Human Sciences Tug-of-War: Is It More Like Natural Sciences or History?

Renata Sayão

Block 5 TOK

Ms. Hunt

Aug. 23, 2013

Are the human sciences more like the natural sciences or more like history?

            Although in technical terms, the human sciences do not encompass history, to a large extent the validation of a most human science knowledge claim relies on historical evidence and reference. After hours of thinking and researching and sorting data into categories, I’ve come to this simple conclusion: the human sciences try to follow the paradigm that is applied in the natural sciences but nonetheless are still more like history because their subjects are conscientious animals.

            Let’s take the TED Talk by William Ury on “the walk from ‘no’ to ‘yes’” to begin. Ury is a writer and mediator who works to resolve and study conflicts throughout the world. He’s an unofficial sociologist and anthropologist. He begins by explaining, in a very scientific term, that humans are reaction-machines, and that they cannot get an outside view of the conflict they are facing because they have already reacted. This is a knowledge claim based significantly on psychology and the study of human behavior, and can be tested using the methods and established rules that the natural sciences laid out. A little later, however, he begins to talk about conflicts in the Middle East, and references Abraham, the first man to walk across this territory. He discusses how Abraham is a symbolic “third side” that reminds us [humankind and Middle-Eastern tribes] that we’re part of an extended family. In addition, he discusses that when angry or lost in the world, walking is the key to getting back in focus for humans. These proposals are heavily based on historical analysis, following the “make a justified claim that is testable” of the natural sciences but having at their cores historical evidence and reference because that is how they get their data samples and examples. Since it is very difficult to “remind humans that we’re part of an extended family” in a scientific and methodic way, it is only through history that it is justifiable.

            In addition, an article published in 2008 in the freakonomics website on the “Economics of Happiness” is, as the title clearly depicted, an economic report. Journalist and economist Justin Wolfers noted the trend in graphs comparing GDP and overall wellbeing in a spam of 60 years, from 1950 to 2010. He concluded that the income-well-being relationship “has appeared just about as strongly in surveys probing happiness as in surveys asking about life satisfaction”. The relationship between income and happiness is about as strong today as it was in the very first surveys, which were taken sixty years ago, hence concluding his point that there is and has always been a direct correlation between income and well-being in humans. Now… how did he come to that conclusion so fast? He used historical data and analyzed, with the paradigm of a scientist (looking for patterns and trends), that there was a correlation between the two sets of surveys. There is no natural-sciences-method that could prove this correlation to be true in a laboratory or through an experiment. It is with data originating from history that one is able to prove his or her point. Had anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists not observed from history general trends and behaviors, they would not be able to ever come to a “justified true belief” through a scientific lenses and would not be able to call themselves social scientists.

            One last example that clearly distinguishes human sciences as an area of study more like history is Brené Brown’s TED Talk on “the power of vulnerability”. She says in the beginning of the talk that she likes to put human chaos into boxes, to observe patterns, observe if her observations are correct, and sort human society into organized information matrices. This is, to an enormous extent, a natural sciences paradigm, because again these scientists are trying to find patterns and behaviors that can be tested by other scholars and proven correct. However, she claims that when she gathered interviews and her qualitative data (which is very obviously a historical approach to society), she noticed that some aspects of human behavior can only be proven by interacting with people not by testing them or changing their environment or building experiments to prove the point. Similarly, historians take different perspectives on one event or situation and must build their arguments and explain their logic with these perspectives. Both areas of knowledge work strongly with qualitative data and put pieces of human society and behavior together with such scattered mediums of data. Meanwhile, in the natural sciences knowledge claims can only be justified if it can be observed and tested with the same results, and does not include qualitative data or different sorts of data.

            All in all, after going through some of the studies published by human scientists, I have come to the conclusion that the area of study is very closely connected to history. Again, the studies appeal to the patterns and testable information that is encouraged by the natural scientist community, however they almost always go back for data in historical evidence and records. Some observations are made through peering into history, looking at the evolution of our species and our civilizations, and such data could not be considered 100% valid and testable and acceptable in a natural sciences community.

Do we and should we study human behavior objectively?

