Examining the Practicality and Validity of Social Sciences

[Ashera]

Are social "Sciences" useful?

Now I myself don't consider "social sciences" as a type of science... but do you think it's useful or not? I don't think it's as useful as say: nature science or computer science.

 

[lisab]

IMO, social sciences are tools. Whether a tool is useful or not depends on what you're trying to fix. If the problem you're trying to fix needs a tool in the social science toolbox, then yes social sciences are extremely useful.

 

[Evo]

IMO, social sciences are tools. Whether a tool is useful or not depends on what you're trying to fix. If the problem you're trying to fix needs a tool in the social science toolbox, then yes social sciences are extremely useful.

Good answer.

 

[Enigman]

IMO, social sciences are tools. Whether a tool is useful or not depends on what you're trying to fix. If the problem you're trying to fix needs a tool in the social science toolbox, then yes social sciences are extremely useful.

Sometimes though, there are no problems and only sculptures to sculpt (ok, well unearth...)
And don't tell me that there even needs to be an utility for things like:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...was-once-symbol-louis-xiv-sun-king-180949482/

 

[256bits]

Wiki again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_sciences

lists the following as being social sciences:
Environmental Studies
Anthropology
Area studies
Business studies
Communication studies
Criminology
Demography
Development studies
Economics
Education
Geography
History
Industrial relations
Information science
Law
Library science
Linguistics
Media studies
Political science
Psychology
Public administration
Sociology
Social work

I am not sure if you are asking if it is useful in calling them "social sciences" or if "social sciences" are useful.
In any case, regardless of the term used, from the list, I would say they do have a profound impact, some of them directly, upon your life.

 

[Hornbein]

Now I myself don't consider "social sciences" as a type of science... but do you think it's useful or not? I don't think it's as useful as say: nature science or computer science.

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

-- Pablo Picasso

 

[StatGuy2000]

Wiki again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_sciences

lists the following as being social sciences:
Environmental Studies
Anthropology
Area studies
Business studies
Communication studies
Criminology
Demography
Development studies
Economics
Education
Geography
History
Industrial relations
Information science
Law
Library science
Linguistics
Media studies
Political science
Psychology
Public administration
Sociology
Social work

I am not sure if you are asking if it is useful in calling them "social sciences" or if "social sciences" are useful.
In any case, regardless of the term used, from the list, I would say they do have a profound impact, some of them directly, upon your life.

It's interesting that history is included as a social science, as I would personally consider history to be part of the humanities. And "area studies" (e.g. East Asian studies, Latin American studies, etc.), depending on the nature of the program, can encompass both the social sciences (with a focus on research in political science, economics, anthropology, law, sociology, geography, etc.) and the humanities (with a focus on the language, literature, and arts of the given area of focus).

As far as the OP is concerned, the very question is non-sensical. What makes any particular field of study "useful"? Are we to imply that if one cannot directly apply the knowledge gleaned from the field, then the field is not "useful"?

Perhaps this is expressing my bias, but the pursuit of knowledge in of itself is valuable and thus "useful", whether that be in the humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, biological sciences, or mathematical sciences.

 

[Adderall]

Now I myself don't consider "social sciences" as a type of science... but do you think it's useful or not? I don't think it's as useful as say: nature science or computer science.

You might have a point in arguing over the usage of the word science. But asking if social sciences are useful is like asking if statistics is useful.

 

[Adderall]

As far as the OP is concerned, the very question is non-sensical. What makes any particular field of study "useful"? Are we to imply that if one cannot directly apply the knowledge gleaned from the field, then the field is not "useful"?

The question might make sense if the OP had just learned that, for example, evolutionary theory is chock-full of just-so stories and racist junk science. Perhaps s/he was suddenly filled with doubt about the credibility of ANY discipline that attempts to analyze society and its many thingings.

OP, were you asking something more like "in social sciences, is it possible for the truth to rise to the surface when it's so incredibly easy to assume your conclusion then work backward and contort datasets to fit whatever you like since human psychology and thus society is so complex that it resists complete analysis?"? I would say probably, but it's bleak, but we should try anyway!

