Difference Between the Study of Science and History

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History is in essence a research subject or discipline making use of scientific methodology to come to a better understanding of the past, whereas the study of natural sciences are pre-determined by physical laws giving it a definitive outcome each time.1 To understand this difference better, history as a research subject should be examined in more detail. We need to be aware of the fact that history is a multi-faceted area of study, influenced by a number of variables that can change the outcome of a multitude of situations that happened in the past. In its simplest form we must understand that history in essence is – ‘the past’. The aforementioned is also known as history-as-reality (what actually happened). The research part of history can be understood as history-as-discipline (the historian’s reconstructive narrative or interpretation). 2 We need also to understand that history involves human beings and their influences over the past as well as how these influences changed the present. Natural science seeks to clarify the rules that govern the natural world through scientific methods. Experiments are for example typically done by scientists involving no human beings where outcomes are governed by physical laws which are repeatable and predictable.3 Although this is true, the advances in scientific study has meant that the possibilities of human beings ‘being the experiment’ might not be as far off as we might have thought, for example, cloning. There are ethical and moral grounds that need to be taken into consideration, however, when looking at the implementation of the aforementioned. Although the scientific methodology of historical research leans itself in a sense closer to the structural frame of reference of natural sciences, its changing nature is in essence too different from that of the natural sciences in order for these two entities to be

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