visagrunt wrote:
enrico_dandolo wrote:
Different, yes, but only about the object of their study (and their youth), not for methodological reasons -- and science is, in principle, a question of methodology.
No, most assuredly for their methodologies. The social sciences rely far more readily on extrapolation, using statistical techniques to create reliable inferences. All of them readily accept outliers as exceptions that are not inconsistent with theories of general application. In contrast, the natural sciences' methodology cannot tolerate outliers unless they can be explained by observational or experimental error.
I admit "methodology" was a wrong choice of word on my part. I don't know what term to use, so I will coin it as "epistemic process".
The fact is that natural science and social sciences follow the same basic processes of hypothesis testing and the same assumption of empiricism and impartiality. In this, the main difference is, as I have said, the object which they analyze. Working with bacteria or subatomic particles is not the same as with human beings or economic systems, for both practical and ethical reasons. Yet, it is done with the same spirit, proceeds of the same fundamental principles. The methodological consequences are obvious, but in the same way, there are methodological differences between "hard" sciences themselves, which also arise from the differences of the object they analyze.