 

[Jakeness]

IMO, social sciences are tools. Whether a tool is useful or not depends on what you're trying to fix. If the problem you're trying to fix needs a tool in the social science toolbox, then yes social sciences are extremely useful.

This line of thought is merely affirming the consequent.

 

[arildno]

As long as money comes streaming in, "social sciences" is a useful structure for feeding people within that profession.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

No. And because my answer is too short, I need to write this message, I also don't think that business school is useful, but they may call me radical.

 

[Adderall]

As long as money comes streaming in, "social sciences" is a useful structure for feeding people within that profession.

I don't get it. Creating a workable welfare program is literally impossible without sociology, which I assume has to be a social science, given the name an' all. Welfare helps prevent poor people from starving, which is a Good Thing. Which social sciences do you have beef with, exactly?

No. And because my answer is too short, I need to write this message, I also don't think that business school is useful, but they may call me radical.

Economics is useful. Business school is not.

 

[Pythagorean]

Of course social sciences are useful. At the very least, there is a lot of useful stamp collecting going on in the social sciences. Data that we can analyze to see what programs and policies are most effective (or ineffective as it may be). And from there, we can make predictions about a culture (or demograph's) nature:

incentive X tend to lead to outcome Y

Then when several different cultures have collected such data, we can see how often X and Y are similar across cultures. And then we can look at biologists and anthropologist data on primates and other mammals and see how X and Y vary as you become more genetically disparate from humans. Then we can look to evolutionary neuroscience and see if structures in the brain associated with the X/Y behaviors have homologies that compare well to the varying X and Y across species and posit some behavior as an evolved adaptation.

The trick now is just making the qualities X and Y quantifiable without leaving too much wiggle room.

 

[ty1]

I think its a question of pseudoscience vs science.

 

[nazarbaz]

The worst thing I ever saw in my intelectual journey was a bunch of engineers, physicists and medical practitioners trying to think about society, humanities and art... A really awfull spectacle...
Life, I mean "we", are not a technology...

 

[micromass]

Now I myself don't consider "social sciences" as a type of science... but do you think it's useful or not? I don't think it's as useful as say: nature science or computer science.

Parts of natural sciences and computer science are completely useless too!

Now, I don't think social sciences are sciences. But you can't deny that they are very useful. Many of these social sciences have very important applications. Where would our society be without psychologists for example?

Sure, there are things like history too which tend to have much less practical applications. But then again, practical applications are everything! The pursuit of knowledge is the most important thing that humanity can do. We are born to pursue knowledge, even if it's just for the knowledge.

Nowadays, there is this trend that everything must be applicable and immediately useful. If it's not, then it's immediately seen as a waste of time. I much prefer the ancient Greeks were knowledge was seen as something sacred and where the pursuit of knowledge was the most important thing one could do.

 

[ZapperZ]

It is quite interesting about having this debate here, considering the assault put on by the Republican members in the US congress to severely cut funding for the social science section of the National Science Foundation.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...es-bill-would-cut-nsf-social-science-research

Certainly, there are many members of the US congress who also do not see the importance of social science research.

There are many societal issues that face us every day, and politicians often make claims of such-and-such a thing will cause this-and-that. There are people who say that violent, explicit music will cause disruptive kids, there are people claiming that providing condoms to high school kids promote promiscuity, etc.. etc. You will notice that many of these are statements uttered by politicians and talking heads are seldom backed by any kind of valid, careful research. It is as of just simply stating these things make them true!

Social scientists are intimately involved in these types of studies. They look at societal behavior, the changes in human interactions, and what factors are not only correlated with these changes, but also the cause-and-effect of these changes. In other words, many of these talking heads simply do not like these types of studies because they could easily falsify many of the fallacies that these people have been spewing, or at the very least, reveal the glaring fact that these claims have no solid evidence to back them.

Many of our policies, regulations, and laws are put into place because of human behavior and the consequences of those behavior. I would think that you'd want something to be decided not just because some politician said so, or some TV personality said so.

Or maybe you don't care about any kind of valid evidence...

Zz.

 

[StatGuy2000]

Or maybe you don't care about any kind of valid evidence...

Zz.

