In what ways is economic science similar to the natural sciences? In what ways is it different? What are some major challenges in performing the scientific method within the context of drawing evidence-based conclusions within an economic framework?

Economics is similar to natural sciences in that they both study the way the world works and have certain "laws", In economics for example, there is the law of demand but as we know a giffen good can exist. Economics thus is not a natural science and instead is a social science since it relies on the behavior of people.

The biggest challenges in performing the scientific method in economic are that you can't just experiment with real economies to see what happens and that you don't ever have a control group. This leads economists to use observation data for their analysis.