Two articles about the usefulness of the social sciences follow. Neither are especially well written and each seem "weak" to me. However, each is thoughtful enough to make solid points about the necessity of social science in making technology successful. Just what it is we want an electronic device to do for us? How do we maximize "payoff" ? Yes, maybe a market solution will eventually come to the fore. But for all of the worship of laissez faire that one finds on the political Right, what is unsaid is how inefficient market solutions can be. And since when is inefficiency a virtue? Social science has proven its usefulness since the time of Louis Napoleon in the 1850s, just as opinion polling, market research, and systems analysis are useful today. The problem is twofold: (1) Social science departments at most universities have been effectively taken over by political Leftists (many of whom are Marxists of one kind of another), and (2) Ludwig Mises hated social science and railed against it, and his ideas, of course, are holy writ for many on the Right. About number 2, if you never use and are opposed to opinion polling, market research, and systems analysis, then I suppose you have some kind of coherent case to make, however dysfunctional your work might be. But if you do make use of opinion polling, market research, and systems analysis, then von Mises has become an anachronism About number 1, the answer lies in a concerted effort by non-Leftists to take back the social sciences, or to start over at new universities. Actually, I don't expect the Right to make the effort, it seems to me that Right-wingers have intellectual issues that are just as entrenched as those of Left-wingers, among them antipathy to social science research since their view (related to laissez faire thinking) seems to be that seat-of-the-pants logic is all you really need. Regardless, there are more Independents than either Leftists or Rightists and the solution to #1 ought to be doable. So it seems to me Billy ------------------------------------------ the guardian _Higher Education Network_ (http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network) Cracking the code to economic success: social scientists are as vital as engineers
Jonathan Michie Wednesday 21 January 2015 06.23 EST Governments across the world tend – perhaps increasingly – to point to the importance of the so-called “Stem” subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths. Global economic competitiveness is the aim, with innovation being seen as one of the drivers. But are these assumptions and conclusions correct and justified? And could the social sciences play a greater role in enabling us to reach our economic and societal potential? _Science_ (http://www.theguardian.com/education/science) and technology have played key roles in the success of economic development throughout the ages. Germany’s export surpluses in manufactured goods have long been built upon engineering excellence. The great global challenges such as climate change clearly require scientific excellence to understand and analyse the problems, and to develop appropriate responses. I should declare an interest – I’ve always been a great fan of the sciences: my late mother (_Anne McLaren_ (http://preview.gutools.co.uk/science/2007/jul/10/uk.obituaries) ) was a geneticist who, among other things, undertook early research behind in vitro fertilisation (IVF), and my late father (_Donald Michie_ (http://www.theguardian.com/science/2007/jul/10/uk.obituaries1) ) was a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during World War II, who went on to become a pioneer of artificial intelligence and machine learning. My university department (of continuing education) includes Oxford’s professor of the public understanding of science. However, let’s consider the above scientific developments. Firstly, the importance of “national systems of innovation” was identified, analysed and _described by Chris Freeman_ (http://www.theguardia n.com/education/2010/sep/08/christopher-freeman-obituary) – a social scientist. It was his understanding of how different aspects of the economic, political and social structures worked together and interlinked that was key. This includes the educational system, the financial system, and the political and regulatory system and institutions. And those institutions are staffed by people, whose behaviour and interactions play a key role in how those institutions work, and what effect they will have on economic growth. Likewise with regulation – the social aspects are key. So the science and technology cannot – or certainly should not – be separated from the political and institutional framework and influences. These latter require social sciences to analyse the processes involved, and to inform appropriate policy development and application. Similarly with IVF, it cannot be understood as a scientific development in isolation. Its use is regulated. In the UK it was the Warnock Commission that advised on appropriate regulation, and not only was this not an exclusively scientific endeavour, on the contrary, Anne McLaren was actually the only scientist on the Commission. In terms of code-breaking, I came across a fascinating example recently of how engineering cannot be understood in isolation. It is well known that the German code was broken when a message was repeated without the enigma machine (which translated the message into code) being reset. It was vital that the machine be reset after each transmission. Resending a message without resetting gave crucial clues that enabled the code to be broken. I was recently sent an interview with my late father in which he was asked about the code-breaking at Bletchley Park. Interestingly, he pointed out that it would have been a simple task to have engineered the enigma machine to prevent it being able to send a new message until, and unless, it was re-set. In other words, there could have been an engineering solution, which would have prevented the code from being broken. A simple task – particularly given Germany’s engineering excellence. Indeed, one might expect that very engineering excellence to have led naturally to an engineering solution being considered and applied. Why wasn’t it? Donald Michie’s explanation was that while Germany was excellent at engineering, they were also great believers in discipline, and perhaps most especially military discipline. If the enigma machine had to be reset after each transmission, then those would be the orders. Such orders would surely be followed, the machine would be reset, and there would be no problem in need of a solution. Whether or not this answer to the puzzle is correct, there is no doubt that what needs to be explained is human behaviour – not just engineering. The clear conclusion is that to understand any of these issues