From Natural Science to Social Science

Many observers have noted that the social sciences have not progressed as impressively as the natural sciences. There have been many different reasons advanced to explain this glaring discrepancy. E. Boring, an historian of the social sciences 1 felt that although physics had its Newton, Psychology has yet to find such a giant. Some feel that the growth of the social sciences has been stunted because its subject matter is intrinsically more difficult to treat scientifically. Still others attempt to attribute the relative lag to the fact that the social sciences arose many years later. This last point in itself raises a fundamental question: Why did the natural sciences precede the social sciences by so many centuries?

It is true, of course, that pre-scientific psychology dates back millennia—probably to the origin of the human race. But it was not until the 19th Century that scientific psychology grew out of the early superstitions and speculations regarding human nature. In the natural sciences, there was a much earlier start, at least as long ago as Chaldea, and a much faster progression. Thus, out of the early astrology evolved the science of astronomy, several thousand years before Christ.4

Here one might well ask why man initially turned his gaze on the distant stars, instead of into his own nature.

This seeming paradox may be explained in terms of the Freudian concept of repression, extrapolated from the ontogenetic to the phylo-genetic level. In other words, man purposely turned away from examining his own self, and instead projected his problems upon the surrounding cosmos.