Natural Versus Social Sciences example essay topic

Natural versus Social Sciences: "An Eye to Designing the Future?" or Concentration on Present Forms? Although the term 'body of knowledge' is widely used to describe the cumulative body of all knowledge known by all mankind, this phrase demonstrates a hasty generalization. In fact, this statement is misleading, if not completely erroneous. There are, in essence, two distinct types of knowing with two opposite focuses. The first way of knowing, experimental science, concerns itself with how various objects and phenomenon 'are' in their present forms. Social science, however, engages itself in a process where one attempts to discern how things should 'be'.

These two types of knowledge feed from one another's methods, however they remain two distinct areas of knowing with two distinct focuses. The experimental (or natural) sciences involve Bertrand Russell's concept of knowledge by acquisition. This knowledge is acquired through direct observation of phenomenon, such as the scientist utilizing controlled experiments in order to support their basic assumptions. This process is that of induction, where the scientists use results accumulated throughout various applications of their experiment to draw buttressed conclusions. The inductive method creates a type of knowledge concerned with the observable forms of its subjects.

Conclusions drawn from observation then provide the scientist with the information to attempt to create axioms which can be correctly applied to the natural world. The study of the physical realm does not concentrate on the Plutonian 'ideal form' of an object or of the phenomenon; rather it concentrates on what it has been and how it has evolved into its present form. It is irrational to say that the natural scientist is concerned with changing his subjects. A chemist is only interested in discovering how his compounds work and their composition, not improving their existence. Natural scientists are only interested in how the natural world operates and how its applications can possibly benefit human society. Although veterinarians and biologists are sometimes interested in improving the lot of animals, these scientists are guilty of anthropomorphism, where as Jeffrey Masson states "not only are the emotions of animals not a respectable field of study, the words associated with emotions are not supposed to be applied to them".

Anthropomorphism, or the projection of human emotion and qualities onto animals, is considered scientific blasphemy, since these emotions cannot be proven by induction. The anthropomorphization of animals therefore is an extension of the social sciences, attributing the imperfection of man to the natural world. Since science concerns itself only with inductive logic, it automatically looks only at the present or past existence (provable by concrete facts) of objects or phenomenon. Social sciences, on the other hand, are concerned with "an eye to designing the future".

Social science, according to the dichotomy of Russell, is based upon knowledge by description, which is indicative of how the social sciences work. Crane Brinton defines history as "an account of the behavior of men". This definition can be applied to the whole of social sciences, since all of the social sciences deal with man's behavior in society. Brinton's expansion that "one of the hardest things on this earth is to describe men or institutions without wanting to change them" further illustrates this point.

A social scientist, by nature, is interested in changing men; if we all lived in Utopian societies, then there would be no need for social science. If we can say that social science examines the behavior of men in society, it is natural that this is in order to change it; man is far from perfect. The imperfection of man provides food for the social scientist, as he will study areas, such as history, psychology, art, and ethics, trying to discover how to improve these areas by using past events to predict possible upcoming trends. Before investigating the pure social sciences, we must look at art and ethics. Many individuals feel that arts looks at and copies the physical form of something which is termed aesthetically pleasing by their society.

Therefore, art is concerned with the way things 'are's uch as DaVinci's portrait Mona Lisa, which is a supposed portrayal of the external features of a young woman. However, many artists continually use their particular form of media to express their own personal ideals on how things 'should' be. For example, it has long been proposed that the Mona Lisa is actually a self-portrait of DaVinci as a woman. Perhaps DaVinci felt that his ideal form would be that of a woman.

Since DaVinci never expressed this in his writings and is therefore intangible, it cannot be proven inductively and is subject to interpretation. Ethics is also in the same realm of focus. Is capital punishment ethical? One can argue both sides, concentrating on how effective or ineffective it is as a deterrent for crime. Ethics are intangible, personal feelings about the properness of a certain action or situation.

Ethics are not developed by the society, but rather by the individual. Societies do however try to impose morals upon its citizens through religion and law. However, these methods are usually futile, as individuals will develop their own opinions on how to best improve their society. In social science, there is no possible way that one can derive 'facts'. Everything is subject to interpretation. Are dreams really caused by unconscious sexual or aggressive desires, as Freud said?

Was the Estates-General formed by the Parisian bourgeois in order to eliminate the aristocracy? Does Picasso's Guernica symbolically portray the German bombing of Guernica? Our textbooks would like to tell us that yes, these 'facts' are the explanations for their respective events. However, there are different perspectives to social science, as every 'fact' is subject to cascades of interpretation. It can be said that dreams are caused by physiological factors in conjunction with REM sleep. Or, latent content of dreams is the result of the mind processing into certain hypothetical situations based on recent events or concerns.

These are two of many perspectives on the cause and function of dreams. Yes, it is a historical fact that one of the first actions undertaken by the Estates-General and the French National Assembly was to disband and later persecute the First and Second Estates. However, were they convened to disband the aristocracy? Or rather to join them? Did Picasso intend for Guernica to represent the air-raid?

Or rather was it to convey his own frustration with Franco? In these situations, the fact is that there are no facts. Human behavior is so erratic that it is nearly impossible for a statistician to be able to accurately portray probable human behavior upon some sort of graph. Can trends be measured in a factual manner? Yes, but that goes into the application of mathematics to the social sciences and away from the actual core of social science. Historians use statistics when analyzing economic trends which they then use to predict forthcoming trends.

Since there are no true facts in the social sciences, induction is impossible. However, induction is used in the social sciences for the attainment of certain types of knowledge. Statistics are widely considered the basis for the social sciences. Throughout political science, psychology, economics, and even history numbers are used to prove certain points. This process is the inductive method. Induction is used to create pseudo-factual information that can be used to justify a point made through deduction.

Induction also entails looking at the past or present for answers. One might even be able to say that social science focuses on the present. However, the immediate goal of the social scientist may be to focuses on the current behavior of man and how it impacts the rest of society; however, even in the strictest sense the information gathered by these social scientists is analyzed to describe what went wrong in current or past behaviors and how man can improve upon them. No matter how one can look at it, social science is based upon creating a plan of action for the future that will endeavor to protect man from repeating his past mistakes.

Although using similar processes, the experimental and social sciences both have different aims that are opposite of one another. In the experimental sciences, we use the inductive method of logic to observe what different objects and phenomenon are or were in the past, and how they got to be that way. Induction lends itself to only providing insight onto what things were or are. However, the social sciences are more concerned with bettering their subjects, mankind. This concept of betterment is the focus of social sciences such as history, art, and ethics. These mediums describe what has gone on in order to prevent us from committing the same errors or to allow us to learn from our past successes.

George Santayana tells us that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it; the aim of social science is to prevent this from happening. Although the two bodies of knowledge use similar methods, they both maintain their separate nature as they focus on two very distinct and separate areas of the human experience..