Cultural roots, the bias toward deduction

As a student of both the social sciences and the biological sciences I can appreciate the difference between the investigative practices of individual disciplines. I would agree that it makes little sense to assume that the power of hypothetico-deductivism is the only way of answering questions in the world; however, I don’t believe that physics envy is the proper term for what is happening in the social sciences regarding experimentation. At best, this definition reduces the complexities of the social sciences to a single explanation for popular methods of reasoning: academic inferiority complex. At worst, this article insults the social sciences by sketching them out to be envious of “real scientists”, going as far as copying the language and practices of the physical sciences. Instead, I acknowledge the bias toward the scientific method while I also believe that the social sciences are carving their own path in scientific reasoning. 

In exploring this issue, it is important to note the cultural weight of deduction, a standard by which many other sciences do in fact measure themselves. In a discussion of their book, A Model Discipline, Primo argues, “Too often we let statistical models tell us whether our theoretical models are worth anything(...)”. Examples of the superiority of the hypothesis-deduction model of reasoning are culturally evident in both the real world and in the fictional one. I would argue that the power of this model stems, not just from the world of academia, but also from a social standpoint. In the timeless books, and now television shows, about fictional character Sherlock Holmes, the power of deduction often trumps other methods of reasoning. In a modern medical rendition of the Sherlock Holmes stories, the television series House blurs the lines between deduction and non-traditional ways of answering scientific questions. It used to be the case that the only respected sciences were in biology, physics, chemistry and the like. Even today, there is a certain stigma placed upon those who earn master’s degrees and doctorate degrees in the hard sciences, while those in the social sciences are subject to scrutiny. While it is clear that there is a cultural weight places upon the practices of the hard sciences, the social sciences are starting to claim their grounds in the area of reasoning; it seems ill-informed to suggest otherwise.