Currently, the Republican party of the US are increasingly dominated by right-wing extremists, many of whom are also Christian fundamentalists who believe in the Bible in the absolute literal sense and reject the theory and fact of evolution. So therefore, it should not be surprising that many Republicans don't care about any kind of valid evidence.

 

[Pythagorean]

We could say the same about extreme liberals and curing cancer with diet and vaccination causing autism and holistic medicine... but why do we need to make this about political ideology rather than sticking to the merits?

 

[paisiello2]

Now I myself don't consider "social sciences" as a type of science... but do you think it's useful or not? I don't think it's as useful as say: nature science or computer science.

Sure it is a science: you collect data and you attempt to interpret the data and/or form empirical laws based on that data e.g. Law Of Effect.

Now to be sure the science is a soft one compared to physics as it involves studying sometimes unpredictable and, usually very often, irrational human beings.

Is it useful? That is probably just a matter of opinion but then is abstract mathematics useful?

And if you think that economics or psychology is not really a science then I would argue that computer science isn't either.

 

[micromass]

Sure it is a science: you collect data and you attempt to interpret the data and/or form empirical laws based on that data e.g. Law Of Effect.

There aren't a lot of those laws, are there.

Now to be sure the science is a soft one compared to physics as it involves studying sometimes unpredictable and, usually very often, irrational human beings.

Is it useful? That is probably just a matter of opinion but then is abstract mathematics useful?

And if you think that economics or psychology is not really a science then I would argue that computer science isn't either.

Anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtMX_0jDsrw

 

[paisiello2]

There aren't a lot of those laws, are there.

Probably a lot more than you aware of.

Anyway:

Would Feynman consider computer science a science?

 

[Enigman]

Reposting a few links from an older thread :

*Expansion and Increasing Diversification of the Universe of Social Science.*Overcoming ‘Physics Envy’-NYTimes

*There is No Such Thing as a Social Science: In Defence of Peter Winch

 

[StatGuy2000]

Reposting a few links from an older thread :

*Expansion and Increasing Diversification of the Universe of Social Science.


*Overcoming ‘Physics Envy’-NYTimes

*There is No Such Thing as a Social Science: In Defence of Peter Winch

I found the NY Times op-ed piece especially interesting due to the issues they raise about how insisting that the adoption of a simplistic view of the "scientific method" (which, by the way, is not necessarily even used in the "hard" sciences) may be detrimental to social science research. As a statistician, I do agree with the authors that the analysis of empirical data can be valuable without a grand theoretical framework (although I should note that analyzing empirical data statistically does implicitly require use of a mathematical model).

The article does raise a question, however. The authors claim that, as examples, economist Anthony Downs offered an elegant explanation for why rival political parties might adopt identical platforms, or how economist Kenneth Arrow devised the "impossibility theorem", and how neither of these explanations/theorems/theories were not empirically tested. This begs the question about how to compare or evaluate between different models to determine whether they are good or bad for the given problem at hand.

After all, without some empirical justification (at least based on data available), how can we claim that the model accurately explain the reality of a given situation? I wish the authors had tried to address this.

 

[Delong]

I think they are useful if you want to deal with people. For example, pretend you want to establish a business in a foreign country. Before you start you should probably know a little about that people's culture and society. What is the structure of their society, what do they value, and how does their culture shape their behavior? All of that is social science. Of course this is social science in an applied science.

Social science in a basic science sense becomes useless to a lot of people. Those who are totally invested in social science do it because they are fascinated with society and don't care about anything else. They will study things like how marriages differ across cultures and how society's separate themselves into different classes like castes or income level. They want to study how things like racism or conflict arise. They often engage in social work but they also study the subject simply because they like learning about culture and society in and of itself.

Sometimes I find society to be an interesting subject. Things that affect society tend to be more interesting then those that don't. However for most people this information is not that useful. It's definitely not useful if you want to build technology or something.

At some point we all deal with people so we all need to know some social science. but only some invest in it completely.

I also like to make a distinction between social science and social study. Psych, sociology, and anthropology are social sciences. The others I consider are social studies like geography, politics, economics, law, culture studies and the like. They're not trying to find underlying mechanisms, they embellishing on a particular or they're more applied in focus.

Anyway that's all my thoughts on the subject.

