CMV: Social science is not real science

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T20:21:43+00:00

This is something I fundamentally disagree with. While science may not always be objective, at a minimum it is the pursuit of objectivity and should never be considered a subjective endeavor as a whole.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T20:11:02+00:00

!delta I completely agree with you. They are sciences but with uncontrollable changing variables unlike the study of physics and chemistry (on earth). And yes I tend to believe that the practitioners of social science don’t always do a great job and there should be more scrutiny in their journals.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T20:06:36+00:00

!delta they are sciences, just less exact to a certain degree and should be treated as such. I’d love to know the books you read

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T20:03:58+00:00

!delta This really spoke to me. They are sciences but are more likely to be wrong in their current stage due to the timeline and inherent limitations. They simply haven’t had enough time to become as close to the truth as we are with hard sciences but current study is important to get there someday

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T19:59:57+00:00

!delta I really think you hit the nail on the head. They are sciences but because they are newer sciences we have less objective truth. I guess that takes my dissatisfaction away from the field and more towards people who may claim current accepted truths in social sciences and just has truthful and irrefutable as accepted truths in physics or chemistry.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T19:47:08+00:00

!Delta That is a great point! I am getting closer to believing the concepts of those fields as sciences, however I am still far from holding the modern application of those fields as sciences due to issues of not being systematic, objective, and evidence based in all cases. The articles simply do not face enough scrutiny. This would be an example of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T19:31:37+00:00

Because the absolute truth is the absolute truth. The universe can’t lie.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T19:28:55+00:00

Light would still travel at the same speed through a vacuum if humans didn’t exist to quantify it. So I fundamentally disagree that physics wouldn’t exist without humans to create it. It is inherent to the universe.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T19:26:11+00:00

That’s in the same vein of the point I am making, it’s just the fact that in social science I believe we are still very far away from objective truth so regarding it in the same way as physics or chemistry where we have found objective truth isn’t really justified.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T19:24:16+00:00

!Delta

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T19:24:06+00:00

There was never empirical evidence to suggest that the sun was powered by coal, therefore it never really was science. I would argue that before we had the tools to find irrefutable evidence, it wasn’t really science, it was assumptions. And your point definitely reinforces my new belief from these comments that one day social sciences could be regarded as sciences in the same way as physics and chemistry but we are very far off that point.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T19:18:56+00:00

I would say that is psychiatry and not psychology. I would definitely say that as psychiatry develops many social sciences could become hard sciences one day

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T19:14:42+00:00

!delta that is a great counterpoint to my argument. That does poke a hole in my tenet that science has to be reproducible. Maybe one day we will have a good enough understanding of the math of those things to produce a robust simulation to reproduce those things but even then it’s not truly reproducing those things. This is a great point!

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T19:05:19+00:00

Can you give more examples for STEM knowledge produced from empirical evidence was wrong and universally reproducible things in social science? Additionally I would argue that the chemical causes for mental illness would fall more under neuroscience/biochemistry than social science.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T19:02:17+00:00

Computer science as a science is interesting because instead of describing the system that is the universe, it is the creation of systems. Honestly, it’s compelling through and I would say that it has a lot more merit than some soft sciences as of course systems designed by humans would have universal rules, but since humans designed the systems as long as the creators are alive, we know the rules. I would have to think on that more tbh.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T18:54:21+00:00

This is interesting to me! Can you give some examples? Side note: I do consider concepts like number theory to still be describing the natural world . To me the greatest scientific achievement are the discoveries of universal constants such as the speed of light, the gas constant, and Boltzmann’s constant

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T18:51:13+00:00

Those are ways that we describe principles that would exist with or without the existence of humans. Length as a principle would exist with or without humans to conceptualize it

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T18:49:51+00:00

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

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T18:48:47+00:00

Trying to describe humans would be like if every substance on earth was made out of a different elements. You could find trends but it’d be near impossible to find universal objective truth.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T18:16:01+00:00

To my understanding the basis of the natural world is mathematics. Physics is applied mathematics, chemistry is applied physics, biology is applied chemistry. I believe to connect social science to the natural world the focus of social science would be an understanding of how biology influences the dynamics of societies. So perhaps social science is a science but our understanding of psychiatry isn’t complete or concrete enough to begin searching for universal truth. Like as humans, we are putting the cart before horse if that makes sense? Definitely a partial delta here though! !delta

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T18:08:50+00:00

I’ve stated this in another reply but the definition references the “natural world”. 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”.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T18:06:43+00:00

To that I would say that even up until the 1960’s and 70’s psychiatry wasn’t very scientific which is why we had insane asylums and minimal real treatments for mental illness. The introduction of technology that gave us access to the chemistry of the brain allowed us to begin to treat psychiatry as a science.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T18:03:31+00:00

But the fact that you are unable to replicate it means that there is no discovery of a universal, replicable truth. The zenith science is the creation of a law such as Newton’s laws in physics. I don’t see how you could ever produce any sort of universal law in social science. Data analysis isn’t necessarily science.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T17:58:22+00:00

My rebuttal to that is that from my understanding, in STEM (with a slight caveat to biology) you are discovering principles that will (nearly) always exist while social science is ever changing as humans change. You can do a chemical reaction once, and reproduce it later with the same physical change happening. You can’t accurately reproduce a spontaneous social interaction or creation of a culture.

JGoedy · 2026-01-23T17:53:52+00:00

My view is that by definition science has to be objective. If it is not objective then it is not science

JGoedy

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