Should the social sciences actually be called 'sciences'?

[Sideroxylon]

We do make a mistake if we think that all socially constructed terms /definitions will cleanly separate out everything in the world into convinient little chunks. The best thing we can hope for is to provides degree of utility in our definitions but be content with that.

 

[Trakar]

Then what was your point? So called physical sciences have research limits. Some human research has limits. What's the point of your post?

I was disagreeing with those who stated that social sciences (and apparently several of the medical sciences) are not sciences. These adhere to scientific principles and practices in the all major areas of their study of their focal topic. They are scientific in their gathering and collection of observations. They are scientific in the analysis of those observations. They are scientific in the peer review, categorization and constant retrial and replication demanded by those who seek to improve or modify the established body of knowledge. These alone, to my considerations are more than sufficient to categorize these areas of research as sciences. The only areas, I perceive where there is any difference between these sciences and many of physical sciences, are the few areas where ethical considerations generally keep us from performing human subject research and experimentation. Again this does not limit or restrict the overwhelming majority of the body of knowledge for any of these field topics. Where it does come into play is in the few direct areas of research where laws and IRBs determine that there are potential negative ethical issues in the research. Even here, it doesn't mean that we know nothing about these ethically challenging areas, merely that we are limited in our ability refine and narrowly define some aspects of understandings because the only means we currently know how to investigate in more detail would possibly violate the rights and/or negatively impact the lives of those human subjects who would be required to conduct a more rigorous exploration of the research focus.

I was granting that there are some areas where our humanity prevents us from securing a more rigorous and detailed understanding of some topics. This display of reflective humanity in our actions does not mean that there is a fundamental flaw in the science it simply means that we agree to exchange a bit of precision in some areas, for the respect of the rights and lives of the people whose outcomes/decisions/behaviors become the data in such studies.

 

[Meed]

I don't think of any of these disciplines as sciences. I'm not saying they completely lack validity but if you can't apply the scientific method to the discipline then it's not really a science.

Well, since you can apply the scientific method to psychology and sociology, that isn't a problem.

I say this because I don't think you can observe human behavior without bias which makes any hypothesis questionable IMO.

You can't observe anything without bias, yet all sciences rely on observation.

Hypotheses are pretty much "questionable" by definition. That's the whole point of a hypothesis. It's something you don't know is true and you want to test. Hypotheses being biased is not an issue. It's the validity of a hypothesis test that is important.

 

[macdoc]

Well, since you can apply the scientific method to psychology and sociology, that isn't a problem.

Okay let's hear about a simple sociology experiment that will provide an equivalent in consistent outcome as say a table top presentation of C02 absorbing IR.
So hypothesis, observation of consistent outcome, underlying theory/laws.

And show the underlying theory that dictates/leads to that consistent outcome.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't think of any of these disciplines as sciences. I'm not saying they completely lack validity but if you can't apply the scientific method to the discipline then it's not really a science. I say this because I don't think you can observe human behavior without bias which makes any hypothesis questionable IMO.

Sorry, but you're reflecting naiveté about how we do medical, psychological and sociological research with this post.

 

[Trakar]

Okay let's hear about a simple sociology experiment that will provide an equivalent in consistent outcome as say a table top presentation of C02 absorbing IR.
So hypothesis, observation of consistent outcome, underlying theory/laws.

In general, even the most simple sociological experiment is much more complex than the relatively mechanistic issues of radiation absorption/emission by a single molecule of CO2.

Take a simple experiment, drop a ten dollar bill while walking down a hallway when you know someone is following you. One of three responses are most likely: 1) the person following you will ignore/not notice the bill you drop, 2) the person will pick up the bill and try to give it back to you, 3) the person will pick up and pocket the bill. This simple experiment doesn't delve into motivations, intentions or any of the other complex processes. The person sees to dropped bill, or they don't. The person acts on the dropped bill or they do not. The person returns the bill or they don't. Run the experiment enough times and we can begin to recognize and note patterns of behavior. In-depth surveys of the test subjects may allow us to identify some general patterns regarding who is most likely to respond with which behavior.