 

[StatGuy2000]

I think they are useful if you want to deal with people. For example, pretend you want to establish a business in a foreign country. Before you start you should probably know a little about that people's culture and society. What is the structure of their society, what do they value, and how does their culture shape their behavior? All of that is social science. Of course this is social science in an applied science.

Social science in a basic science sense becomes useless to a lot of people. Those who are totally invested in social science do it because they are fascinated with society and don't care about anything else. They will study things like how marriages differ across cultures and how society's separate themselves into different classes like castes or income level. They want to study how things like racism or conflict arise. They often engage in social work but they also study the subject simply because they like learning about culture and society in and of itself.

Sometimes I find society to be an interesting subject. Things that affect society tend to be more interesting then those that don't. However for most people this information is not that useful. It's definitely not useful if you want to build technology or something.

At some point we all deal with people so we all need to know some social science. but only some invest in it completely.

I also like to make a distinction between social science and social study. Psych, sociology, and anthropology are social sciences. The others I consider are social studies like geography, politics, economics, law, culture studies and the like. They're not trying to find underlying mechanisms, they embellishing on a particular or they're more applied in focus.

Anyway that's all my thoughts on the subject.

I would disagree with you on the issue of economics, because economists are concerned with trying to find underlying mechanisms of human interactions in a market/exchange context. I can make similar arguments for geography. If anything, economics, psychology, and (to a lesser extent) geography are the three social sciences that are the most truly "scientific" among all of the social sciences.

 

[Delong]

I would disagree with you on the issue of economics, because economists are concerned with trying to find underlying mechanisms of human interactions in an market/exchange context. I cna make similar arguments for geography. If anything, economics, psychology, and (to a lesser extent) geography are the three social sciences that are the most truly "scientific" among all of the social sciences.

I honestly don't know the inner life of these subjects so I'll say you may be right. Geography in my mind is basically like map making so I can see it being somewhat scientific or at least rigorous. I can agree economics is like a science although it's subject is somewhat of an abstraction.

I wonder where linguistics goes? Probably a social studies.
So I guess history, politics, law and stuff are social studies.

 

[Pythagorean]

I honestly don't know the inner life of these subjects so I'll say you may be right. Geography in my mind is basically like map making so I can see it being somewhat scientific or at least rigorous. I can agree economics is like a science although it's subject is somewhat of an abstraction.

I wonder where linguistics goes? Probably a social studies.
So I guess history, politics, law and stuff are social studies.

Linguistics is interdisciplinary, there are lots of neurological aspects to speech and hearing.

In economics you can look at descriptions of the population (like supply and demand) so there's some analogies to ecology in it.

Political science is another interdisciplinary science: there's political economy, criminal law, moral philosophy, gamification, public awareness, and other aspects that include making observations of human incentives and how humans learn and what kind of environments are conducive to what kind of group behaviors (for instance, we know education and crime are well correlated, so there's some interest in educating the public more in an effort to lower crime rates).

 

[Delong]

Linguistics is interdisciplinary, there are lots of neurological aspects to speech and hearing.

In economics you can look at descriptions of the population (like supply and demand) so there's some analogies to ecology in it.

Political science is another interdisciplinary science: there's political economy, criminal law, moral philosophy, gamification, public awareness, and other aspects that include making observations of human incentives and how humans learn and what kind of environments are conducive to what kind of group behaviors (for instance, we know education and crime are well correlated, so there's some interest in educating the public more in an effort to lower crime rates).

Yeah I think that last example is an example of sociology in action, I met someone who was a political science and sociology double major. He said he found sociology to be more basic and political science to be more applied. anyway I think it's kind of interesting to see what's going on in those fields...

 

[Tallus Bryne]

Would Feynman consider computer science a science?

I think this answers your question:

 

[nazarbaz]

Yeah I think that last example is an example of sociology in action, I met someone who was a political science and sociology double major. He said he found sociology to be more basic and political science to be more applied. anyway I think it's kind of interesting to see what's going on in those fields...

Both political science and sociology could be fundamental research if you want them to be so. They would be mere verbiage though, if the "problem building" is mediocre at first.
Nothing really deep in humanities and social science could come from a problem solving agenda : this is what a corporation or a government is expecting from us, not what we should do to understand ourselves.
I don't know if truth about democracy (an illusion and, per se, an unreachable goal) is of any use to modern political systems.

