Premium Essay

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

In:

Submitted By challisnick
Words 721
Pages 3
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.

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

The Rise of Atheism

...atheism * Science * Evil Atheism is when someone doesn’t believe in the existence of God. There are two types of Atheism negative and positive atheism. The negative atheism is when someone have no knowledge about God and doesn’t believe in it; while on the other hand the positive atheism is when they have the knowledge but still doesn’t believe in God. Over the years things started to change, Science came and people now have better understanding of things around them. These have made a major impact on people’s faiths and believe, which has caused an increase of atheist people. Back in the old days, everything was seen as either a miracle or a punishment from God. But since Science came along, it gave an explanation for why things happen and supporting it with evidence. This had made people question the existence of God, because God became no longer ‘the explanation’. For example: At first people thought that God had created the universe, but then Science came and argued this fact with a theory called the Big Bang theory, which is the explanation for how the universe started. Stephen Hawking said: “ Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation”. What he means is that there are no evidence that proves that God did create the universe, but science do. Therefore Science is much logical than believing in God. Here when the rise of atheism began. Hawking represents what the majority...

Words: 952 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Psychology

...The Field of Psychology We humans are a strange species and our behavior is often inconsistent. Some of us smile when we're angry, others cry when we're happy. And all of us expect other people to figure out what in the world we are thinking. Not only are we different from other species, we're radically different from each other. Thankfully, our differences can be examined more easily through the lens of psychology—the science that tells us how the mind, brain, and body work together. This lesson introduces you to the field of psychology—its origins, history, key perspectives, research methods, issues, and current trends. This lesson presents the following topics: • What is Psychology? • The History of Psychology • Modern Psychology Perspectives • Types of Psychological Professionals • The Science of Psychology • Ethics of Psychological Research What is Psychology? Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. • Behavior includes outward or obvious actions or reactions such as facial expressions or movement. These actions and reactions are sometimes referred to as body language. John wants to ask Susan for a date, and Susan wants him to ask her out. John worked up his courage, was about to ask her out when he walked by her desk, but Susan looked up with a frown on her face. Assuming that she was frowning at him, John walked quickly back to his own office. Susan, who had a horrible sinus...

Words: 3809 - Pages: 16

Premium Essay

Research

...ACE8001: What do we mean by Research? & Can we hope to do genuine Social Science Research (David Harvey)  What do we mean by research? What might characterise good research practice? There is no point in us trying to re-invent the wheel - other and probably more capable people than us have wrestled with this problem before us, and it makes good sense and is good practice to learn what they have discovered.  In other words - we need to explore more reliable and effective methods and systems for the pursuit of research than we have been doing so far. What is research? Dictionary Definitions of Research: * "The act of searching closely or carefully for or after a specified thing or person" * "An investigation directed to discovery of some fact by careful study of a subject" * "A course of scientific enquiry" (where scientific = "producing demonstrative knowledge") Howard and Sharp (HS) define research as:  "seeking through methodical processes to add to bodies of knowledge by the discovery or elucidation of non-trivial facts, insights and improved understanding of situations, processes and mechanisms".  [Howard, K. and Sharp, J.A. The Management of a student research project, Gower, 1983 - a useful and practical “how to do it” guide] Two other, more recent guides are: Denscombe, Martyn, 2002, Ground rules for good research: a 10 point guide for social research,  Open University Press. Robinson Library Shelf Mark: 300.72 DEN, Level 3 (several copies)...

Words: 4067 - Pages: 17

Premium Essay

Existence of God

...Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary The Existence of God; Science As Justification Submitted to Dr. michael chiavone Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For THEO 626 D02 By Daniel Martin Student ID: L25178504 New Orleans, LA December 12, 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page I. Introduction 1 a. Thesis and introductory explanation b. Historical development of doctrine II. Arguments for the Existence of God 3 c. Cosmological Argument d. Teleological Argument e. Anthropological III. Atheism Versus Existence of God 11 f. Evidence used to disprove God’s existence g. The believers evidence to counter IV. Conclusion 13 h. Summary of the arguments i. Applications in the church today V. Introduction The existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, immutable, monotheistic God has come up against enormous resistance from the beginning of time. Early believers such as Moses, Elijah, Paul, and Peter all had to demonstrate that their God is the one true God at times. These believers even encountered persecution and ridicule for holding on to these beliefs at times. Nevertheless the challenges to these early believers tended to be demonstrating that their God was greater than their accuser’s god or gods. At times, it was through the words of men that the God of the Bible was shown to be greater, and other...