The biggest difference in this and the CO2 -IR experiment, are that people are much more complex in their motivations and behavior than Co2 molecules.

 

[Dancing David]

I don't think of any of these disciplines as sciences. I'm not saying they completely lack validity but if you can't apply the scientific method to the discipline then it's not really a science. I say this because I don't think you can observe human behavior without bias which makes any hypothesis questionable IMO.

Um really, I think that you need to educate yourself...

 

[Meed]

Okay let's hear about a simple sociology experiment that will provide an equivalent in consistent outcome as say a table top presentation of C02 absorbing IR.
So hypothesis, observation of consistent outcome, underlying theory/laws.

And show the underlying theory that dictates/leads to that consistent outcome.

I don't have background in sociology, so I can't answer this off the top of my head. Do you want an example from psychology (where I do have background) or are you talking about sociology only?

BTW underlying mechanisms in sociology are going to be much more difficult to determine. Drawing conclusions about something without understanding the underlying mechanisms is not unscientific.

I should also note that I don't know anything about the research on C02 absorbing infrared radiation, so if you're looking for something similar to that in some specific way I'm unaware of, then you should clarify.

 

[blutoski]

I don't have background in sociology, so I can't answer this off the top of my head. Do you want an example from psychology (where I do have background) or are you talking about sociology only?

BTW underlying mechanisms in sociology are going to be much more difficult to determine. Drawing conclusions about something without understanding the underlying mechanisms is not unscientific.

I should also note that I don't know anything about the research on C02 absorbing infrared radiation, so if you're looking for something similar to that in some specific way I'm unaware of, then you should clarify.

I think it was Massimo Pigliucci who said that the 'hard sciences' are misnamed. They're actually the 'easy sciences' - very reproduceable, very few variables.

For some reason, this has led to many experts in those fields forgetting they have mastered the lowest hanging fruit, and looking down their nose at their peers who are addressing much more complex subjects.

 

[angrysoba]

Rule of thumb: if a subject contains the word science, it is as close to science as a country whose name contains the word democratic is close to democracy.

 

[luchog]

I prefer to call them disciplines

And economics - voodoo - despite their pretensions

geology in science
geography not

for instance

Medicine draws heavily on the hard sciences and I think stuff like psychology are better grouped there.

History a discipline

Another possible grouping is Biological sciences.
versus
Physical sciences

The way I usually see it broken up is "hard sciences" aka physical sciences like physics, medicine, etc -- anything where the science is based on experimentation and evaluation of results -- with a foundation in mathematics; and "soft sciences", where the science is based on observation, case study, and extrapolation. Obviously the predictive value of the "hard sciences" is going to be more reliable, while the "soft sciences" are much more open to individual interpretation. These tend to be somewhat derogatory terms, particularly "soft sciences"; so the terms "physical sciences" and "social sciences" are more commonly used.

Psychology certainly qualifies as hard science as much as medicine does. The lack of experimentation does not reflect a deficiency in the science itself, but rather, an ethical barrier to experimenting on humans; and one that has been violated at various points in the past (yielding valuable data at the cost of inhumanity and atrocity).

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think it was Massimo Pigliucci who said that the 'hard sciences' are misnamed. They're actually the 'easy sciences' - very reproduceable, very few variables.....

Except meteorology?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The way I usually see it broken up is "hard sciences" aka physical sciences like physics, medicine, etc -- anything where the science is based on experimentation and evaluation of results -- with a foundation in mathematics; and "soft sciences", where the science is based on observation, case study, and extrapolation. Obviously the predictive value of the "hard sciences" is going to be more reliable, while the "soft sciences" are much more open to individual interpretation. These tend to be somewhat derogatory terms, particularly "soft sciences"; so the terms "physical sciences" and "social sciences" are more commonly used.

Psychology certainly qualifies as hard science as much as medicine does. The lack of experimentation does not reflect a deficiency in the science itself, but rather, an ethical barrier to experimenting on humans; and one that has been violated at various points in the past (yielding valuable data at the cost of inhumanity and atrocity).