 

[Pythagorean]

I don't know if truth about democracy (an illusion and, per se, an unreachable goal) is of any use to modern political systems.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "political systems", but political parties and politically-interested business owners with think tanks and public representatives (i.e. propaganda generators) get a lot of use out of social theory to further their agendas, whether for ideology or greed.

 

[paisiello2]

I think this answers your question:

So Feynman does not consider social science nor computer science as real sciences. The OP, however, implied that computer science was a real science.

 

[saminator910]

I think this answers your question:

So according to him, "science is the study of the behavior of nature". I can see how economics can be considered a science, as others have stated. Humans are elements of nature, and much of economics involves studying the interactions between people. But by that definition it is also hard to disqualify something as science, because humans did arise naturally, and I would consider them a part of nature.

 

[Delong]

So according to him, "science is the study of the behavior of nature". I can see how economics can be considered a science, as others have stated. Humans are elements of nature, and much of economics involves studying the interactions between people. But by that definition it is also hard to disqualify something as science, because humans did arise naturally, and I would consider them a part of nature.

I think economics is a practical science like computer and exercise science or rocket science. It's studying how to do something better and not the underlying basics of a natural phenomenon.

 

[Romulo Binuya]

Science is about the established rules of empirical, stable, and demonstrable protocol. Social sciences may not be considered science because they are not stable i.e. repeatable experiments that yield same results, but social sciences are useful nonetheless.

For example there is no single all-encompassing definition of the Hawthorne Effect but the experiment provides useful insights. Likewise, management theories such as Theory X Theory Y and MBO maybe has no experimental basis but they provide useful insights too.

Social scientists maybe "physics envy" i.e. the desire to obtain all possible data but considering ethics they can't. The nature vs nurture study was locked in Yale University until 2066, the experiments of Harry[/PLAIN] Harlow somehow caused the emergence of animal's right movement in America. Just a couple of example of what happen when ethics is considered in social science investigations.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Science is about the established rules of empirical, stable, and demonstrable protocol. Social sciences may not be considered science because they are not stable i.e. repeatable experiments that yield same results

Not necessarily, many things aren't possible to repeat in a lab setting on demand. The formation of a star for instance. Instead we really on models which we construct from observation and smaller scale experiments. We can then use these models to create predictions and test those predictions by looking at the relevant phenomena in nature.

Social sciences are sciences in the sense that they are all about observation, model building and testing of those models. Hell most social science papers use more rigorous statistical analysis than most fields of biology.

 

[saminator910]

Honestly, I think the reason some people don't consider fields such as economics and other related fields to be science is because they don't fit with other more popular preferences on what is a science. When most people think of a scientist, they may think of someone doing work in a lab, and fields such as physics, biology, and chemistry come to mind. When someone thinks of economics, they think of money, not a classical "scientific" idea. In reality, as stated previously, the nature of the work of some social scientists is very similar to many other "scientists" in classic scientific fields, specifically those working with data, and theoretical concepts. I cannot say the same for fields such as law, many concepts are only somewhat repeatable, whereas I could argue that fields like psychology and economics have more solid scientific bases.

 

[paisiello2]

I think the distinction between the hard and soft sciences is that the former has very specific laws based on very specific isolated variables while the latter has so many variables unaccounted for that the results are very much open to interpretation. And different sciences fall on different spots along the spectrum between hard and soft.

 

[Romulo Binuya]

Yes both natural sciences and social sciences talk in terms of mathematics. And social sciences must be more rigorous in the calculations to account as much as possible all relevant variables to produce repeatable experiments that yield the same statistics.

There are more reasons to be rigorous considering that even in natural science not all calculations lead to acceptable theories. Example, plasma cosmology is a mathematical extrapolation from the lab to Hubble distance that was proposed by Alfven. I supposed its mathematics is correct as it was done by a Nobel laureate, but it was being rejected because ostensibly the observations don't support it. Just my perspective in comparing natural sciences and social sciences.

 

[pagetheoracle]

Social studies are the equivalent of software as computers are hardware. In other words they give us direction (or programs) and without them hardware would exist as do the rocks but would remain purposeless.

