Methodological Differences Between the Natural and the Social Sciences

To better understand the essential methodological differences between the world of the natural sciences and that of the social sciences, let’s outline these differences by contrasting the two worlds. Point number one: The natural sciences study relatively simple phenomena, while the sciences of human action study relatively complex, or, if you will, enormously complex phenomena. I repeat: the first point that distinguishes a natural scientist—a physicist, chemist, biologist, or doctor—from an economist is that the physicist, chemist, biologist, or doctor studies relatively simple phenomena, while we social scientists study enormously complex phenomena. “Oh, come on! What is Professor Huerta de Soto saying? Everybody knows physicists study the most complicated stuff. Don’t they study black holes, quarks, quasars, infinitely large and infinitely small things? To me, that seems a lot more complicated than studying society. I mean, in the end, society (pfft!), anybody can talk about that. Politicians, like Zapatero, come and tell us what needs to be done: raise wages, lower taxes, raise taxes… And the Governor of the Bank of Spain says we need to increase the money supply… Anybody can talk about society, even a nobody, but you’ve got to study a lot to be a physicist.”