Why is social science less "scientific" than natural science
>>9148728
>Why is social science less "scientific" than natural science
because social "scientists" don't use the scientific method
Because it's far too complicated to form a sufficiently-reduced set of axioms and have well-formed logic produce any tangible results.
>>9148749
would you argue that social science is simply less advanced than natural science, due to higher complexity of the problems?
>>9148728
>social science
you mean behavioral ecology?
Experiments depend on behaviors and feelings of individuals, so it is extremely difficult to create a re-producible experiment.
>>9148728
Any science that isn't experimentally based is inferior to any science that is. Social scientists occasionally conduct experiments but most of it is rooted in fucking surveys or digging up century old manuscripts and shit. It's just inherently a lot weaker than actually having a model and testing predictions
>>9148753
Less advanced and doomed to be forever less advanced. The problems it tackles aren't just "more complicated", they are exponentially so. Even something as simple as identifying a variable is profoundly difficult when your object of study is people and their culture, let alone the technical and ethical difficulties is running proper experiments. Frankly it's incredible that any progress has been made at all.
>>9148801
Don't you think that more advanced computer simulation would be able to make accurate predictions in social science?
You just need a good model for a human, then you can simulate behaviour within a culture or country
>>9148801
Not necessarily, interesting results can be made. For example masses of people behaving similar to gas systems.
However, social scientists often want to "jump ahead" to these exponentially complex issues, instead of focusing on what they can accurately predict they chase headlines and funding, which you can't really blame them for.
>>9148743
What is the scientific method exactly
>>9148971
> make observation
> create model to explain observation
> use model to make testable predictions
> test the predictions
> do this a lot
> your dumb model probably didn't predict things correctly all the time so revise the model so that it gets the predictions right
> do this a lot
> eventually the model isn't predicting things that don't happen/aren't true
Any scientific publication you might find yourself reading should account for one or more steps in that process. The anon you replied to is wrong, social science is real science but the data that they have to work with is notoriously weak as shit for actually testing what they are trying to test.