Words: 5137 - Pages: 21

Free Essay

Soc230

...0Jan 15th Paradigm -What is paradigm? -Thomas Kuhn: “the structure of scientific revolution (1962) -he was interested in two things. He redefined the word “paradigm” to use in science -These paradigms I take to be universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners. -Provide models (in law, theory, instrumentation, application) from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research. -Ex. Copernician revolution, Newtonian dynamic (new version of the world-the change of paradigm ) -Ex. Theory of light -today (in the 1960): light is photon. Ie. Quantum-mechanical entities( Planck Einstein) -In the 19th century, light was transverse wave motion (young and Fresnel ) -during the 18th century, light was material corpuscles (Newton) -in each case, research proceed accordingly -Understanding assumptions -Ontological: what reality is -Epistemological: how to access to knowledge, how knowledge is defined -Define valid knowledge at a time- it is always link on social conventions. Knowledge is never pure knowledge. It is link to the time of what is the social context. -upon which, research problems and analysis are designed (the questions that we asked are always link to the two term) -accepted view of science, of scientific knowledge at a time and scientific...

Words: 3428 - Pages: 14

Premium Essay

Cornelius Van Til Chapter Summary

...Van Til elaborates on what the correct method is by also implementing the authority of scripture. In fact, he devotes several pages in chapter four on the importance of scripture being the highest authority. Chapter five is majority devoted to showing the errors of Romanism lack of emphasis on scripture alone. He gets his point across but hung out too long in his criticisms. It is important to not that his main point in these final chapters is consistent with his main premise. He states, “The Reformed preacher does not tone down his message in order that it may find acceptance with the natural man. He does not say that his message is less certainly true because of its non-acceptance by the natural man. The natural man is, by virtue of his creation in the image of God, always accessible to the truth, accessible to the penetration of the truth by the Spirit of God.” His presuppositional message was clear throughout the book and it is indicative in this late quote. Overall, this was masterpiece on the importance of a presuppositional view in apologetics but I would not recommend for a layperson due to the difficult...

Words: 1452 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Biological Determinism

...person depends on genes inherited from his parents. There are a lot of different theories about intellectual capabilities. All these theories reflect different points of views, depending on the period of time the authors of these theories lived. The author argues for the theory that in the nineteenth century , artificial barriers in social hierarchy prevented people from achieving higher intellectual performance. In the end of XX century, in most places these barriers were removed by the democratic processes, and nothing artificial can stand between the natural sorting process and social status of the people. These changes can not be considered as historical because the age of democracy is just two hundred years , and the time when inequality between classes and between people was a natural situation is almost as long as the history of the world . The author insists that there is no connection between environmental differences and genetics. In support of his idea the author state that any Canadian student can perform better in mathematics than some ancient professors of mathematics. The author comes to the conclusion that changes in a cultural environment are the main factor that determines level of intellectual performance, not inherited combination of parent's genes . He argues that genetic differences that appear in one environment may easily disappear in another. A theory that twins...

Words: 2933 - Pages: 12

Free Essay

Blaise Pascal: Mechanist and Fideist

...endeavor, namely to discern natural causes through quantitative measurement. Galileo first challenged the Scholastic supposition that mathematical astronomy was merely ancillary to natural philosophy, and by the middle of the century, both the Cartesian and Newtonian mechanical systems had placed mathematics at center stage, disdaining qualitative physics as irrelevant, unknowable, and misleading. Consistent with their methodology, the mechanists tended to reduce the ontological reality of the natural world to its quantitative aspects, implicitly or explicitly eliminating all categories other than extension, time, space, and motion. In this interpretation, Descartes’ treatment of matter as extension merely formalized an intellectual aesthetic that even his adversaries held in practice. We can easily see this penchant for quantification in Newton’s belief that all physics is mechanical, but we might not expect to find a mania for quantity among those who held a more poetic view of reality. Such an enigma is precisely what we discover in Blaise Pascal, a man who intensely contemplated the ineffable qualitative aspects of human and divine reality, yet remained as thoroughly mechanistic in his treatment of the natural world as Descartes himself. By exploring this dual reality of Pascal’s intellectual life, we can examine how his brand of fideism synthesized the enchanted world of his Catholic faith with a seemingly disenchanted, corpuscular, quantitative science. During...

