciences, which have a common perspective rather than a common subject of study. The distinction between social and cultural sciences and humanities is controversial.

2. Origin: The social sciences are much younger than the natural sciences. Even though the social interactions in a society have probably been of interest for many centuries, scientific studies of social interactions began as late as during the 19th century with sociological publications including “Suicide” by Émile Durkheim and “Système de politique positive” by Auguste Comte, the latter of which also set stone for a positivist approach to social sciences.

3. Subject of study: In contrast to the natural sciences, the study objects of social sciences can take notice of the forecast of scientists. Subject of study are the phenomena of social interaction and coexistence. Social Sciences can rather be classified by their common perspective then through a specific subject of study. This perspective consists of the understanding and studying of a social aspect of society, a group of people or a single individual.

4. Methods: One of the mainly used methods is the observation, as a social science counterpart of the natural sciences experiment. It is much more difficult to carry out an experiment in social, than in natural sciences. The reason therefore lies in the uncontrollability of social environments. Because of that the measurability of the highly complex social processes is often difficult or sometimes not possible at all. Nevertheless experiments are used in for example in the behavioral economics and social psychology, even though not with the overwhelming success of the natural sciences experiments. Other important methods in social sciences are: Interviews, surveys, case studies.

5. Philosophical stances: In contrast to the natural sciences, there was much more debate about the question of what is acceptable knowledge among social scientists. Therefore, a number of epistemological stances exist, which shall only be introduced very briefly here. Among the first popular stances in the social sciences is the positivist position, which had been advocated by early social scientists like Compte who argued that studies of social reality should apply the same methods as the natural sciences. It was criticized by advocates of interpretivism, who argue that the social reality

cannot be measured in the same way as natural events. Rather, scientists have to aim at grasping the subjective meaning of social actions. This thought is, e.g., reflected in Max Weber’s notion of Verstehen.

6. Limitations: Studies in social sciences are often limited by various factors including the need to base findings on interpretations, the complexity of a field in which single variables cannot be controlled for easily, as well as ethical issues and financial problems. Since the subject of study are social actions which are often motivated by a myriad of factors that may be unknown even to the actors, social scientists who want to make a meaning of their observations will have to interpret their data in order to analyze it.

Quantitative versus qualitative approaches The social as well as the natural sciences increasingly depend on computer aided methods for data analysis. Yet, in social research, scientific progress is less based on ever more precise measurements, as more on better analyses and interpretations of data. This is because the natural sciences usually employ quantitative methods for data collection, whereas in the social sciences quantitative measurements are not necessarily the only standard by which data is acquired. A growing debate about how data should be collected emerged among post-positivist social science thinkers during the second half of the last century, leading to a shift to qualitative approached among many researchers. Other than relying on countable facts, these approaches span the whole spectrum from purely descriptive to strictly analytical ones, in which the underlying questions are always also about the discovery of a subjective reality rather than only observable facts. Conclusion: Among the many branches of science, the natural and the social sciences stand out as two branches with disciplines that have some similarities, but differ strongly, above all, in what they aim to investigate. Commonalities include a number of methods such as experiments and observations, where quantitative methods can be applied for analyses. However, being concerned with the underlying meaning of social interactions, the social sciences rely not only on what might be called exact, mathematical methods, but also on a number of qualitative approaches such as interviews and ethnographies.