Natural Social Science Methods Can the methods of the natural sciences be successfully compared with those
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The methods of natural science being compared to those of social science, is an age-old debate. From the time when Auguste Comte first used the word 'sociology', there has been discussion.
(van Krieken, Smith, Habibis, McDonald, Haralambos and Holborn, 2002). It is known that this topic can be compared; it is to what extent that a debate is sparked. With these two sciences, social and natural, there are various thoughts and theories from different sociologists. The two main social or sociological analyses, the first been a 'positivist' tradition advocated firstly by Comte and later Durkheim; the second been an 'interpretive' tradition founded by Weber. (O'Brien, 1993). Natural science uses traditional experiment methods of collecting and analysing data, then drawing a conclusion. Social sciences sometimes use these methods and it is here that the successful comparison ends between the two sciences, as social science branches off debating its own methods.
The methodology of positivism and quantitative can be found in the early works of Comte and Durkheim (van Krieken, et al...