So, do you think that history and social studies in general should use the same methodology as natural sciences? Or do you think that using the standard hypothesis testing procedure a.k.a. scientific method is unapplicable when we deal with the complex phenomena of human society? Most political scientists whom I've met agree with former, most historians - with the latter. What is /his/ consensus on this?
Pic related.
>>1110232
This is literally what economics is, OP.
>>1110232
as I see it, there is a great deal of difficulty using the scientific method with regards to society/social systems. Especially presently existing ones.
>>1110392
economics sometimes gives me the impressions of religion or some form of physics envy (which I get from sociology too).
they think everything can be reduced down to mathmatical equations and cold logic, not realizing they come off as autistic as a result.
They think people are logical/rational beings when humans are emotional and prone to irrational behavior.
Given that economists/economic theories seem to serve more as justification for a government's policy than anything else. I am not surprised.
>>1110410
>they think everything can be reduced down to mathematical equations and cold logic, not realizing they come off as autistic as a result.
No, they (we) are simply applying scientific methods to research social issues. We don't think everything can be "reduced down to mathematical equations", but we try to in order to build models.
Compare it to how psychologists put up lists with bullet points for different psychological diagnoses. Every person is a complex individual and this needs to be taken into consideration, but having these diagnoses help psychologists form some order and research greater phenomenons on a macro scale. Models are a necessary thing for research, models allow us to research a complex, broad reality.
Adjusting models for things like human rationality vs. irrationality is a major part of economics. If you don't know this I don't think you have a lot of insight into economics at all, I have to say.
>>1110468
I agree that building models is inevitable, even if it is a verbal description model, but the excessive focus on the scientific method leads to what I believe is a grave problem: there is a tendency in political science (the field with which I am most familiar) to focus only on some tendencies that can be expressed as somehing similar to "laws". I.e., if you try to explain the causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union, you must come up with an explanation that would be applicable to other cases of authoritarian regimes collapsing. From this point of view, any explanation that would focus on the uniqueness of the case would be deficient and likely unfalsifiable. And I believe that it's retarded, because it implies that laws of history are ontologically similar to laws of physics.
>>1110392
It really, really isn't.
t. econ grad
No.
In the case of history, how would you go about developing a experiment to test an hypothesis about the past? What would be your control? What 'really' happened? But that's the issue at hand--we don't know, precisely, what did happen. And how would you test your hypothesis? Through alternative timeliness? How would you access those metaphysically suspect streams of events?
History isn't a science of the past; it's a working narrative and living interpretation of our collective story.
>>1110600
It really, really is.
t. econ grad
Absolutely not. Virtually none of the methodology can transfer to social studies at all. You can't "test" history in the same way that you can something like chemistry. Not to say that the scientific method is the only thing that gives knowledge value, though.
>>1110629
No it isn't.
t. doer of science
>>1110629
Bubby, please. Putting a polyester mane on a kitten doesn't make it a lion.
>>1110512
So what you're talking about is an appropriation of historical circumstance into a person's own political bias. Kinda like how FDR's time in office can easily be twisted to completely validate the entirety of Ameritard leftist or rightist policies by making a few generalizations about him and the postwar situation.
>>1110468
What do you think of the "Invisible Hand of The Market"? It intuitively makes sense that smaller decisions feed a bigger gestalt. But when it's used rhetorically, it's almost framed to be a godlike phenomenon because:
Don't mess with it
If you mess with it you'll be sorry
Markets make all your decisions for you
Markets are always right
Markets will always lead us to the promised thing
and etc
>>1110232
>do you think that history and social studies in general should use the same methodology as natural sciences
Natural sciences can afford to perform precise repeatable experiments to test their theories. History and the social studies can't perform such experiments without a time machine or totalitarian control over society. This does not mean that they have to find a magical alternative means of reasoning like postmodernism, rather it means more importance needs to be placed on objectivity since we are handicapped.
>>1110647
No serious economist would say the Invisible Hand fixes everything, that's just not how it works. It's literally babby's first economic lesson.
I study history as a minor, and I have very few criticisms of their methodology tbqh. They seem to be excrutiatingly afraid of being wrong in their assessment of primary sources/secondary sources.
>>1110708
>>1110632
>>1110624
I, personally, fully agree with you, guys, but the problem is that mainstream Western (or at leastr American) political science believes that it, in fact, can apply scientific method to history and politics. Instead of experiments, they use either statistical methods (for example, they're widespread in conflict or electoral studies, and there are publicly available datasets on these topics) or comparative case studies, where the inference goes, to put it very simply, like "country A experienced outcome X, while country B experienced outcome Y. Let's look for what is different between these countries so that we can find a plausible reason for the differences in outcomes". So this kind of research design is used to make up for the impossibility to have a control group.
As I said, I do believe that this approach towards social studies is wrong. Now I'm finishing my MA and as I'm planning to go on to the doctoral degree, I have to choose between political science and history, and I am definitely opting for history.
>>1110232
>experimentally reproduce history
yeah good luck with that
>>1110818
Just for the sake of justice, you usually can't have experiments in astronomy either, and still it is a science.
>>1110802
Nor is that approach to governance entirely wrong. It just depends.
Would be nice if it applied to man-made climate change which does actually have widespread consensus in the natural sciences.
>>1110232
Fuck anyone that eats at McDonald's seriously.
>>1110232
>So, do you think that history and social studies in general should use the same methodology as natural sciences?
You don't know what the word methodology means.
>Or do you think that using the standard hypothesis testing procedure a.k.a. scientific method
Time for you to read Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend before opening your shit trap mouth again.
>>1110232
If your methods involve quantitative data then the scientific method can apply.
If you are methodology involves historiography that isn't quantitative, then you really don't need to apply scientific methods. This is the humanities after all.
>>1110934
I'm gonna go out tomorrow and order a couple of big macs, just for you.
>>1111438
Fuck off fifel.
>>1113947
He's right though.
>>1110232
Cant really do tests on the past, we have to work based on evidence, often minimal evidence and deduce what is likely
>>1110639
DELETE THIS
