Have the endeavors of social scientists yielded little more than a parody of natural science?

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Poll question: Have the endeavors of social scientists yielded little more than a parody of natural science?

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Social scientists have gone to great lengths trying to maintain the unity of method but with remarkably little success. Their endeavors have yielded little more than a parody of natural science. In a sense, the attempt to impose the methods of natural science on social phenomena is comparable to the efforts of alchemists who sought to apply the methods of magic to the field of natural science. But while the failure of the alchemists was well-nigh total, social scientists have managed to make a considerable impact on their subject matter. Situations which have thinking participants may be impervious to the methods of natural science, but they are susceptible to the methods of alchemy. The thinking of participants, exactly because it is not governed by reality, is easily influenced by theories. In the field of natural phenomena, scientific method is effective only when its theories are valid, but in social, political, and economic matters, theories can be effective without being valid. Whereas alchemy has failed as natural science, social science can succeed as alchemy.

Source:
The Alchemy of Finance (Subtitle: reading the mind of the market)
by George Soros, copyright 1987
see Part One ("Theory")
The above paragraph is from Subsection Two ("The Problem of the Social Sciences") of Section One ("The Theory of Reflexivity").

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