While some have criticized the humanistic coefficient approach as too close to subjectivism, Znaniecki himself saw is as anti-subjectivist; he noted that social facts like cultural systems can exist even if nobody perceives their existence. He was also critical of any value coming from personal, subjective observations, arguing that such observations have value only if they can be objectively described. Both natural and social sciences operate within the bounds of the humanistic coefficient, but the natural sciences may abstract the pheomena they analyze from it, while the social sciences are methodologically obliged to account for it. Thus Znaniecki argued that the difference between natural and social sciences lies not in the difference between objective and subjective experiences, but in the subject of what is being studied: for Znaniecki, natural sciences studied things, and social sciences – cultural values. He saw sociology as a nomothetic science that should be able to use a similar methodology as natural sciences.