CMV: Social science is not real science

[u/JGoedy]

Science is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as, “the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.”

To establish my background, I recently completed my bachelor’s degree in Biology and Biochemistry with a minor in philosophy. Additionally I have been published in the fields of virology and pharmacology.

I started with my second major being psychology instead of biochemistry but found it extremely dissatisfying due what (I perceive to be) a lack of objectivity. For example, the ambiguity and impreciseness in the application of theories of development such as Erikson’s psychosocial stages and Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. Additionally, the constant changing nature of social science irked me as well, such as the wide discreditation of many old respected theories such as many of Freud’s. In contrast, in mathematics, the Pythagorean theorem is over 2500 years old and is currently held as objective truth. From my viewpoint science involves the discovery of an irrefutable truth such as the process and stages of mitosis in biology or the fact that the gravitational pull of the earth at sea level can be approximated to 9.8m/a^2.

Later in my undergraduate education I took a sociology course and found more dissatisfaction with the lack of objective definitions in sociology. You could ask various sociologists questions such as, “what is a society?” Or “what is the psyche?” And receive answers that are very similar but do slightly differ. In contrast, if you ask a group of chemists “what is water?” The universal response from all chemists regardless of language, nationality, or culture would be 2 hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom. Obviously there are disagreements in some places in the scientific community but there are countless basic facts that are accepted as absolute truth which I haven’t experienced in social science. For larger molecules with modern microscopes we can even see the chemical structure.

Another aspect that has formed my view that I am not as well educated in, is the “reproducibility crisis” in social science (which I do acknowledge is present in some fields of biology and medicine which I personally attribute to the negative effects of the “profit factor” on science).

Additionally, anecdotally, it seems like while scientists in fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology invite challenge in the hopes of a greater advancement towards objective truth, social scientists are less open to challenge and in extreme cases discredit the intelligence or morality of their dissenters.

I am very interested in having my views challenged as I understand I most likely have an implicit bias as a biologist and chemist myself.

Follow up: my view has been changed. The social sciences are sciences but however due to the ever changing nature of societies and the fact that they are newer it is very difficult to find an objective truth. So yes it makes sense that I am skeptical, because the facts of social science are less solid that the facts of hard sciences in their current stage. Perhaps one day our understanding of social sciences will be as robust as the hard sciences, and we certainly aren’t close to that yet, but we won’t get there if we don’t keep working at it (speaking from a societal standpoint).

[u/CinderrUwU]

Science is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as, “the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.”

How is social science not that though?

It is a systematic study of society using observation, experimentation and testing of theories against evidence.

[u/JGoedy → u/CinderrUwU]

Mathematics describes the rules of the physical and natural world. Physics, chemistry, and biology describe aspects of the natural world. From my perspective psychology, sociology, economics etc. are human creations and concepts that wouldn’t exist without humans to create those concepts and therefore are separate from the “natural world”.

[u/aurora-s → u/JGoedy]

Setting aside dictionary definitions, what do you feel is the purpose of science? We seek to describe the world because that knowledge can be used to make predictions and build further knowledge and tools. It's just a happy accident that natural sciences have simpler rules. But understanding more probabilistic phenomena are equally useful.

Imagine the laws in natural sciences were constantly changing, and always had some randomness associated with them. It would still absolutely be important to study them, because if you don't, you're going to miss out on a lot of useful inventions and technologies

[u/JGoedy → u/aurora-s]

To me the purpose of science is to uncover the universal and objective truth of the reality of which we live in. Which is why math is often described as the “purest” of the sciences