Social Science Quotes - Page 2

• The next decade will perhaps raise us a step above despair to a cleaner, clearer wisdom and biology cannot fail to help in this. As we become increasingly aware of the ethical problems raised by science and technology, the frontiers between the biological and social sciences are clearly of critical importance-in population density and problems of hunger, psychological stress, pollution of the air and water and exhaustion of irreplaceable resources.

  H. Bentley Glass

  Stress, Science, Technology

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• I always believed that social science was a progressive profession because it was the powerful who had the most to hide about how the world actually worked and if you could show how the world actually worked it would always have a de-masking and a subversive effect on the powerful. I don't think that's quite true, but it seems to me it's not bad as a point of departure anyway.

  James C. Scott

  Powerful, Thinking, Departure

  "An Interview with James C. Scott | Harry G. West and Celia Plender". Gastronomica Interview, gastronomica.org. March 14, 2017.

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• It is hardly an exaggeration to say that a chimpanzee kept in solitude is not a real chimpanzee at all.

  Wolfgang Kohler

  Real, Solitude, Chimpanzees

  "The Mentality of Apes". Book by Wolfgang Kohler (p. 293), 1925.

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• The notion that every well educated person would have a mastery of at least the basic elements of the humanities, sciences, and social sciences is a far cry from the specialized education that most students today receive, particularly in the research universities.

  Joseph Stiglitz

  Education, Humanity, Mastery

  "Biographical" by Joseph Stiglitz for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, www.nobelprize.org. 2001.

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• I think it is now time for social scientists to step out of the shadow and to establish an advanced social sciences methodology that integrates science (third-person view) social transformation (second-person view) and the evolution of self (first-person view) into a coherent framework of consciousness-based action research

  Otto Scharmer

  Thinking, Self, Views

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• Many 'hard' scientists regard the term 'social science' as an oxymoron. Science means hypotheses you can test, and prove or disprove. Social science is little more than observation putting on airs.

  Michael Kinsley

  Mean, Science, Air

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• Human behaviour reveals uniformities which constitute natural laws. If these uniformities did not exist, then there would be neither social science nor political economy, and even the study of history would largely be useless. In effect, if the future actions of men having nothing in common with their past actions, our knowledge of them, although possibly satisfying our curiosity by way of an interesting story, would be entirely useless to us as a guide in life.

  Vilfredo Pareto

  Knowledge, Science, Men

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• Social science virtually abhors the event. Not without reason; the short-term is the most capricious and deceptive form of time.

  Fernand Braudel

  Events, Reason, Social

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• I have never suggested any principled difference between the natural and social sciences.

  Noam Chomsky

  Differences, Natural, Social

  Source: libcom.org

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• The Social Sciences are good at accounting for disasters once they have taken place.

  Claude Bissell

  Taken, Social, Disaster

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• Social science and humanities ... have a mutual contempt for one another, the former looking down on the latter as unscientific, the latter regarding the former as philistine. ... The difference comes down to the fact that social science really wants to be predictive, meaning that man is predictable, while the humanities say that he is not.

  Allan Bloom

  Men, Differences, Humanity

  "The Closing of the American Mind". Book by Allan Bloom, 1987.

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• We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific.

  Jared Diamond

  Literature, Social, Uncomfortable

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• In short, the greatest contribution to real security that science can make is through the extension of the scientific method to the social sciences and a solution of the problem of complete avoidance of war.

  Edward Condon

  Real, War, Science

  "Science", Vol. 107 ( p. 665), June 25, 1948.

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• Economics is a social science, not a physical science.

  Jim Stanford

  Economics, Social, Physical Science

  Jim Stanford (2008). “Economics for everyone: a short guide to the economics of capitalism”, Pluto Pr

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• Among the social sciences, economists are the snobs. Economics, with its numbers and graphs and curves, at least has the coloration and paraphernalia of a hard science. It's not just putting on sandals and trekking out to take notes on some tribe.

  Michael Kinsley

  Curves, Numbers, Tribes

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• One reason citizens, politicians and university donors sometimes lack confidence in the social sciences is that social scientists too often miss the chance to declare victory and move on to new frontiers.

  Nicholas A. Christakis

  Moving, Missing, Victory

  "Let’s Shake Up the Social Sciences". www.nytimes.com. July 19, 2013.

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• Our biggest project is actually more in the social sciences, where we are studying mastery - how people get good at things - only we do it from an individuality perspective.

  L. Todd Rose

  People, Perspective, Individuality

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• While much of modern behavioral and social science treats individuals as autonomous agents, it is absolutely clear that the way we think and act is enormously influenced by the culture in which we live. It also is clear that the major elements of modern culture-science, technology, law, music, and religion-have evolved over time in a quite concrete sense of the term. Mesoudi makes these arguments very well and his book is a very good read.

  Richard R. Nelson

  Book, Thinking, Technology

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• In the state of Wisconsin it's mandated that teachers in the social sciences and hard sciences have to start giving environmental education by the first grade, through high school

  Gaylord Nelson

  Teacher, School, Giving

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• According to our social science, we can be or become wise in all matters of secondary importance, but we have to be resigned to utter ignorance in the most important respect: we cannot have any knowledge regarding the ultimate principles of our choices, i.e. regarding their soundness or unsoundness... We are then in the position of beings who are sane and sober when engaged in trivial business and who gamble like madmen when confronted with serious issues.

  Leo Strauss

  Wise, Ignorance, Issues

  "Natural Right and History". Book by Leo Strauss, 1953.

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• Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale. Medicine, as a social science, as the science of human beings, has the obligation to point out problems and to attempt their theoretical solution: the politician, the practical anthropologist, must find the means for their actual solution. The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and social problems fall to a large extent within their jurisdiction.

  Rudolf Virchow

  Fall, Mean, Science

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• After years of work in both areas of study, I concluded that the social sciences were different, in many important ways, from the natural sciences, but that the same scientific methods were applicable in both areas, and, indeed, that no very useful work could be done in either area except by scientific methods.

  Carroll Quigley

  Years, Important, Different

  Carroll Quigley (1979). “The evolution of civilizations: an introduction to historical analysis”, Liberty Fund Inc.

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• The thing that distinguishes social systems from physical or even biological systems is their incomparable (and embarrassing) richness in special cases. Generalizations in the social sciences are mere pathways which lead through a riotous forest of individual trees, each a species unto itself. The social scientist who loses this sense of the essential individuality and uniqueness of each case is all too likely to make a solemn scientific ass of himself, especially if he thinks that his faceless generalizations are the equivalents of the rich vareity of the world.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Thinking, Tree, Individuality

  "Evidences for an Administrative Science: A review of the Administrative Science Quarterly, volumes 1 and 2". Administrative Science Quarterly. Volume 3, No. 1, p. 14, 1958.

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• Many of us who read the literature of social science as laymen are conscious of being admitted at a door which bears the watchword "scientific objectivity" and of emerging at another door which looks out upon a variety of projects for changing, renovating, or revolutionizing society. In consequence, we feel the need of a more explicit account of how the student of society passes from facts to values or statements of policy.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Doors, Objectivity, Bears

  Richard M. Weaver, Ted J. Smith (2000). “In defense of tradition: collected shorter writings of Richard M. Weaver, 1929-1963”, Liberty Fund Inc.

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• I have this extraordinary curiosity about all subjects of the natural and human world and the interaction between the physical sciences and the social sciences.

  Ian Hacking

  Curiosity, World, Hacking

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