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WHY SOCIAL SCIENCE IS NOT SCIENCE

By
Ajibola - Amzat, Olubusola.

Introduction

The world we live in today has experienced tremendous changes in almost


all spheres of human lives. One can hardly deny that the progress recorded
in the field of science has contributed immensely to the progress
experienced in the world. This is because, science rests on true assumptions.
Such truthful nature of science is measured by the results of scientific
predictions. Prior the inception of science, the mode adopted in explaining
the universe and the place of man in it were either anthropomorphism or
theology (Carl Hempel (1966). These modes were later rejected because
they offered very little help in human advancement. They included more
myths than the practicality the world needed to project. But on the contrary,
science was able to offer absolute fixity in terms precision in explaining
present event to aid future projections. According to William James, Science
is true in relation to its utility. This he expresses by stating that:

In science, the truth of an idea is determined by


experimental verification. Since verified ideas serve
our need to predict experience and cope with our
environment. Scientific truths fulfill our practical
interest (Encyclopedia of philosophy 1972. 427-429)

For the practicable nature of science, philosophers like Offor agreed it has
generated the assumption that every problem can be resolved by the
adoption of scientific method. (Offor 2008 -33). This assumption further
informs the decisions of social scientists to employ scientific method in their
field of investigation.

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The issues social sciences deal with are social structures, conventions,
specific human actions, norms and rules of behaviour. These are all issues
present in lay men ordinary discourse. Most importantly also, they are issues
that disciplines in humanities deal with. Yet, social scientists argue that the
method of scientific explanations is what they adopt is the study of these
issues. We therefore ask if indeed social science is as scientific in its
approach as it claims? If it is, why has scientific methods succeeded so well
in the natural sciences and has been less successful in the investigating field
of the social sciences?

Let us point out that one of the roles of philosophy when exercising its
capacity to intervene other first order discipline is to question the norms
governing the explanation mode of these disciplines. Social science is no
exception. This is coupled with the fact that all spheres of social sciences,
sciences and by extension other disciplines have their roots in philosophy.

There are obvious fundamental differences between the natural sciences and
the social sciences. The most notable is that the natural sciences use the
method of “controlled experiments and prediction. These are absent in the
social sciences. Again, natural scientists attempt to discover or formulate
laws that govern the phenomena they study. This is unintelligible in the
inquiry of the social sciences. This is because of the dynamic and complex
nature of its objects of observation which do not obey fixed or regulative
laws. Although the statistical mode of explanation is adopted in both fields of
inquiry, can we say such evidences of observation yield the same result? But
before we proceed in our argument of why we believe the social sciences
does not qualify as sciences, let us attempt brief analysis of both fields of
inquiry.

SCIENCE AND ITS NATURE


Science has been defined as any “systemized”, “organized” or “classified”
body of knowledge which has been critically tested and is beyond reasonable

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doubt. (Aigbodioh, 1997-1). There has been reactions that this kind of
definition will allow other fields or disciplines qualify as science. Aigbodioh
further adopt the definition of “science” or “scientific” as that which refers to
the natural sciences. In this sense, he adopts the definition given by S.P
Gueye’s of science as; the specific modality of human activity investment
which consists of producing objective knowledge based on the discovery of
laws in the various areas of reality enabling us to give a rational account and
an extremely good anticipation of events and phenomenon (Aigbodioh,
1997-3). He further identified four basic features of science as follows:

(1) Science is Specific – Science deals with particular observable and


identifiable objects of this terrestrial world rather than abstract,
obstruse, general ideas. Science also provides us with specific
information about how our world actually is.
(2) Science is public in character: This is to say that the techniques and
methods of science, its findings and products are communicable to
the whole public. They are not understandable by only professional
scientists. These claims are verifiable as they are self evident.
(3) Science is impersonal- Science is seen not to have anything to do
with people’s beliefs and ideals. Ideally, objective scientific
enterprise is not prejudiced or dispassionate. Science adopts strictly
scientific methods which are observation, formulation of
hypotheses, verification, confirmation and formulation of scientific
laws and theories.
(4) Science is objective: This is saying, the laws, theories and concepts
of scientific conclusions are drawn from perpetual daily experiences.
One can however contend with the impersonal and objective nature
ascribed to science. Every scientific inquiry as we know proceeds
from an individual or group of individual. We are thus faced with the
problem of how to eliminate intrusions of subjective opinions in the
field of investigation. And that scientists sometimes proceed into
scientific inquiry with some biased dispositions capable of coloring
scientific result amounts to a truism.

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On the question of scientific method adopted by scientists, offer presented
five procedural stages:

(i) Observation of a problem


(ii) Formulation of hypothesis
(iii) Verification by experience
(iv) Confirmation of hypothesis
(v) Formulation of scientific laws

The Social Sciences


The social sciences are those sciences that study man’s action in the society.
(Asouzu, 2007: 26) It includes subjects like Economics, Political Science,
Sociology, psychology, Cultural anthropology, Comparative study of
behaviour, Social history, social psychiatry, Criminology, Social works and
community development. These sciences attempt to explain social facts as it
relates to man. Social psychiatry studies deviant behaviours, spiritual and
mental disorder. Political science studies political behaviour, government,
ruling, control and votes. Economics studies economic behaviour, production,
distribution, consumption of goods and services.