Over the years, there has been an anthropological debate on whether scientists should study human behavior objectively or subjectively. Traditional sciences attempted to collect anthropological information the way natural sciences do: with a clear method, isolation of variables, and, most importantly, an objective standpoint. However, modern sciences deal with "reality" as a relationship between the observer and the observed. It has become recognized that objectivity cannot be achieved, and is, in itself, a knowledge issue: how can someone determine what is purely objective or subjective? With this in mind, and as an economics student, as well as a physics one, I constantly have this debate of whether it is even possible to achieve such characteristics. Why are the "sciences" split into human and natural? Subjective and objective? As the scientific paradigms evolve over time, especially with groundbreaking discoveries such as quantum mechanics, it is seen more and more how one type is not as different from the other, how the human sciences may have a way of being objective, and the natural sciences (yes, physics and biology included), subjective.

Some sociologists have tried to adopt the methods of the natural sciences by using quantitative means and results instead of qualitative ones. In sociology, this is called "positivism," and it reflects a traditional approach to human sciences. Comte, a positivist, argued that sociologists should not be concerned with internal meanings, motives, feelings and emotions of individuals. According to him, these mental states only exist in an individual's consciousness, making measuring and other quantitative scientific methods hard to use. Instead, he argues that sociologists should look for correlations between different variables, just like in math or any natural sciences. Examples of this are the different studies of suicide rates, membership of different religions, among others. These are very useful when looking for culture studies as a whole. However, correlations are not always absolutely correct; for instance, there is a "correlation" between the lack of pirates and global warming over the years. Although there is a statistical correlation, it does not mean that the global temperatures are increasing because of the lack of pirates -- one does not affect the other. Sure, this may seem funny at first, but if we look at every so-called "correct" correlation this way, the quantitative evidence used goes to waste. This is a great example of how objectivity when studying human behavior should not always be used.

Many argue that it is crucial to accept that modern scientific research is relativistic and that objectivity is a "naive realism" of traditional sciences. Cultural relativists are some that agree with this belief. They argue that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be interpreted in terms of his or her own culture. They are also known for using cross-cultural methods essentially to develop any meaningful scientific comparative statements. However, if there is no structure for how the information can be collected, according to this group of scientists, how can one study compare to the other? In a sense, it is important to be able to repeat the same "experiment" twice and achieve similar results, as is seen in the natural sciences. With anthropologists, this cannot be achieved because so much of the investigation is in relation to the cultural environment of the scientist in charge. Without objectivity, cross-cultural comparisons are like comparing apples to oranges.

The recurring example of objectivity is the natural sciences. It has consistently been proven to be a methodologically successful area of knowledge and that it is the closest to objectivity that we have ever gotten. Even within this area, the most quintessential of all three sub-sections (Physics, Chemistry, and Biology) is the physical one, isn't it? Some laws and theories have withstood against time and are still taught until today, making this the most objective of studies, right? Wrong. Quantum mechanics is a great example of how century-old objectivity can be crumbled in a second. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that the better you know the position of a particle, the less you know its momentum, and vice versa. This goes against any "unbiased" collection of data belief in the realm of physics, and even natural sciences. And we're not talking about humans here -- we're talking about particles. Even the concept of relativity is questioned; the speed of a man walking inside a train in his perspective may be 1 meter per second. However, from the perspective of a person outside the train as it is moving, may be 45 meters per second. The difference is so big, and how can we be sure that one is "more correct" over the other?

Ultimately, we cannot classify one type of science as objective and the other subjective. Both human and natural sciences show examples of one or the other, and that shows how we should take both characteristics into consideration when studying humans, or even particles (as mind-blowing as that might seem).

Do we and should we study human behavior objectively?

It is true that we cannot measure social data with numbers in the same way we can in the natural sciences. Although all humans are unique individuals, we can share fundamental patterns of behavior, which can be measured and analyzed in the human sciences, both objectively and subjectively. Whether we should or not study it based solely on empirical evidence, however, is another question. While there are some significant gains on treating human sciences quantitatively, there are also advantages in using our humanity to study humans.

