Methodology behind Weber

Let’s look at a fundamental difference between the natural/physical sciences and the human/social sciences. (Why didn’t Bill Nye the Science Guy ever talk about ideal types or the generalized other or the iron cage of bureaucracy? I feel jipped that I didn’t know that these were also ‘science,” and I had to come to college to find out. How ‘bout that?) Natural scientists look to describe their world. They try to figure out why something happened, and how to make it happen again. The natural sciences are predictable. I don’t know that my car will go when I engage the engine because we’re good friends who have spent a lot of time with each other and I can read the engine’s emotions and think the engine’s thoughts. I know the car will go because the battery lights up the spark plugs, which in turn ignite the gasoline, which in turn explodes and pumps the pistons (or however the heck the car works.)
But the social sciences can’t be prescriptive about what will happen like natural science can be. Economics comes the closest to predicting future phenomenon, but even the market is subject to finicky, fickle human players, and people are left scratching their heads when they compare economic forecasts with present situations. When we look at the theses of ontological, epistemological, and pragmatic differences and see the same picture. We look at a certain aspect of human behavior and the best we can hope to ask is “what possible intentions might the actor have meant?”
These three theses, by the way, look at some very fundamental aspects of human-ness and godliness: know, do, become. We see these three come up a lot in the gospel. First we must know the commandments, then we must follow the commandments, and in the end they become second nature to us and we do them naturally. We become predictable, in terms of natural versus social science. On an eternity basis, this predictability will be essential. God is an unchanging god, and if He were not so, He would cease to be God. But in this mortal life, the process of “know, do, become” is where the adventure happens. It is what makes life suck. It is what makes life awesome. It is what allows us to become closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Of course, predictability does not prevent progression, or even inhibit it. Consistency is never bad. After all, we are commanded to be built upon a rock; and upon such a rock is our church built.
So, natural science can predict the future, social science cannot. Natural science is passive; social science is active. But that’s why social science rocks! There is always excitement. No wonder or surprise comes up when doing natural science. It already exists, and there’s nothing we can do about it. The rocket fuel will ignite, the space shuttle will go up into space, and it will fall back to the earth really, really fast; big deal. The real romance comes out when we see Tom Hanks throwing his smack down all over Bill Paxton’s and Kevin Bacon’s collective grill in Apollo 13. Yeah, the Freedom and Liberty are awesome to watch as they get flipped around the moon and land on the giant, Texas-sized asteroid. But I didn’t cry at that. It took Bruce Willis cramming Ben Affleck back into the elevator to sacrifice himself in Armageddon to my cheeks shiny. There’s always the “possibility of being otherwise,” and that’s what Weber cares about. It could’ve turned out differently, but it didn’t. Why not? Social scientists, to Weber, are trying to tackle the hard questions. We can figure out physics and biology, but we can’t figure out the human spirit.