Positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences as tools for understanding society, and so define science in its stricter modern sense.

Interpretivist social scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (for instance, by combining the quantitative and qualitative techniques).

The term social research has also acquired a degree of autonomy as practitioners from various disciplines share in its aims and methods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_science

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss3/art11/

Positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences as tools for understanding society, and so define science in its stricter modern sense.

Interpretivist social scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (for instance, by combining the quantitative and qualitative techniques).

The term social research has also acquired a degree of autonomy as practitioners from various disciplines share in its aims and methods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_science

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss3/art11/

Perhaps the reason for wanting to bridge the gap is the realization that knowledge has been compartmentalized to some measure.  Have a look at this paper.

"While the medical profession has long recognized that human health depends on a combination of physical, social, cultural, and economic factors, only since the 1980s have social scientists come to play a major role in research on health problems and programs.William Petty, in the 16OOs, was possibly the first nonmedical practitioner to analyze systematically the complex interactions of health, demographic, social and economic conditions."

Article The potential of transdisciplinary research for sustaining a...

Especially in the case of sociology that the connection between the social sciences and the development of modern society comes to light. Sociology is in France, after the Revolution by the realization of a transformation of historic proportions that involved the destruction of an old social structure and sees the emergence of a new structure, based on the industry, a term that originally means any form of productive work, as well as on scientific knowledge.

The founding fathers of the new science, Saint-Simon and Comte, were well aware of the impossibility of a return to the past, to the kind of society in the Middle Ages was made possible through the alliance between throne and altar, staying for centuries an order founded on a belief system shared by all; but they also made aware that the era of revolution was now closed, and that its action had broken up an effort to take over the reconstruction of the society, accompanied by development of a new belief system able to ensure consensus.

Genuine societies that care about their common well being, proper development , smooth coexistence and stability,  want to establish a reasonable vibrant, orderly functioning  social structure that makes all social members participant in it and beneficiary from it.

One of the venues where structures of truth and reason exist so that we humans emulate is nature. Nature is studied through natural sciences and to establish such social made structures, human society,  social scientists should indeed consult principles, expertise, theories and results of natural sciences in general and that of mathematics in particular.

Any structure that is made from aggregate of elements and forces from them, will indeed remain as such with better features and lasting futures if and when all the elements remain as such, parts of a true and reasonable relations among themselves and continue to supply that energy so that the structure continues to exist. The in balance of forces in the elements in which most elements are made impotent, decimated due to ill devised relations,  the structure simply collapses and no more what it envisioned to be. One such lack of fate phenomena in which all the forces of the structure loose power and the structure collapses within  is a black hole.   

The purpose is to reconcile the nagging intuition that the natural and social realms are part of a continuum. In treating the two sciences as separate (natural and social) we have limited our quest for truth only to that which is accessible through the scientific method. We have treated the scientific method as an infallible rule when it is just a tool, that is meant to advance us to the next frontier. Truth that is in essence partial, progressive and premised upon limited measurements.

The observer effect has nullified the claim that there is objective truth. Not that it does not exist but that a perfect measurement is impossible. Some are convinced that without access to objective truth there can be no universal truth. Nevertheless universal truth might be inaccessible since it lies outside of the dimension we are in (supra-systemic). As a result of our limited measurements, we are forever in the doom loop of subjective and partial truth. As "scientists" we are always gauging by rules and rulers but those same rules and rulers are not infallible, their flaws coming to light and being  "framed"  by the phenomenon under study. Measured truth is therefore not the only form of truth. It is perhaps one of many lying on a single continuum of universal truth. Its midwife, the scientific method, is perhaps what works best for measured truth but might be hopeless for other categories on the continuum.

Economy, a social science, tried to apply methods of modern physics which in turn relies on mathematics.

Economy apparently takes more and more biology and its constraints into account?

Dear Marcel,

Could you show some examples?

I wouldn't be that sure that there is "the" scientific method. More over, bridging natural and social sciences might be better nurtured not from  methodological issues but already from the very problems: thus, f.i., the structures, the behaviours,, and the like.

"Natural" and "social" sciences are concepts that have clouded our thinking. Humans and all we do, think, say, and create are part of nature. Rather than building bridges, we should transcend the illusion of separateness.

Thank you for reacting to my answer, dear anonymous colleague. Do you have some thoughts to share, beyond the vague statement expressed in your downvote? I would be interested in reading your views.

@David: The down vote seems rude and inappropriate.  Neither nature nor humans can see far and near simultaneously, but our understanding seems to fall in line with the frame of view we assume in study. There is always a tunnel vision but we should not evolve to be fixed and  confined by past perspectives. See attached file about the operon model by Jacob and Monod in bacteria. 

Thank you, Marvin. The article you provide is interesting, both for understanding the origins of life and as a case study of the pitfalls of research.

Being open to all possible hypotheses until there are compelling reasons to reject one or more of them is one of the features that makes science such a useful framework for understanding our surroundings and ourselves (even in what is called "art history," which many colleagues don't want to consider a "social science," but a branch of the "humanities", thus avoiding the critical rigor of science all together). From my point of view, the basic ground rules of science permit a level field for fruitful interactions and combinations in inter-, multi- and transdisciplinary research.

@Brenda One associates nursing with the practitioner, thermometers and bed pans, yet the most creative philosophy and reaching contributions pertainent to many fields have come from those directions.  I do not think science evolved alone in the absence of direct human service has lasting value, if not blind and dangerous. 

See....

Have a look at this URL

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23311886.2015.1079352

Hope it helps.

