The 7 differences between social sciences and natural sciences
Science is not a totally uniform form of knowledge generation: there are two types.
Today, the natural and social sciences, which are distinguished mainly by their object of study, are integrated into different disciplines, as in the case of psychology or environmental sciences. This is mainly due to the primacy of the study methods of the natural sciences, which have been adopted by the social sciences.
However, these two aspects of science are distinguished by several very significant aspects, or at least that is how it was at the beginning. In this article we will describe the 7 main differences between the natural and social sciencesIn any case, it should be borne in mind that it is not possible to generalize these statements to all scientific manifestations.
Science and its ramifications
Science is defined as the set of systematic activities that aim to obtain and organize knowledge about different types of phenomena in order to explain and about different types of phenomena in order to explain and predict aspects of reality. We speak of natural sciences when the object of study is natural phenomena and of social sciences if human activity is analyzed.
Physics, which is considered the basic natural science, relies heavily on mathematics; however, the latter is a formal science. Other particularly prominent natural sciences are chemistry, geology, oceanography, astronomy, meteorology and biology, which in turn includes medicine, zoology and botany.
On the other hand, the social sciences include disciplines such as history, economics, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, geography, education, law, demography, linguistics, political science and communication.
The boundary between the social and natural sciences is often blurred in many disciplines; a good example of this is psychology, in which a philosophical-humanist tradition and another closer to biology coexist. After all, the scientific method is the same regardless of whether it is applied to one or the other type of phenomenon.
- Related article, "Is psychology a science?"
Differences between the social and natural sciences
We will now describe 7 of the most important differences between the social and natural sciencesIn recent decades, scientific progress has favored the integration of different disciplines, thus prioritizing the choice of different fields of knowledge according to the objectives of each research.
1. Object of study
While the natural sciences deal with physical and natural phenomena, the social sciences are concerned with human acts. Thus, economics, politics or social psychology refer to products of the activity of social groups; on the other hand, chemistry, astronomy and neuroscience analyze more tangible aspects of reality.
2. History and development
The birth of the social sciences is often identified with the Enlightenment, which took place in the 15th century.The birth of the social sciences is often identified with the Enlightenment, which took place in the 17th and 18th centuries, but their consolidation did not take place until the 19th and 20th centuries. In contrast, the natural sciences are much older: humans have been studying the forces of nature since the beginning of our collective history.
3. Theoretical basis
The natural sciences rely more than the social sciences on the formal sciences, mainly mathematics, in order to structure reality in a rigorous way. In the social sciences, positivism reflects a similar tendency, although the current of positivism is also relevant.In the social sciences, positivism reflects a similar tendency, although the interpretivist current, which tries to give a concrete meaning to the phenomena studied, is also relevant.
4. Research methods
Many of the most popular research methods in science today come from the natural sciences; in this sense, mathematics and the experimental method are very important. Although the social sciences have adopted these tools, they also prioritize observation, surveys or case studies because of the complexity of the social phenomenon.
5. Degree of subjectivity
The social sciences have been criticized for an alleged lack of rigor associated with the use of the scientific method for the analysis of abstract facts. In the case of the natural sciences, the degree of apparent objectivity is usually greater because they study observable and physical phenomena; nevertheless, any scientific task reduces to some extent the degree of subjectivity associated with the use of the scientific method in the analysis of abstract facts, However, all scientific work reduces reality to a certain extent..
6. Generalizability
Since the natural sciences try to limit the role of subjectivity, the generalization capacity of their research results is greater than in the case of the social sciences, where it is often inevitable to resort to hypothetical constructs that cannot be objectively tested and unrepeatable phenomena are analyzed.
7. Scientist's perspective
Social scientists can never be completely oblivious to the phenomena they study, since they are actively involved in social reality. On the other hand, In the natural sciences, on the other hand, it is more feasible to adopt an external perspective.Thus, the neurophysiological expert who studies the nervous system does so from the outside, although his or her beliefs influence the research.
(Updated at Apr 13 / 2024)