The social sciences have one characteristic that sets them apart—the human species is both the observer and the observed. This means that the object of study is rational, can adapt its behavior to different situations, and has a schema, or a cognitive map built through culture, education, and all the other factors that determine who you are. Nonetheless, no matter how difficult it is to come to conclusions about human behavior, every field in the human sciences needs a good amount of empirical evidence on which studies can be based. Plato defines knowledge as “justified true belief.” According to this definition, we need to find ways of measuring and experimenting in the human sciences so that these findings can be considered a part of human knowledge. 

Another reason why human sciences should be studied objectively is that some problems occur both in the natural and human sciences. Confirmation bias, for example, is when a researcher tends to prove what he or she believes in. However, it is a lot more difficult to prove your own opinion when most of your research is based on facts, such as in biology, physics, and so on, than when you are simply studying human behavior. Especially when we already have some preconceptions about humans, partly a result of our own schemas, it is difficult to see the other side of the argument. In the New York Times article "Divided They Fall," the author Nicholas Kristof talks about a study conducted with students from Dartmouth and Princeton. In the experiment, researchers showed them clips of a 1951 football game between both institutions. Asked to act as impartial referees, students had to determine which side cheated the most. The results were astounding Dartmouth students thought Princeton had cheated the most and vice-versa. Therefore, even though the two sides were watching the same game in the study, their brains came to two completely opposite conclusions. That shows confirmation bias—students would never admit their team cheated more than the other.

When we are doing scientific research we may also face another problem, the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy—the belief that because events occur together, one must cause the other. Although this fallacy may also occur in the natural sciences, it is much more common and challenging in the social sciences, where you can’t always isolate the dependent and independent variables, as well as control all the other variables. For instance, in one experiment, a psychologist might try to draw the relationship between teenage depression and parental divorce in the subjects’ childhood (please note that this is an arbitrary example; it’s not based on any real research). Now, if the results show that most kids whose parents divorced have depression in their teenage years, the researcher can’t automatically conclude that divorce causes depression. Imagine how many other uncontrolled variables come into play—the person’s environment, personal experiences and even genetics! Therefore, the researcher cannot just assume that one event causes the other simply because they are related. It doesn’t mean we have to ignore correlations—no—we just have to be careful not to make assumptions and let our judgment impair data collection and the pursuit of knowledge.

Other problems, however, are aggravated in the social sciences. The phenomenon known as the Hawthorne effect is one of them. The Hawthorne effect states that when you study people, their behavior will change and adapt to the presence of the experimenter. I was extremely pleased when I recognized such occurrence in action this week at school. It was the High School Open House, when the school is open for parents to visit and see students and teachers in their natural habitat. Weirdly enough, however, I noticed that all teachers decided to wear nice clothes that day, even though they hardly ever dress up like that. If any of us were anthropologists studying teacher behavior, we would not recognize the fact that teachers were reacting to the presence of parents, and thus our analysis of what we’d consider “natural behavior” would be wrong. However, this example results from my own personal bias as a student and my schema, so even then my analysis of the phenomenon would not be the best possible one. Nonetheless, this shows that using our humanity, perception, and previous knowledge is necessary if we want to paint the “most accurate” picture of our object of study. The same applies to the human sciences in general, where some subjectivity, such as using the tools humanity has given us (judgment, emotion, ethics) may add even more value to our investigation, and ensure no empirical mistakes are made.

Studying the social sciences objectively with a tad of subjectivity, however, is not enough to completely understand human behavior. In any research, there are two types of statements: positive, or statements of fact, and normative, or statements of value. Normative statements are important in letting us evaluate how important something is, but that kind of value claim cannot be made from within the social sciences. Thus, studying the social sciences objectively but with external influences like ethics is the only way to study the human sciences objectively, so that it complies with Plato’s definition of knowledge, while also preserving the field’s uniqueness. The social sciences are essential for us to understand human behavior, but they must be accompanied by a wider philosophical standpoint on social justice and individual rights.

WC: 980

Do we, and should we study human behavior objectively?

