■ Observations on differences between auditing and scientific disciplines
There are several differences between auditing and the scientific disciplines. The first of these follows from the differences in the two fields with respect to the quality of evidence required. The auditor must frequently be content with something less than the best possible evidence pertinent to a given problem, whereas the scientist can be satisfied only with conclusive evidence. However, the scientist, unless content that final proof had been obtained, would offer a judgement as tentative only until time and technological resources permitted the continuation of the research and brought the necessary evidence. An auditor always works in the short term. The auditor’s conclusions are more often than not tentative. It is a rare audit engagement in which there is no limit on time, staff or charges. Auditors must live with the hard facts of economics in the conduct of their investigations. This is a part of the environment of auditing that has an important effect on the ultimate validity of audit judgements.