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What Is It About Theories in the Human Sciences and Natural Sciences That Makes Them Convincing?

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Submitted By challisnick
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Over the past thousands of years natural science has been the focal point of scientific research, drawing in the world’s greatest minds as they attempt to solve the most puzzling and intriguing of questions. One such mind is Newton, who’s simple observations of an apple falling from a tree led to the recognition of one of the most remarkable scientific breakthroughs of our millennium, gravity. However, another field of science has emerged in recent times, the field of the humanistic sciences. While natural sciences concentrate on chemistry, physics, and biology, human sciences surround history, economics, anthropology, and psychology. However, as these fields attempt to answer age-old questions concerning human behaviour, and the laws of the world, it is easy to wonder to what extent we can accept their discoveries as fact. Furthermore, what causes these scientific fields to be so intuitively appealing? Finally, as the majority of research performed in both fields relies on observation, to what extent can we trust observations utilizing sense perception? And what are the limitations of this trust in our human sense perception? Despite these several questions, the natural sciences serves a significantly more convincing field than human sciences, as more scientific research can be validated and accepted as truth. Furthermore, the human sciences relies almost solely off perception of past events, or behaviour, which can be contorted by bias, as well as several other limiting factors.

One of the most intuitively appealing aspects of natural sciences is that they simply study our observable world. Much of the study of natural sciences revolves around observations of reactions, processes, and natural occurrences. However, the natural sciences are not limited by their dependence on observation and perception, but use it as a way of supporting their claims and theories.

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