The Origin and Nature of Religion: A Critical Realist View

2018 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-304
Author(s):  
Philip Gorski
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Empirical Social Research ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
Realist View

There are few social scientists who have done as much scholarly research on religion as Christian Smith. Over the past three decades, he has interviewed hundreds of people, fielded numerous surveys, and written dozens of books. And in recent years, he has pushed beyond the boundaries of empirical social research into the neighboring domains of social theory, philosophy, and theology. Anyone who studies or cares about religion will want to know what he has to say about it.

“The Past, Present, and Future of Accounting History”: A Comment on the State of Accounting History

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garry D. Carnegie
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Research Field ◽  
The State ◽  
International Accounting ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Recent Contribution ◽  
Global Society ◽  
Accounting History ◽  
The Past

ABSTRACT This response to the recent contribution by Matthews (2019) entitled “The Past, Present, and Future of Accounting History” specifically deals with the issues associated with concentrating on counting publication numbers in examining the state of a scholarly research field at the start of the 2020s. It outlines several pitfalls with the narrowly focused publications count analysis, in selected English language journals only, as provided by Matthews. The commentary is based on three key arguments: (1) accounting history research and publication is far more than a “numbers game”; (2) trends in the quality of the research undertaken and published are paramount; and (3) international publication and accumulated knowledge in accounting history are indeed more than a collection of English language publications. The author seeks to contribute to discussion and debate between accounting historians and other researchers for the benefit and development of the international accounting history community and global society.

The Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Prestigious Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

Why they shared: recovering early arguments for sharing social scientific data

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-119
Author(s):  
Emily Hauptmann
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Data Sharing ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Ethical Imperative ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The University ◽  
University Consortium

ArgumentMost social scientists today think of data sharing as an ethical imperative essential to making social science more transparent, verifiable, and replicable. But what moved the architects of some of the U.S.’s first university-based social scientific research institutions, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research (ISR), and its spin-off, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), to share their data? Relying primarily on archived records, unpublished personal papers, and oral histories, I show that Angus Campbell, Warren Miller, Philip Converse, and others understood sharing data not as an ethical imperative intrinsic to social science but as a useful means to the diverse ends of financial stability, scholarly and institutional autonomy, and epistemological reproduction. I conclude that data sharing must be evaluated not only on the basis of the scientific ideals its supporters affirm, but also on the professional objectives it serves.

In Algeria: Pierre Bourdieu's Photographic Fieldwork

2009 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 448-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz Schultheis ◽  
Patricia Holder ◽  
Constantin Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Visual Anthropology ◽  
Visual Sociology ◽  
Research Strategies ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Analytical Skills ◽  
Algerian Population ◽  
The Status ◽  
Insight Into

Today Pierre Bourdieu is well known as one of the most important social scientists of the 20th century. One of the outstanding qualities of his work has been his innovative combination of different methods and research strategies as well as his analytical skills in interpreting the obtained data (his ‘sociological gaze’). In this paper, we attempt to retrace the development of an extraordinary way of doing social research and show the benefit of Bourdieu's visual sociology for his empirical fieldwork and sociological theory. The article particularly stresses the significance of his photographic archive, which has long been ignored within the appreciation of Bourdieu's work. Studying Bourdieu's photography gives access to his æuvre in several new ways: not only can we understand how Bourdieu became an unconventional sociologist practicing his craft in the midst of a colonial war. Bourdieu's visual anthropology also offers an insight into the status nascendi of Bourdieu's sociology in all its elementary forms and contents. Through his photography Boudieu demonstrated the concepts of ‘ habitat and habitus’, the material and symbolic living conditions of the Algerian population.

The Problem of Energy

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Urry
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Human Intervention ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
And Control ◽  
Global Growth

Energy forms and their extensive scale are remarkably significant for the ways that societies are organized. This article shows the importance of how societies are ‘energized’ and especially the global growth of ‘fossil fuel societies’. Much social thought remains oblivious to the energy revolution realized over the past two to three centuries which set the ‘West’ onto a distinct trajectory. Energy is troubling for social thought because different energy systems with their ‘lock-ins’ are not subject to simple human intervention and control. Analyses are provided here of different fossil fuel societies, of coal and oil, with the latter enabling the liquid, mobilized 20th century. Consideration is paid to the possibilities of reducing fossil fuel dependence but it is shown how unlikely such a ‘powering down’ will be. The author demonstrates how energy is a massive problem for social theory and for 21st-century societies. Developing post-carbon theory and especially practice is far away but is especially urgent.

The Edwards' Report and the International Relations profession

1988 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nicholson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Science Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Science Community

The Economic and Social Research Council recently published a Report commissioned from a committee chaired by Professor Edwards, a psychiatrist, so that the Council, and the social science community in general, might know what was good and bad in British social sciences, and where the promising future research opportunities lie over the next decade. Boldly called ‘Horizons and Opportunities in the Social Sciences’, the Report condensed the wisdom of social scientists, both British and foreign, and concludes with a broadly but not uncritically favourable picture of the British scene.

The “Basic” Use of Microfilm

PMLA ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 68 (4-Part2) ◽  
pp. 62-66
Author(s):  
Allardyce Nicoll
Keyword(s):  
Scholarly Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World

During the past twenty or thirty years there has occurred in the world of scholarship a revolution, the full significance of which has perhaps not been adequately appreciated. We all know about microfilms and microprint; many of us have made use of these for special purposes; but only a few among us have had the opportunity of considering how the development of photographic processes has already transformed our work and how it is creating entirely new conditions for future scholarly research.

scholarly journals In defence of machine learning: Debunking the myths of artificial intelligence

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 734-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constance de Saint Laurent
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Recent Progress ◽  
Life Time ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
The Past ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
The Media

There has been much hype, over the past few years, about the recent progress of artificial intelligence (AI), especially through machine learning. If one is to believe many of the headlines that have proliferated in the media, as well as in an increasing number of scientific publications, it would seem that AI is now capable of creating and learning in ways that are starting to resemble what humans can do. And so that we should start to hope – or fear – that the creation of fully cognisant machine might be something we will witness in our life time. However, much of these beliefs are based on deep misconceptions about what AI can do, and how. In this paper, I start with a brief introduction to the principles of AI, machine learning, and neural networks, primarily intended for psychologists and social scientists, who often have much to contribute to the debates surrounding AI but lack a clear understanding of what it can currently do and how it works. I then debunk four common myths associated with AI: 1) it can create, 2) it can learn, 3) it is neutral and objective, and 4) it can solve ethically and/or culturally sensitive problems. In a third and last section, I argue that these misconceptions represent four main dangers: 1) avoiding debate, 2) naturalising our biases, 3) deresponsibilising creators and users, and 4) missing out some of the potential uses of machine learning. I finally conclude on the potential benefits of using machine learning in research, and thus on the need to defend machine learning without romanticising what it can actually do.

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