requires an understanding of human behaviour, whether they be consumers, employees, soldiers, managers or regulators; and also the behaviour of people collectively, within organisations – whether these be companies, armies, universities, or regulatory authorities. Such understanding comes from the social sciences. Thus, IVF involves the medical science, but also the regulatory and legislative environment. Armies depend on orders being issued and obeyed, alongside engineering solutions regarding both armaments and code-making and breaking. The social sciences are necessary to analyse and understand these social processes, and to develop appropriate policies – corporate and public – to utilise our scientific and engineering knowledge to best effect. There can be no doubt that the social sciences matter Jonathan Michie is professor of innovation & knowledge exchange at Kellogg College, University of Oxford and co-editor of _Why the Social Sciences Matter_ (http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/why-the-social-sciences-matter-jonathan-michie/?K=9781137269904) by Palgrave Macmillan. =============================== the guardian Higher Education Network Blog Why does social science have such a hard job explaining itself? Contrary to US Senate rulings, we need more and better funded social science, not less, says Ziyad Marar – without discussing how it differs from natural science, it remains easy to relegate Ziyad Marar Monday 8 April 2013 05.28 EDT So it has finally happened. After years of failed attempts by senators Tom Coburn and Jeff Flake to defund political science from the US _National Science Foundation_ (http://www.nsf.gov/) (NSF) budget, March's breakthrough 'voice vote' gave them _most of what they wanted_ (http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/03/22/tom-coburn-doesnt-like-political-science/) . The amendment passed was designed "to prohibit the use of funds to carry out the functions of the Political Science Program in the Division of Social and Economic Sciences … of the National Science Foundation, except for research projects that the Director of the National Science Foundation certifies as promoting national security or the economic interests of the United States". Part of Coburn's argument is that the money (a measly $11m out of the total NSF pot of $7bn) would be better spent on cancer research. This argument echoes the larger attack on social science that is underway courtesy of a major speech by Eric Cantor, the leader of the House of Representatives, who recently declared that "funds currently spent by the government on social science – including on politics of all things – would be better spent helping find cures to diseases". Coburn's act of intellectual vandalism, and widespread commentary about the uselessness of "junk science" is potentially the beginning of a far wider attack on social science and therefore a good trigger to pause and reflect on why social science has such a hard job explaining itself. Part of the reason is that the social sciences are not a homogenous block. Fields of inquiry range from those such as psychology that are somewhat integrated with the natural sciences through to those that draw more on the humanities such as linguistics. This diversity becomes part of the problem because it leads to a diversity of justifications too, especially where the social sciences relate to natural science. Some claim that social science research creates just the kind of robust theory and evidence we see in natural science, while others claim that natural science is riven with the same uncertainties as social science. These arguments (often seen as mere physics envy) have clearly failed to impress legislators in the US or, indeed, public opinion. Why? Because, while it is true that some areas of overlap can blur the picture, it is daft to argue that there are no differences. The uncertainties of physicists _in pursuit of the Higgs Boson_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/higgs-boson) , or breast cancer researchers in pursuit of new genetic therapies, are significantly different from those of social scientists trying to explain far more unruly phenomena. If we don't accept this, then we are entitled to criticise political scientists who failed to predict the end of the cold war, or to sympathise with a bewildered Queen Elizabeth who turned to the assembled scholars at the LSE at the time of the economic crisis to ask: "Why did nobody warn us?" One sceptical wag accordingly caricatures the social scientific enterprise as "slow journalism". If we don't start to see how social science broadly differs from natural science it will be easy to relegate the former to a deservedly poor cousin of the latter. A better answer would be to focus on the nature of the problem domains that each of the many disciplines are engaged with – and to point out that social science is just harder because the data is more unruly. As Albert Einstein once put it "understanding physics is child's play compared to understanding child's play". To try to understand child's play (or wellbeing, or conflict resolution, or social mobility, or the causes of crime, political persuasion, racism or, indeed, the end of the cold war) is to grapple with "_wicked problems_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem) ". These, while critically important to analyse, are human problems which don't often have right or wrong answers and don't tend to offer up easy scientific laws. But they can have better or worse answers and their study can cumulatively deepen our understanding over time, even if the impact is often relatively slow, diffuse and hard won. Along the way social scientists often introduce concepts that articulate and frame public debates and encourage critical, nuanced thinking. A social scientific scrutiny of the human, rather than natural, world doesn't easily lend itself to generalisable laws, cast-iron predictions, nor can it always preserve a distinction between fact and value. Defenders of social science need to say that, and to argue that careful, theoretically and methodologically rigorous exploration of these subjects are fundamental to a healthy society even if finding unarguable evidence is extremely difficult. And that this is the very reason to have more and better funded social science rather than less. After all, since politicians are creating social science related policy every day, often in hoc to tabloid headlines, don't we want a major scholarly engagement with the same themes so that they hopefully end up making those policies a bit more effectively? The impact of social science may be more diffuse and long term than in much of the natural sciences, but it would be absurd to conclude, with the US Senate, that it is a waste of taxpayers' money. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
