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In science, the term natural science refers to a naturalistic approach to the study of the universe, which is understood as obeying rules or law of natural origin. The term natural science is also used to distinguish those fields that use the scientific method to study nature from the social sciences and the humanities, which use the scientific method to study human behavior and society; and from the formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, which use a different (a priori) methodology. Natural sciences form the basis for the applied sciences. Together, the natural and applied sciences are distinguished from the social sciences on the one hand, and the liberal arts (humanities, theology, etc.) on the other. Though mathematics, statistics, and computer science are not considered natural sciences (mathematics traditionally considered among the liberal arts and statistics among the humanities, for instance), they provide many tools and frameworks used within the natural sciences. Alongside this traditional usage, the phrase natural sciences is also sometimes used more narrowly to refer to its everyday usage, that is, related to natural history. In this sense "natural sciences" may refer to the biology and perhaps also the earth sciences, as distinguished from the physical sciences, including astronomy, physics, and chemistry. Within the natural sciences, the term hard science is sometimes used to describe those sub-fields that rely on experimental, quantifiable data or the scientific method and focus on accuracy and objectivity. These usually include physics, chemistry and many of the sub-fields of biology. By contrast, soft science is often used to describe the scientific fields that are more reliant on qualitative research, including the social sciences.
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