Science Essay

Scientific thinking has caused some of the greatest advances known to mankind; but bluntly applying the scientific method to the social “sciences” has been overall very detrimental. Science is a method of inquiry, where one creates an idea of how something works, tests it and see if their idea was supported. In the previous 20th century, many of the now called “social” sciences (principally psychology, economics, sociology, etc) went through a legitimacy crisis as many key authors from Sigmund Freud to Karl Jung began being questioned as just proposing baseless theories; and for the last 40 years, social sciences have attempted to legitimise itself by being more quantitative, very strictly following the scientific method generally. However, these efforts continue to fail because the “social” sciences are not a science at all due to three key factors: the social sciences observe distinctively different natural phenomena from the other sciences, the social sciences can derive understanding and value without the scientific method and this wave of pure scientific approach is actually limiting the progress of the social sciences. 

The social sciences observe phenomena that are too sophisticated for modern science to accurately model. When we think of the traditional sciences, particularly the now named “natural” sciences, many of them observe phenomena that have distinct characteristics. For example, in physics many (although not all) objects move and interact through basic, fundamental motions (Newton’s Laws) and properties of physical objects don’t usually change based on who is observing (other than more sophisticated phenomena such as light) or the opinions of who is observing the phenomena, or do these objects have the ability to adapt and think to do a different property. The natural sciences, especially physics and chemistry, are much easier to observe, measure and draw reliable, quantitative solutions from simple hypotheses. In contrast, the social sciences such as linguistics have no shared, agreed understanding of universal principles regarding fundamental questions like “how has language emerged in humans”. There are different philosophies such as linguists who believe language is taught versus innate; however, no universal, measurable fundamentals. As one of the founders of linguistics and the “innate” side of the debate, Professor Noam Chomsky, puts it “science is a blunt tool that can deeply answer the ‘how’ of basic elements and compounds, but once it starts trying to understanding biological systems like the brain and let alone the interaction between these brains and their language; your guess is as good as mine”. The key difference is the social sciences don’t have inherent, measurable foundational laws that govern their processes; and the subjects are overall, much, much more dynamic and complex. While some may say the physical sciences are complex too, no doubt, rocket science is complex. However, there are fundamental laws, fundamental ways to accurately, mathematically measure and model rocket sciences; but not for economics as much as economists like Keynes or Hayek may try. Thus, the scientific method is not an accurate instrument to understand the social sciences. 

The social sciences can derive value and understanding without the scientific method, and thus, don’t need to be a science at all. The previously mentioned push decades ago to quantify and “scientify” the social sciences had some basis rebutallers would argue; the social sciences was entrenched with dogmas, biases and unverifiable claims that made it difficult to navigate what was credible to what was not. Science is a very verifiable tool, as a hypothesis can only ever be supported but not definitely proven, as a future experiment may disprove the hypothesis that hold today. However, many of the greatest contributions to the social sciences did not come from the social sciences at all; take for example founder of psychology, Sigmund Freud. His work on how inner suppressed emotions, egos and desires impacts our mental health led to psychoanalysis, which for the first time, helped millions of people understand, label and overcome their problems by tackling their “inner demons”. This contribution, even if tainted by the biases and perceptions of his time, was so fundamental and pivotal that it changed psychology for the next 20 years and inspired countless foundational psychology thinkers like Carl Jung. Today, there are arguably no such great thinkers, as most psychology is focused on testing narrow, limited hypotheses and like the other sciences, publishing high impact papers instead of revolutionising our understanding of human behaviour. Science is a powerful tool, but the social sciences can use philosophy, observation, novel forms of testing and theorising to get insightful conclusions like famous psychologist Albert Bandura did to theorise social learning theory (SLT). The social sciences is not limited to using only the scientific method through traditional quantitative means to derive valuable understanding; after all, SLT allowed us to greatly and positively reform human systems like the prison system. Overall, the social sciences can bring value to society without exclusively relying on the scientific method. 

Lastly, the poor implementation of the scientific method in the social sciences has been detrimental to the field and consequently, humanity overall. Social sciences, such as anthropology, often had much support to implement scientific reasoning to help eliminate human bias in anthropology. In the 19th and 20th century, many anthropology theories were plagued by extreme biases of the time, ranging from racial biases of African human beings able inherently inferior and subservient to even well intentioned, subconscious biases such as assuming the Amazon rainforest could not sustain large scale organised life because it does not do so today, amongst other biased beliefs. While the scientific method has helped eradicate some of these biases, such as using ultrasonic mapping tools to find hidden cities in the Brazilian Amazon (2022), in many instances the scientific method is used poorly and engraves biases further. For example, in Hayekian economics, various narrow scientific experiments and mathematical models are used to explain that economies must all adhere to certain principles, such as functioning smoothly only in regulation-free market-based systems. F.A Hayek the economist was famous for using quantitative and scientific experiments to back up his claims; yet many of his theories nowadays have become obsolete, inaccurate and covered with biases. For example, in practice, if markets have no controls, those in power are encouraged to abuse and monopolise, not to innovate inherently. Thus, the poor implementation of the scientific method was utilised to support worse understandings of the social sciences; and further, the scientific method is not only poorly used to gain understanding but poorly used to justify understandings; after all, Hayek’s theories were heavily favoured by the wealthy of Britain in the early 20th century partially because his theories benefited them; they advocated for a free for all, no taxes, no government oversight economy. All this poor implementation of the scientific method regresses the social sciences. 

In conclusion, the social sciences are not truly a science and restricting to such has been detrimental. The social sciences deals with topics that the modern scientific method cannot accurately measure, experiment and model; the social sciences can effectively use alternative tools of understanding and the often poor implementation of the scientific thinking has in many cases, done more harm than good. If our society wants the social sciences to become expansive and pioneering again, we must remove the stigma of them not being a science in the first place.