New York Times article "Overcoming 'Physics Envy'"

To me, the most important point underscored by this article is we, in the social sciences, are dealing with aspects of human behavior, which are difficult, if not impossible, to place within empirical values and formulas.  Yet, as the article also points out, many valuable theoretical models and the ideas behind those would be lost to us today if a strict rule of empirical testing were employed across all disciplines of research and theory.

While the world of chemistry, physics, biology and other "natural sciences" follow observable laws that can be constructed as data and causal relationships, human behavior cannot; the aspects of our being that are studied in social sciences cannot be easily structured like computer programming routines.  That does not make the theoretical models or the conclusions we may draw from them any less valid or useful to present and future generations.