17:610:530
Prof. Coughlin
4/17/00
Researchers in the fields of the
sciences and the social sciences have many similarities; they both strive to
understand the world around them through observation, seeking for knowledge to
enlarge the human understanding and improve the human condition. There are many ways they can attempt to accomplish this,
however, and different researchers often take different roads. Scientists are generally acknowledged to be
concerned with the physical aspects of the world around us, the “what” and the
“why”, while social scientists are often perceived as being more involved with
the social interactions of the world around us, the “who” and the “how”. Take, for instance, the subject of mental
retardation. This is a topic that can
be bent in several different directions, and can concern both the scientist and
the social scientist.
In an article entitled
“Subtle chromosomal rearrangements in children with unexplained mental
retardation,” the authors, Samantha Knight et al., are a wonderful example of
one of the scientific views of mental retardation, as they discuss chromosomal
differences in an attempt to find potential causes for cases of mental
retardation that seem to otherwise have no visible explanation. They spend quite some time enumerating
highly technical differences between the various groups in the study. They wind up their article with a paragraph
on the possible biases of their study because of the care with which the
participants were selected, and provide some suggestions for future research.
On the other hand, Elizabeth Ann
Gammon has written an article more typical of the social scientist,
entitled “Examining the needs of
culturally diverse rural caregivers who have adults with severe developmental
disabilities living with them”. She is
studying, and, in some respects, comparing, the needs of rural caregivers for
the mentally retarded. She is
particularly interested in the differences between types and amounts of
government aid, levels of perceived stress, and types of coping techniques that
can be found among the African-American versus the white caregivers. She also compares these rural findings to
those that have been found in more urban settings, where government and
information agencies tend to have better funding and better lines of
communication with the community.
Both articles have marked
similarities to each other; they both deal with aspects of mental retardation,
they both draw extensively on other researchers in their field, and use many
citations, both are conducting studies on identified groups of individuals, and
each breaks this main group into identifiable sub-groups (i.e. mildly vs.
severely retarded, African-American vs. white). Both admit to the possibility of biases in the selection of their
test groups, and each concludes with suggestions for future research.
One of the major differences that
seemed to divide the two studies, though, was the tools which they used in the
studies. Knight et al. used the
fluorescence in-situ hybridisation (FISH) test to examine tissue samples from
each of the participants. Gammon,
however, used the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Family Crisis-Oriented Personal Evaluation Scales (F-COPES),
and a “third scale…[that] is not yet standardized.” Knight, therefore, used a physical device to derive the data on
which her conclusions are based, where Knight used observations based on psychological constructs, one of which had
not even been standardized yet. Perhaps
it is this difference which makes Knight’s data much more number-oriented;
while Gammon does use some numerical statistics, she is generally more
concerned with relating the problems and feelings which she came across.
All in all, these two articles seem
to point out that there are some major differences between the “hard-core”
sciences and the more “touchy-feely” sciences.
The sciences prefer concrete, re-creatable data, while the social
sciences are much more dependent on informed and educated observation. Both, however, strive to find out more about
the world around us, and, while each can be prone to error, both are necessary
to helping humanity understand more about themselves and their environment.
Gammon, E. A. (2000)
Examining the needs of culturally diverse rural caregivers who have
adults with severe developmental disabilities living with them. Families in Society, 81(2), 174-185.
Knight, S. J. L. (1999)
Subtle chromosomal rearrangements in children with unexplained mental
retardation. The Lancet, 354,
1676-1681.