There are many different ways that we study the world, and one of the most significant ways we do so, is objectively. This meaning that we study and collect aspects in a factual fashion, documenting and classifying systematically in hopes of laying foundations that can be logically followed. In the sciences, we strive to abandon all our personal biases to gather information objectively - by observation devoid of emotion or opinion. Letting one's experimenter bias meddle with the results is seen in a negative light, it retracts value from the outcome. Human beings are extremely complex, and in this sense there's a debate, on whether we should study ourselves objectively, as a white-coated scientists studies a lab rat, or subjectively, with emotional value.

There have certainly been attempts to study ourselves objectively, but as we'll see from the following example, maintaining an objective position and scientist mentality, proves to be a challenge. The Stanford Prison Experiment was designed to study the psychology of a prison environment - what those with power (the guards) and what the incarcerated inmates experience and the attitudes they lean towards. The guards and the prisoners were randomly assigned to volunteers, the vast majority one of them being Stanford students looking for a summer job. The experiment was scheduled to go on for two weeks, but was stopped after six days. In these six days, the guards managed to go from intelligent young men to sadistic oppressors, the prisoners barricaded themselves inside the cell as a form of uprising, a prisoner was released because of a mental breakdown, and overall, the "fake" prison became very much like a real one. The organizer of the experiment, Philip Zimbardo, assigned himself the role of the prison warden, as well as the psychologist, or the scientific observer, thinking he could do both. Long story short, the role of a prison warden got to his head, and his scientist mindset all but crumbled: he was intent on only one thing - keeping the prisoners were they belonged, their cells. In the documentary, he himself admits he lost track of what it all meant - it ceased to be an experiment and became a reality. This serves to show the sheer difficulty that studying objectively sometimes holds - it's not a matter of simply choosing to stand back and observing, sometimes the dynamics that engulf the observer are just too strong to resist, and he becomes a participant.

On the other hand, an anthropologist might be able to successfully infiltrate a culture - say, an aboriginal tribe in the outskirts of the Amazon, and create a report with objective observations. The scientists needn't intervene with their lifestyles, she might certainly get affected by them (as with learning their language, eating their food, etc.) but her reports might be written as one writes a list of observations on the way a fish swims. There is, of course, personal bias and subjectivity, since the scientist no doubt has a background filled with opinions and beliefs, but then again, who doesn't? Pure objectivity is extremely hard, if not impossible, to attain.

Another point then can be raised, on whether what is best: should we or not attempt to study humans objectively? The Hawthorne effect, in a way, argues we should. This refers to the effect that social experiments have on people - once the subjects known that they're being observed or tested, they will inevitably try harder, to please the observer, or the scientist. This, in turn, changes their actual outcome to a much more positive one. It's too subjective to let the subject know they're being studied, and explains why many experiments take on to catch their subjects off guard - without any knowledge of the experiment. This certain objectivity, and observation point of view, certainly helps to obtain more truthful results, it can serve as an example as to why it is important to study human beings as an entirely different species altogether.

Nowadays, a man in a white coat holds certain assumptions about him. Primarily that he knows what he's doing, and that it's for the sake of science. Despite this, the distance that often separates a professional scientists from a everyday human being can sometimes prove to be harmful. In Elyn Saks's TED talk, she talks about her struggle against schizophrenia - a fearful mental illness that destroys inhibitions and the boundary between reality and fantasy. As she tells her story, we come to know of her mental outbreaks and the consequences: being strapped down to a metal bed for sometimes almost up to 24 hours. All this primarily on the basis that men in white coats deemed her "dangerous", even though she'd never had a violent outburst or deliberately hurt someone. At the end of the talk, she urges the world to see those with mental illnesses as a different race or psychopaths, but human beings in need of support and love. The scientists that deemed her unfit for control over her own life or interactions with others, were holding a barrier between them and the subject. The lack of subjectivity and acknowledgement that they were dealing with human being just like them lead to the assumption that they were different from them.

On a whole, it seems that more often than not, we strive for objectivity, but shift towards subjectivity. When we do create a strong barrier and decide upon objectivity, it can cause harm to others, lack of understanding, and uncertain assumptions. I believe humankind works in ways that we can only understand once we adopt position in which we are willing to connect with each other, mostly through direct, heartfelt interaction. Creating a distance between the observer and the subject only pulls us further away from what is truly important and makes us human, and that is our ability to connect.