andie nachgeborenen
There are reasons some have for saying that the social sciences per se are a "joke" -- not "real science." That is a time-honored position in philosophy of social science, generally associated with treating physics as the paradigm of what counts as a science. Davidson has a piece of "Psychology as Philosophy," and he really means any human science that is a good example of the genre. But in that case the objection cannot be either of the two that Carl put forward
^^^^ CB: Yea , physics envy and social science inferiority complex.
Another point is that some facts are qualitative , not quantitative, as in kinship systems, with rules of marriage and descent , customs, or linguistic grammars (significant features , etc). The sciences of rules discover qualitative logics and patterns.
Juris prudence is a social science too, and there are law-like patterns that are definite. Actually, they aren't law-like, they _are_ laws. There are facts , laws, evidence. And it is definitely not a joke. The law follows a materialist process. Science is actually materialism.
I'd go so far as to say that the natural sciences are modeled on juris prudence, which is a social science. Doesn't natural science get its terms "law", "evidence", "facts" from legal science ? Before Newton's natural "laws" there was Hammarabi's Code.
^^^
(1) that Marx or anyone in the 19th century was not a scientists because of inadequate research facilities and method, a silly objection on two grounds. It takes out everyone before, I dunno, the last twenty (or you pick) years -- including Newton!