Words: 3358 - Pages: 14

Premium Essay

Wwii Documentary

...should always lead you to one conclusion, he is a supreme rationalist. All of his theories always one common underlying theme and that is that man is rational being and should be thought of in that way. Furthermore complicating the relationship between religion and politics. Most pragmatists would argue that both religion and politics cannot coexist with conflict, they simply exist for opposing reason. However, Hobbes argues that there could be a coexistence between the two. Although the laws of Gods and man are very different, according to Hobbes, they rarely contradict each other. I have a very hard time understanding this because it is very apparent in my life that the laws of God and man contradict each other on a very regular basis. It’s quite simple actually, being raised Catholic, I learned that there are certain things the law of man will allow for you to do that would be considered offensive towards God, or sinful. It became apparent to me quite quickly while reading Dumouchel, that he agreed. The sincerity of Hobbes should most certainly be questioned. For someone who bases the entirety of their theories around being rational and rooted in concrete science. His teachings on religion come off to me in a slightly mocking tone. However, I more strongly feel that he was simply writing in such a way to stay in the good graces of those in power, who would not support a strictly rationalized theory that did not involve God. Furthermore, Hobbes had to dance around the subject...

Words: 713 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Evolution Is It True

...creation of the creatures that inhabit the earth. My fears and tension were calmed when I read the preface to the book Mr. Coyne stated it so well and to the point: Accepting evolution needn’t turn you into a despairing nihilist or rob your life of purpose and meaning. It won’t make you immoral or give you the sentiments of a Stalin or Hitler. Nor need it promote atheism, for enlightened religion has always found a way to accommodate the advances of science. In fact, understanding evolution should surely deepen and enrich our appreciation of the living world and our place in it. (Coyne, 2009, p. xx) With this introduction to the text and Mr. Coyne’s calming of my fears that I would not burn in hell or be betraying my religion by opening my mind and heart to the information that is being provided. Why not open my mind to the possibility that the Theory of Evolution has some truth that is proven by scientific facts, I believe in medicine and that is based on scientific facts and research. The journey through each of the chapters covered in, Is Evolution True? Your Inner Fish; has been one of revelations, confusion and understanding. Come with me on my journey through, Is Evolution True. Chapter 1 – What is Evolution? This chapter begins with Mr. Coyne breaking down the meaning of evolution. He states that evolution is the idea that a species goes through varies changes in its genetic makeup through many generations which evolves it into...

Words: 3122 - Pages: 13

Premium Essay

What Is Philosophy

...Part 1 1. What is Philosophy? Quite literally, the term "philosophy" means, "love of wisdom." In a broad sense, philosophy is an activity people undertake when they seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which they live, and their relationships to the world and to each other. As an academic discipline philosophy is much the same. Those who study philosophy are perpetually engaged in asking, answering, and arguing for their answers to life’s most basic questions. To make such a pursuit more systematic academic philosophy is traditionally divided into major areas of study. Source: http://philosophy.fsu.edu/content/view/full/36588 2. What are the benefits of Studying Philosophy? Studying philosophy improves reasoning and critical skills. Skills gained by philosophy majors are useful in almost any career. * The ability to think logically * The ability to analyze and solve problems * The ability to assess proposed solutions * The ability to write and speak clearly, attending to details Students learn about questions. How to ask good questions and distinguish the worthwhile from the worthless questions. How to divide, prioritize, and simplify questions. Students are affected by learning about questions. * Studying questions liberates us from prejudice * It helps us to think independently, thus, promoting autonomy, self-government, and individuation * It broadens our perspective on life The study of philosophy benefits students intellectually...