I don't think those are very good descriptions of the differences. It's not about predictive value because that falls on a continuum and you'd be hard pressed to say where you wanted to draw the line.

If you can't yet predict which patient will have a serious side effect to a med, does that make medicine a soft science? If you can't predict the weather 2 days out, is that a soft science?

If I know with a very high degree of confidence that a specific behavior is diagnostic of a specific illness or syndrome, does that make it a hard science?

I think the term, soft sciences, stems from the original lack of understanding how the brain was doing what it does. The more we learn about the brain, and the better our study methodologies become, the more the concept of soft science becomes archaic.

 

[Meed]

Rule of thumb: if a subject contains the word science, it is as close to science as a country whose name contains the word democratic is close to democracy.

Would you care to give an example? Because the names sociology, psychology and economics do not contain the word science.

The way I usually see it broken up is "hard sciences" aka physical sciences like physics, medicine, etc -- anything where the science is based on experimentation and evaluation of results

"Experimentation and evaluation of results" would include most of the research in psychology and some of the research in sociology (no idea how much because I know less about that field).

-- with a foundation in mathematics;

^Would include some of the research in psychology.

Does most research in medicine have "a foundation in mathematics"? I've taken several biology classes and I never got the impression that biology has a foundation in mathematics. Physics on the other hand, does seem to have a foundation in math (based on my limited experience).

Obviously the predictive value of the "hard sciences" is going to be more reliable, while the "soft sciences" are much more open to individual interpretation.

I don't think that I agree with equating the degree of predictive power to the degree of openness to interpretation.

These tend to be somewhat derogatory terms, particularly "soft sciences"; so the terms "physical sciences" and "social sciences" are more commonly used.

Psychology certainly qualifies as hard science as much as medicine does. The lack of experimentation does not reflect a deficiency in the science itself, but rather, an ethical barrier to experimenting on humans; and one that has been violated at various points in the past (yielding valuable data at the cost of inhumanity and atrocity).

Ah okay... I may have misunderstood the earlier parts of your post then if you're saying that Psychology is a hard science. There is no "lack of experimentation" in Psychology, however. It's overflowing with experimentation.

 

[luchog]

I don't think those are very good descriptions of the differences. It's not about predictive value because that falls on a continuum and you'd be hard pressed to say where you wanted to draw the line.

If you can't yet predict which patient will have a serious side effect to a med, does that make medicine a soft science? If you can't predict the weather 2 days out, is that a soft science?

If I know with a very high degree of confidence that a specific behavior is diagnostic of a specific illness or syndrome, does that make it a hard science?

Predictive is predictive. Just because a particular scientific discipline lacks the precision of physics doesn't make it less predictive, it just means that we do not yet have sufficient knowledge in that discipline to make more precise predictions. We still have mathematics, and statistical analysis to give an idea of how reliable our predictions can be.

Weather and biology are extremely complex systems; but ones in which we do have an understanding of the physical forces involved, and the difficulty of making predictions. There is very little actual subjective interpretation involved (moreso in medicine than in meteorology, which is a branch of physics), only mathematical uncertainties and limits to our ability to observe and model. Meteorology involves a highly chaotic system, and chaotic systems have limits to the predictive capabilities that can be derived from them. But we can still understand and quantify where those limits are, and estimate probabilities; and as the technology available to observe and model these systems improves, so does our ability to understand them and make predictions about them. Medicine in particular is still a very young science, and we are making great strides in understanding the complexities involved and enhancing our predictive capabilities.

Social sciences lack that predictive value; because they are not as amenable to mathematical description or statistical analysis. There has been, so far, no predictive value to any of them that exceeds chance by any significant degree. They are strictly observational. The fields are rife with subjective interpretation and agenda-oriented approaches. One could (and some have) make the argument that that is due to the tremendous complexity involved; and that time will provide us the tools to introduce objective measurements with predictive capacity. That may be true; and should it become so, then they could be treated as any other physical science. But that day is still far off, if it ever comes; particularly since there is still no real consensus on exactly what we can measure, and how.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

All I know is, I saw a psychologist ~5 years ago for testing and was given the Rorschach test.