Kind regards

Prof. Sugata Sanyal, 

Mailto: [email protected] 

Homepage: http://www.tifr.res.in/~sanyal 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanyalsugata

Skype: sanyalsugata 

Member, School of Computing and Informatics' "Brain Trust", University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA

Honorary Professor: Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati

Member, Senate, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Guwahati

Distinguished Scientific Consultant :International Research Group:  Bucharest, Romania

Innovation Mentor, TotalStart Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Developers

Senior Columnist: the Indian Economist

Research Advisor, CTO,Tata Consultancy Services, India (2012-2015)

Adjunct Professor: Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur(2013-2014)

Professor:School of Tech. & Comp. Science,Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (1973-2012)

I think we need to have a better understanding of science before we can adequately discuss the questions raised here.  Dr Kirsh’s fascinating article explores some of those questions but I’d like to take a slightly different slant on the same issue.  It is my contention that much of what passes as scientific social research is less scientific than it is presented: and much social research that is derided as unscientific is in fact more scientific than is presented.

My argument depends on our understandings of science.  There are lots of different ways of looking at science but perhaps the most influential are Popper’s ‘critical rationalism’ and a range of inductive approaches derived from Bacon. 

Popper argued vehemently that science was empirical: that experimentation is the foundation of science and its purpose was to falsify theory.  He dismissed the ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’, which is the foundation of quantum physics and includes Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, as unscientific despite the fact that it works.  Popper is guilty of decrying the evidence that does not fit his understanding of what is ‘science’.  It should not surprise us really given Kuhn’s work showing that scientists hang on to accepted theory and practice until they are forced to change.

Some social researchers take a similar position to Popper.  BF Skinner is a case in point.  Others extol experimental methods such as randomised control trials.  Such social researchers may properly be called positivists and to the extent that they test social theories, fit within Popper’s notions of science.

If one accepted Popper’s tenets one would probably argue that most biology is not scientific because it is inherently not falsifiable and much of it is based on observation.  Similarly most cosmology and quite a lot of particle physics are based on observation not experiment.

Such sciences are more aligned with what is generally called the scientific method:  systematic observation, development of hypotheses, making predictions based on hypotheses and the gradual development of theory.  The scientific method is both inductive, developing hypotheses from observations: and deductive, making predictions and testing them.  It shares with Popper the principle that all findings are contingent and open to testing.  However, it differs in emphasising observation instead of just experimentation.

The scientific method underpins many of the ‘greats’ of social research:  Weber, Marx, Durkheim, Malinowski, Mills, and even Parsons. Such writers focused on observations and developed their theories on that basis.  Many of the observations were derived from records but Mills and Malinowski observed actual behaviours.  Comparative case study analysis in its different forms still uses the principles of observation across different cases and the identification of common factors to develop theory. Some relatively recent examples include Qualitative Comparative Analysis.  These sorts of social research adhere to the principles of the scientific method but do not meet Popper’s postivist agenda.

Direct observation has some advantages over more indirect observations such as records and histories.  Any record is a simple abstraction from a very complex social environment and is influenced by the person who collected it.  In direct observation the researcher can at least record how attention was directed, what factors were minimised in the data, which ones were given greater prominence, etc. However the weakness of direct observation in social research is that the researcher is the instrument by which data is collected and analysed.  The researcher cannot avoid influencing the data being collected.  Even in survey research the form of the questions is not neutral and provides information to the participant  (see Schwartz and Hippler 1987).  The best one can do is acknowledge that influence and recognise that the observed behaviours are at least partly a consequence of the researchers presence and actions.  Attempting to minimise the interaction merely hides the effects from the researcher, making it difficult for the researcher to understand the causes of action. 

Finally there are some social researchers who argue that properly conducted surveys are scientific.  That is fine as far as it goes and as long as they recognise that the observations they are collecting are about what people SAY  in the survey context.  They are NOT observing how people behave or feel, or what decisions they make in the situation of interest.  They are collecting data about what people SAY in a research interview with its own special dynamics.  Developing representative samples, aggregating the data from individuals does not change the basic nature of the observations.  The data from surveys are essentially self-reports in a particular social context that has a significant effect on what is said.   

• Where the analysis recognises the nature of the observation, and limit interpretations to what is SAID, such data can be considered to be scientific. 
• Where self-reported data are compared to actual behaviour, they can be said to be scientifically testing hypotheses about the connection between what people SAY and what they DO (though when one does that the hypothesis looks very shaky in Popperian terms).
• Where self-reported data are presented as data about how people are likely to behave or feel, one starts to get into non-science by any of the definitions of science. 

The idea of a single bridge is probably not viable.  What is needed is clarity about what are acceptable principles across all domains of science and a recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches

@Barbara I did not quit understand your point so forgive me if I am taking this off on a tangent.  However,  I think the evidence we now have suggests that values do NOT drive human behaviour and studies that focus on 'values' may be misguided.   

Instead behaviour and thinking are largely driven by implicit cognitive processes (see Kahneman Thinking Fast and Slow) rather than constructed by values. Most of our behaviours are either fully automatic or have very strong elements of automaticity.  Practice and routine are the dominant drivers of behaviour and action.

Damasio talks about somatic markers which he equates with emotions derived from our body and says the somatic markers provide the scaffolding for cognition.  The schema concept in education, psychology and cognitive science goes one step further and suggests that cognitive structures known as schemata influence emotions as well as behaviours and thinking. 

In such formulations the expression of apparent values in behaviour is the manifestation of more dominant schemata or somatic markers, any values are attributes of the cognitive schema not drivers of behaviour: and the expression of values in speech is merely post-hoc rationalisation of behaviour.

Here is a presentation that I have written in 2014. I have also included a short glance into my current research project on electromagnetic resonance. Perhaps his may or may not bridge a gap or 2? Hmmm???