Words: 8049 - Pages: 33

Free Essay

A Research About Stephen Hawkings

...waste of space. More precisely, he wrote that philosophy is ‘dead’ since it hasn’t kept up with the latest developments in science, especially theoretical physics. In earlier times – Hawking conceded – philosophers not only tried to keep up but sometimes made significant scientific contributions of their own. However they were now, in so far as they had any influence at all, just an obstacle to progress through their endless going-on about the same old issues of truth, knowledge, the problem of induction, and so forth. Had philosophers just paid a bit more attention to the scientific literature they would have gathered that these were no longer live issues for anyone remotely au fait with the latest thinking. Then their options would be either to shut up shop and cease the charade called ‘philosophy of science’ or else to carry on and invite further ridicule for their head-in-the-sand attitude. Predictably enough the journalists went off to find themselves media-friendly philosophers – not hard to do nowadays – who would argue the contrary case in a suitably vigorous way. On the whole the responses, or those that I came across, seemed overly anxious to strike a conciliatory note, or to grant Hawking’s thesis some measure of truth as judged by the standards of the natural science community while tactfully dissenting with regard to philosophy and the human sciences. I think the case needs stating more firmly and, perhaps, less tactfully since otherwise it looks like a forced retreat...

Words: 9175 - Pages: 37

Free Essay

Religion

...A Protagonist of the Scientific Revolution: Galileo Galilei was one of the protagonists of the scientific revolution, best known for his astronomical discoveries by means of a telescope (including sunspots, Jupiter’s satellites, and the phases of Venus), for his defense of heliocentrism, and for his study of the natural laws regarding falling bodies. Galileo, however, gave key contributions also to the development of the modern scientific methodology; for this reason, he holds a special place in the philosophy of science and epistemology. Life: Galileo was born in or nearby Pisa from Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia Ammannati. His father was a well known lutenist and music theorist, and the young Galileo was well versed in the art as well (Galileo’s youngest sibling, Michelangelo, became indeed an accomplished lutenist). During his youth, Galileo moved through different locations in Tuscany, among which the monastery of Vallombrosa, run by Camaldolese monks. The story goes that until 1581 Galileo had not studied mathematics. After considering priesthood and enrolling into a program for physician at the University of Pisa, Galileo suddenly realized his mathematical vocation upon attending a geometry lecture. Immediately, he started discovering ingenious facts and creating crafts such as thermoscope. As early as 1589, Galileo held a chair in mathematics at the University of Pisa, which position he kept until 1592, when he moved to Padua. There, he remained until 1610. ...

Words: 6109 - Pages: 25

Free Essay

Philosophy in Human Persons

...Philosophy 2500 – Jaden Phan – 7:45 – 9:00 am. The clues of mental phenomena and its mystery Philosophy of human persons is always a difficult question for humankinds. We are the highest form of animals equipped with supreme functions. We not only have soul which is the principle of life, but we are also believed to have mind or consciousness which is much more functional, divine and peculiar to the soul. But often times, we are unaware of what we are having and how our body operates in our daily life. Therefore, many philosophers, psychologists, religionists or even mathematicians, and sciences have been actively trying to define the nature, attributes and affections of our brain/soul. There are many different views and perspectives on the soul and the mind-body problem, such as materialism, physicalism, dualism, mysterianism and so on… So, how exactly do we understand humankinds, and all living beings as a whole? How exactly do we understand our own self? Do both material and immaterial parts exist? If so, how do they relate to each other? Although most of these questions have convincing answers, I believe we are still in the mystery of defining the true nature of mental phenomena. (1) Thomas Nagel said that: “Conscious experience is a widespread phenomenon. It occurs at many levels of animal life, though we cannot be sure of its presence in the simpler organisms...” His main thesis is that fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something...

Words: 2479 - Pages: 10

Free Essay

What Is a Music?

...What is Music? The problem with answering the question “What is music?” is understanding what would constitute a proper answer. Music arises from human behaviour, and the study of human behaviour is part of biology. So any question about music is a question about biology, and every question about biology requires an answer within the framework of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. 2.1 Music is Something We Like What is music? It’s what comes out of the speakers when we play a CD on our stereo. It’s what we hear on the radio. Music is singers singing and musicians playing. Music is a sound that we enjoy hearing. Is this a proper answer to the question “What is music?”? If I asked “What is a car?”, you could answer by pointing at a large object moving up the street and saying “It’s one of those.” But this may not be a satisfactory answer. A full explanation of what a car is would mention petrol, internal combustion engines, brakes, suspension, transmission and other mechanical things that make a car go. And we don’t just want to know what a car is; we also want to know what a car is for. An explanation of what a car is for would include the facts that there are people and other things (like shopping) inside cars and that the purpose of cars is to move people and things from one place to another. By analogy, a good answer to the question “What is music?” will say something about the detailed mechanics of music: instruments, notes, scales, rhythm...

Words: 12100 - Pages: 49