I mean, yes some of these fields are difficult to study, but there is also a lot of bad/non-science that seems to persist.

 

[luchog]

Ah okay... I may have misunderstood the earlier parts of your post then if you're saying that Psychology is a hard science. There is no "lack of experimentation" in Psychology, however. It's overflowing with experimentation.

Compared to other scientific disciplines, such as physics or chemistry, experimentation in Psychology is still very limited by ethical considerations. There is only so much you're allowed to do to humans to test a theory; particularly when you're required to get fully informed consent (which can prevent the ability to perform certain kinds of experiments, particularly on children).

We do the experiments we can; but there is a lot more that could be done if we were not constrained by ethical and moral considerations. The experiments done by the Nazis and Soviets are good examples of the sort of things that can be accomplished when these are no longer concerns; and the horrors that would inevitably result without them.

 

[luchog]

All I know is, I saw a psychologist ~5 years ago for testing and was given the Rorschach test.

I mean, yes some of these fields are difficult to study, but there is also a lot of bad/non-science that seems to persist.

That is typical for all young fields. Medicine as a scientific discipline is barely over two hundred years old, and psychology not much more than a hundred; and it is only in the last half-century or so that scientific rigor has been a primary quality of either.

 

[blutoski]

The way I usually see it broken up is "hard sciences" aka physical sciences like physics, medicine, etc -- anything where the science is based on experimentation and evaluation of results -- with a foundation in mathematics; and "soft sciences", where the science is based on observation, case study, and extrapolation. Obviously the predictive value of the "hard sciences" is going to be more reliable, while the "soft sciences" are much more open to individual interpretation. These tend to be somewhat derogatory terms, particularly "soft sciences"; so the terms "physical sciences" and "social sciences" are more commonly used.

I've seen it split into "natural sciences" and "social sciences" here in Vancouver (UBC, SFU).

Psychology certainly qualifies as hard science as much as medicine does. The lack of experimentation does not reflect a deficiency in the science itself, but rather, an ethical barrier to experimenting on humans; and one that has been violated at various points in the past (yielding valuable data at the cost of inhumanity and atrocity).

At UBC and SFU, you can get a BSc or BA in Psychology, depending on which core and electives you take. The BSc is casually referred to as 'biopsych'. Biopsych would include animal behaviorism, brain activity studies, that sort of thing.


I'm sort of unusual in having both a science (immunology) and arts (psychology) degree, and I have to say that the psychology was more difficult investigation. Imagine how much more complex a physicist's experimental protocols would have to be if leptons were self-aware and prone to sulking.

 

[Meed]

All I know is, I saw a psychologist ~5 years ago for testing and was given the Rorschach test.

I mean, yes some of these fields are difficult to study, but there is also a lot of bad/non-science that seems to persist.

There is a difference between a practitioner (e.g. therapist/counselor/psychiatrist) and a research psychologist (a.k.a. scientist). Unfortunately there are still a lot of therapists out there practicing dodgy techniques rather than relying on the actual research literature.

Compared to other scientific disciplines, such as physics or chemistry, experimentation in Psychology is still very limited by ethical considerations. There is only so much you're allowed to do to humans to test a theory; particularly when you're required to get fully informed consent (which can prevent the ability to perform certain kinds of experiments, particularly on children).

But you referred to "the lack of experimentation" in psychology. Limitations on the types of experiments you can do is not "lack of experimentation". So, like I said there is not a lack of experimentation in psychology. Far from.

As for the limitations, sure limitations exist and they may or may not be an obstacle depending on what subcategory of psychology one is studying. In my own rather brief work in psychology research, ethical limitations were never an issue. In developmental psychology I'm sure they are a huge limitation. Just like, in medicine they are a huge limitation.

Almost all fields have limitations on the types of experiments they can do as far as I know. Whether they be ethical or technological or financial.