The methods adopted by these sciences according to Asouzu are determined


by their nature of study, the study of human person in the society (Asouzu
2007). They therefore employ the quantitative method of analysis of facts.
Social scientists do not deny that human being is a composite of two major
entities the body and the spiritual. However, collection of empirical data is
impossible in the latter due to the non empirical nature that defines the
spiritual nature of man. This has generated a debate among social scientists.
The debate bothers on whether the social sciences do or should employ the
same methods as the natural sciences. The naturalism movements argue it
is capable of doing so and should. Anti naturalism movements (which consist
of structuralism, semiotics, ethnomethdology, hermeneutics,

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interpretationalism, deconstructionism, postmodernism and rhetoric) argue
otherwise (Alex Rosenberg; 1998).

The argument of the antinaturalism movement hinges on the nature of


human action and its explanation. They argue that human action is
explainable in terms of his desires, beliefs and reason. Economists expresses
this position in “rational choice theory”, which holds that each individual has
a set of preferences (desires which set is complete, transitive and
continuous), and a set of expectations (beliefs about available means of
satisfying these preferences) – (Alex Rosenberg; 1998). Each individual is
rational and is able to choose the action that will aid him in attaining the
object of his strongest desire. The question therefore is whether such
rational choice follows a causal law or not. Here, Asouzu’s argument that the
study of man as he relates with his society has to allow for contingencies due
to his ability to change his mind, should be reckoned with. In addition, a
typical controlled experimental condition whereby all variables remains
constant is harder to come by in the social sciences than in the natural
sciences (Asouzu 2007; 26).

Evaluation
Scientific knowledge is based on experience. But more specifically, it is
based on careful experimentation and observation of phenomena believed to
be governed by fixed laws of nature. That is why the natural sciences are
able to make reliable predictions. Matter of fact, the three cardinal aims of
science are prediction, control and explanation, with the most important
being explanation. We however need to point out that the debate of what is
or what constitute the nature of scientific explanation is yet to be resolved
even among scientists.

This leads us to the debate between formalists and the contextualists in their
attempt to forward the most appropriate mode scientific explanations must
adopt. While the contextualists hold that all form of explanation could be
relevant in explaining why things happen, the formalists argue that scientific

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explanation must conform to some form of logical structure. Within such
logical frames, they argue that events or behavior are to be explained under
some laws. Carl Hempel is the foremost champion of the formalists thesis
that scientific theories and explanation are reducible to basic logic
structures. He argues ardently that all scientific explanations have certain
logical characteristics which form Deductive – Nomological and Inductive
Nomological Models of explanation (C.G Hempel; 1970. 245-249). According
to him, the deductive nomological model of explanation is always a
deductive derivation of the occurrence of the event to be explained from a
set of true propositions. It must include at least one statement of a scientific
law. The event to be explained is called “explanadum”; the set of explaining
statements is “explanas. (Hempel; 1970). Explanadum means statements
that describe the phenomenon or event to be explained while “Explanas”
refers to the entire set of statement which are adduced for the purpose of
explaining the phenomenon. Explana is sub divided into two. First are the
statements which describe the antecedent conditions of the phenomenon to
be explained i.e immediate circumstances that prevailed before a
phenomenon requiring explanation. The second set consist of statements of
general laws that justify inferences from explanas to explanadum.

The Deductive Nomological model is practicable only in the exact physical or


natural sciences. This is because all explanation are achieved by references
to causal or correlational antecedents. This cannot hold in the social sciences
which studies complex dynamic objects. But why would the social sciences
imitate the natural sciences in the first place since their object of study
differs? Peter Winch for this reason envisaged a shift of emphasis in the
social sciences from causally based explanation of human actions to the
explanation of human actions seen merely as rule following (Peter Winch,
1958). Asouzu has argued along same line that any science of man and his
relationship that concentrate in formulating laws and makes such laws a
function of sum total of empirically observable variables of man’s behaviour
fundamentally misses his target (Asouzu 2007; 52). Whenever the social
science tries to imitate the natural sciences in the deterministic static mode

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in matters of theory formulation, then the dynamic and free nature of human
behaviour is overlooked.