 

[flowerdave]

From the inside

IMO, social sciences are tools...

Far too many people enter the social science fields with a definite, impregnable, bias.

If most students (and eventually teachers on some level) entered the hard sciences with the same level of bias that I have seen in the soc. sciences, then the hard sciences would rapidly devolve into the cesspool of ideology that the soft sciences have.

In the hard sciences data and reproducibility rule (usually), in the soft sciences feelings and PC rule (almost all of the time).

Social science is not useless when done scientifically, but it's utterly worthless when approached as a form of social work.edit: I am an historian and political scientist, so I'm not antagonistic towards social science. I am DEEPLY troubled by the tendency in our field to relax the scientific standards, and freedom of inquiry, in service to preconceived views of "inclusiveness" and a fear of giving offense.

 

[bozone]

I'm partially of the school of thought that all science is either physics or stamp collecting. Medicine obviously has huge value but I think we need to figure out how to ensure the survival of the human race as time goes on and only physics can do that ultimately. Everything else we need to know is just a side effect of that. For example the geology of other planets etc.

 

[Rocket50]

This is arguable, but IMO I don't see any uses of history, literature and philosophy.

 

[Vannay]

This is arguable, but IMO I don't see any uses of history, literature and philosophy.

History is a way of knowing ourselves. What have we done in the past? What civilizations were lost to time? How did major civilizations fall so we can try to prevent the same thing happening to us? Literature is a way for humans to express deep complex thoughts and form stories from them. EVERYONE likes stories I don't care who you are.

 

[Casey A.]

I'm not qualified by any means, but I'll give my two cents anyways.

I think anything that applies the scientific method in a valid way is a science - really science is a philosophy that is very, very effective at describing the natural world. So when we say someone is a scientist, the way I see it is that the person is a natural philosopher in some form, reaching their conclusions through empirically-gathered data.

Now, science has grown so expansive, specialized, and effective that we can apply the method to things that aren't necessarily 'natural' in the strictest sense, like human behavior, money, societies, culture, and history, and that's where things get iffy, because there are so many biases surrounding those that it's pretty much impossible to separate ourselves from them.

I think we could absolutely turn those studies into valid, rigid, absolute sciences in the future - but only if we start building up, kind of like how we did with physics to chemistry to biology to psychology. We could continue - psychology to sociology to economics to anthropology. Just the lines start to blur, because we're encompassing more and more data.

What I'm trying to say is this - there is physics involved in economics just like there is in chemistry. But it's physics on such a gigantic scale that for now we can't process all of that information.

But - are those studies useful? I'd say, of course they are! If you've ever been mentally ill and have voluntarily taken medication, as I have, the benefit of social science is real and very powerful. I know my Vyvanse helps me concentrate. The study of economics is what keeps countries afloat and in equilibrium. I'd say a field of academia that could keep millions of people relatively prosperous is absolutely of benefit.

 

[jz92wjaz]

I agree with Casey. Social science relies on the scientific method. The term soft science is completely appropriate. It benefits me as a scientist by helping me understand my own human nature and recognize subconscious biases. I am now less likely to discount the opinions and ability of competent scientists that may not fit my preconceived notions of what a scientist looks like.

@StatGuy2000 The Republicans managed to nominate Romney, an Evolutionist who was willing to consider laws to combat man-made climate change. I believe that the days of a successful vocal anti-science right wing are numbered.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

This is arguable, but IMO I don't see any uses of history, literature and philosophy.

History is incredibly useful for understanding the present, especially in areas like politics. If you're looking at a modern day conflict then without the background history you're going to have no good idea as to the nuances of what is going on and how it could potentially be solved.

 

[Czcibor]

I think two things got mixed up here:
-hardness of science
-usefulness and practical application

Hardness is a problem:
-with beauty of science.
-when there is serious bias from individual scientist or even worse when there is a fad in whole community. Sure, it exists.

Actually some branch of physics can be very hard, have perfect formulas, good predictive record... and have no chance for practical application in foreseeable future. With social sciences, the only case when it hardness matters is when you may suspect that some branch simply can't have any usefulness because of being pseudoscience.

Possible conflict of interest: I'm an economist.