Social and natural sciences are importantly different. Ignoring that is dangerous.

Whew. Kudos to Jason Blakely for an insightful article on the mistakes that can be made when societal and political decisions are justified, and debate squashed, by relying solely on findings from “science.” There’s too much in the article to summarize here, but one of the main points is that we need to be careful about using natural science evidence, and the epistemic weight it carries, to justify social and political decisions that necessarily must include other kinds of argument and evidence.

I am a big believer that social science can help us understand ourselves, each other, the world, and how all three interact. But to claim that “the science” told us to close schools during COVID-19 ignores all the social and political factors relevant to such a decision (e.g., How should we weight the dangers to teachers if we keep schools open versus the dangers to students’ learning and development if we close them?). That’s a misuse of the epistemic authority of the natural sciences and a misapplication of that evidence to justify societal decisions that require very different kinds of argument and justification.

The social sciences are valuable, but their findings have different utility and serve different purposes than findings from the natural sciences. People would be wise to understand these differences. Educators have studied how to teach people about the “nature of (natural) science.” Perhaps we also need research into how to teach people about the “nature of social science.”