VitorMSAlmeida.pt

There is a real tension, and an absolute incompatibility, between the scientific method and the so-called “humanities” (or social sciences). The discussion is old, profound, and still alive. It revolves around differences in the object of study and practical/epistemological limitations, but many humanities attempt to apply the scientific method but highly adapted or adulterated (thus compromising the results).

Sciences: (to explain) — seek general, universal causal laws, testable by controlled experiments, with high reproducibility and objectivity (physics, chemistry, mathematics), there is no influence from the observer.
Humanities: (to understand) — deal with meanings, intentions, historical, cultural, and subjective contexts. The observer is part of the phenomenon (observer effect), and the object is complex, intentional, and historical.

Characteristics of the scientific method:
Empirical: Based on observable evidence.
Reproducible: Other researchers should be able to obtain similar results.
Falsifiable: The hypothesis must be able to be proven false.
Iterative: It is not linear. You often return to previous steps with new data.

The scientific method:
1. Observation: Perceiving a phenomenon or problem in the world.
2. Formulation of the Question: Transforming the observation into a clear and investigable question.
3. Elaboration of the Hypothesis or Theory: Proposing a provisional and testable explanation for the problem. It must be clear, falsifiable, and based on existing knowledge.
4. Experimentation (Hypothesis Testing): Planning and conducting controlled experiments to test the hypothesis. Defining the independent variable (what changes), the dependent variable (what is measured), the controlled variables (kept constant), and, most importantly, ensuring control or preventing external influences (or alternatively measuring all possible variables and conditions).
5. Data Collection and Analysis: Recording all results in an organized manner for all variables.
6. Conclusion: Comparing the results obtained with the hypothesis.

Arguments in favor of incompatibility (or strong limitation)
Complexity and variables: Human behavior involves free will, culture, values, ideologies, and unique contexts.
Difficulty in controlling variables (ceteris paribus almost never holds perfectly). Ethical experiments are limited.
Non-repeatability: They are biased in order to achieve ideological perspectives.
Subjectivity and values: The researcher has biases; subjects interpret and react to the research (Hawthorne effect, demand characteristics).

Example of application of a “pseudo-scientific” method in an open system:
– The sample was not absolutely isolated and therefore receives extraneous influences.
– Only the measurements that “interest” the observer are measured. Thus, the number of people with lung cancer is measured in a sample of smokers and non-smokers, but the elements of the experiment are not isolated from the outside world, and all environmental variables (dust, bacteria, lifestyle, interactions, etc.) are ignored.
– The conclusions “smoking causes cancer” are drawn, more or less, and no other result would be expected due to the lack of open-system control criteria and the ignoring of all other variables.
– However, using another variable, it is observed in the sample that there is an increase in lung cancer in the percentage of those who watch TV, therefore: “TV causes lung cancer”.
This was just one example where the “studies” of the so-called “human sciences” actually confuse “possible influence” with the exact determinism of science (only this allows for repeatability).

Another example, but using the opposite:
– A sample of light bulbs was created. Using arbitrary methods and observations, it is verified that if they all light up, then it is the switch that activates them.
– But since I’m naughty, I cut the power, and how does that explain it? I asked this question to a psychologist and after years I still await a duly demonstrated answer through mathematical formalization.

Repeatability and its mathematical formalization is the fundamental and basic characteristic of any science, that is, we all know that under those conditions the results will be exactly and completely as formalized by the mathematical function.

Conclusion:
Do not confuse science with human knowledge, because a narrow model segregates empirical human knowledge (non-repeatable and only intentional); and transforms and This demonstrates that the “humanities” are merely opinion or ideology.