Yeah, I’d sooner say the situation is reverse, social studies would move slower and less “definitively” than natural sciences. I’m into linguistics and literature and for me it’s nothing unusual to use scholarship and materials all the way from the 19th century. Of course, when you’re working with old literature or old language, you need old materials too… To me it’s very interesting and important to know what Aristotle thought of Homer, while it’s perfectly irrelevant for a doctor to know what Galen thought of the humours or for a chemist what Newton thought of alchemy.
Yeah, I’d sooner say the situation is reverse, social studies would move slower and less “definitively” than natural sciences. I’m into linguistics and literature and for me it’s nothing unusual to use scholarship and materials all the way from the 19th century. Of course, when you’re working with old literature or old language, you need old materials too… To me it’s very interesting and important to know what Aristotle thought of Homer, while it’s perfectly irrelevant for a doctor to know what Galen thought of the humours or for a chemist what Newton thought of alchemy.