Offor will however not agree with the above positions. In his opinion,
formalists like Hempel are aware of the insufficiency of explanation in terms
of causal or correletional connections in the social sciences. He argued that
while explanation in natural sciences is done under deductive subsumption
universal laws, the social sciences adopts modes of explanation that involves
inductive subsumption under general laws (Offor 2008 ; 39). The former
states that if a particular phenomena satisfies certain antecedent conditions,
a specific kind of event “A” will occur. The latter states that given certain
antecedent conditions, an event “A” will probably occur. This is why we
opine the problem arises, for we all know the question of the “degree of
probable prediction” arises. Need we point out that the lesser the probability
of predictive power of a scientific statement, the lesser scientific it is? Again
the hope that the kind of laws deduced from previous empirical observation
of objects by social scientists will ever acquire a status of universal general
law is pessimistic. This finds explanation in the very low degree of probability
scientific predictions in the social sciences. Unlike the natural sciences which
studies objects whose behaviour follow pre fixed and mapped out course,
human behaviour follow a complex network of rules that make a stereotyped
categorization of their action futile (Asouzu 2007; 22). Behavioural
interpretion of human action cannot and will not always follow a totally
deterministic pattern. Although, the social science enterprise plays
significant roles in broadening our scope of how man relates with his
societies as well as aiding our understanding of the structure of social
institutions, social science laws are not categorical and precise. Even in
cases where some level of causal necessity is approximated in natural
science, social science still talk of degrees of relative certainty (Asouzu 2007;
23).

Conclusions

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That the natural sciences adopt the method of induction is a fact. And Hume
has indeed question the justification of such projections given by scientists.
This opens our eyes to the fact that absolute verification of scientific
statements even in the natural sciences is a bit difficult if not impossible. We
can however not also deny that a high degree of probability is better
achieved in the natural sciences than in the social sciences. So, if the
method of induction adopted by natural scientists in their bid to explain
phenomena that are guided by fixed laws does not guarantee us “absolute
certain knowledge”, how much more the social sciences that study dynamic
and complex phenomena?

This paper has therefore pointed out that the problem of methodology in the
social science is only secondary. The fundamental problem that will not allow
the approximation of social science as science qua science as it often aspires
is its objects of study. Even the statistical or probabilistic nomological
explanation used by social scientists in formulating laws about humans and
social cannot institutions deliver precision the way physical sciences would.
The extensive use of biological analogies in the social sciences does not also
promise so much on the task of upgrading social sciences from humanities
as sciences. The way evolution takes place in human societies totally differs
from evolutionary process of other phenomena. Social scientists must come
in terms with the fact that individual human behaviours cannot be predicted
in the way natural scientists do their precisions. Say for instance the way an
astronomer can predict when a comet will be next visible on earth or say
how a scan will predict the sex of an unborn baby.

The nature of human mind allows that even two people do not react in the
exact manner to a particular event unlike physical objects. This is why social
scientists speak in the lowest degree of probability. Another fact is that
humans may deliberately act in manners they believe are expected of them
just to please, aid or even destroy the work of a researcher. This is not so in
natural science. The fact that a scientist gazes at a metal for instance does
not inform the metal to act strange. Also objects of social scientists are

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always in a constant flux. What is true of a society in a particular age or
epoch will not be necessarily true at another time. Physical objects on the
other hand do not change their shape or environment in such conscious
manner. Let us not also forget that the social scientist is an intrinsic part of
the society he is studying. How scientific can he for instance be when asked
to formulate laws on how he, as member of the society relates with his
environment? How objective can he be?

We are however aware that there is a sense in which social science can be
regarded as science. The definition of science as any systemized, classified
or organized body of knowledge that attempts to explain what reality entails.
If we go by such definition, then disciplines like: philosophy, religion, history
and so on will not be less scientific than the social sciences. But the problem
is that the social sciences seem to be defining their scientific nature based
on the methodology of natural or physical sciences. It is obvious that it is the
success recorded for natural science that is prompting other disciplines to
present themselves as also scientific. But the truth is that every discipline
whether they adopt scientific methods prescribed by physical sciences or not
in explaining reality plays significant role in human advancement and
evolution of the world. The implication of these disciplines sticking to the
idea of parading themselves as science is that they may be headed towards
precarious states. And afterwards, we have scientists taking over areas
solely reserved for these other disciplines. Can a scientist for instance
perform the function of a philosopher of science? Can he be a political
scientist? There is indeed no cause for these disciplines with clear subject
matter that will suffer if they go into extinction engage in arguments on
whether they adopt the standard set by natural sciences.

By and large, the activities of the social scientists differ not so much from
what other disciplines like philosophy, history engage in. so, rather than
approximate as a science qua science, social science should be placed in its
rightful place in the humanities.

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References

• Aigbodioh, J.A. Philosophy of Science: Issues and Problems. (Hope


Publications. Ibadan. 1997).

• Asouzu, I. Ikwa Ogwe: Essential Readings in Complementary Reflection


– A Systematic Methodological Approach. (Saesprint Publishers,
Calabar. 2007).

• Hempel, C.G. Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays in


Philosophy of Science. (New York; The Free Press, 1970)

• Nagel, E. “The Value Oriented Bias of Social Inquiry”. Society and the
Social Sciences, edited by David Potter et al. (Routledge and Kegan
Paul ltd., London 1981).

• Offor, F. “A Philosopher’s Interest in Methodology of the Social


Science” West African Journal of Philosophical Studies (WAJOPS, Vol.
11. A publication of Association of Episcopal Conferences of
Anglonphone West Adfrica. (AECAWA), 2008. PP 33-42.

• Rosenberg, A. “Social Science, Methdology of” Routledge


Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0. (London and New York.
Routledge 1998).

• Winch, P. The Idea of a Social Science. (London: Routledge, 1958).

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