Reputed Changes in Social Scientists' Sympathies Regarding the Nature-Nurture Controversy: An Exploratory Comparison

1984 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Evolutionary Genetic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Social Behavior

Probably the most enduring question throughout the history of the social sciences pertains to how much human social behavior is a product of evolutionary, genetic, nonsocial, “natural” sorts of variables as opposed to learned sociocultural, environmental, “nurturing” variables (Hammond, 1983). Regardless of where individual social scientists themselves happen to have settled on this issue, many have offered an opinion about the prevailing position of social scientists generally on this question at various points in social science history. The present study compares these opinions, especially as they pertain to the twentieth century.

Early American Historiography and Social Science History

1982 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Scott Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
American History ◽  
Association Network ◽  
Science History ◽  
Early American History ◽  
Early American ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Despite the emergence of social science history, the profession remains organized around the study of periods in the history of societies. Departments of history still structure their curricula mainly along national and temporal lines, and the same principle of socialization thereby defines most academic positions (Darnton, 1980). To judge by the sessions of the annual meetings of the Social Science History Association (SSHA), those sympathetic with that orientation focus on topics, approaches, and methodologies. Only one association network, that for the study of Asia, mentions a locale in its title, and none specifies a particular time period. This article will examine the findings and implications of social science history for one well-established national/period field, that of early American history.

What is Social Science History, Anyway?

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-480
Author(s):  
Paula Baker
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Science History ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Methodologies

This group of essays came out of an attempt to address the “usually unasked,” “bound to embarrass” question that Eric Monkkonen raised in his 1994 presidential address to the Social Science History Association. As both the social sciences and history have been reshaped in recent years by intellectual tendencies variously labeled “postmodernism,” “poststructuralism,” or the “linguistic turn,” the never especially clear relationship between the social sciences and history has grown even more muddy. The essays that follow are drawn from two sessions of the 1998 annual program of the Social Science History Association. The sessions brought together scholars from a variety of disciplines and cohorts who held divergent ideas about the links between social science and history and different substantive agendas for explaining historical change. A mix of essays that highlight new methodologies for analyzing the past and pieces that offer explanations or remedies, the articles printed here point to some of the central issues in the debate about what social science history might mean today.

scholarly journals Editor's Introduction to 40th Anniversary Issue: History and the Social Sciences: Past Imperfect; Future Promising

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne EC McCants
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Interdisciplinary Exchange

It has been almost 40 years since Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie published an English translation of his (at the time) deeply unsettling essay, “Motionless History,” in the second issue of Social Science History (SSH, Winter 1977). For many historians, whose livelihoods depended on narrating the “march of history,” his claim that long periods of history were characterized by a distinct absence of change—his example was Europe from late antiquity up to the early eighteenth century—was nothing short of heretical. The newly established SSH was, however, an entirely logical place from which to launch this fusillade against the disciplinary norms of the Anglo-American historical profession, as the journal was the product of a contra-establishment project, the Social Science History Association (SSHA). Founded in 1974 and hosting its first annual conference in Philadelphia in the fall of 1976, the SSHA emerged out of the more general social and political ferment of that period. Its organizers had the specific intention to disrupt (to use our word and not theirs) what they thought were the rigid practices and limited vision of the then American Historical Association. In so doing they hoped to make space for a new kind of historical enquiry that had much to learn from the social sciences, and hoped to teach them something in return. They were joined in that enthusiastic moment by historically minded rebels from the American Sociological Association, as well as small numbers of anthropologists, demographers, economists, geographers, and political scientists who were all eager to incorporate both historical context and a theoretical appreciation of contingency into their work. In the intervening years since that hopeful beginning, many have argued that the anticipated interdisciplinary exchange failed in one way or another. But let me not get ahead of myself.

Social Anthropology and Social Science History

2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
David I. Kertzer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Clifford Geertz ◽  
Simultaneous Movement

In the 1970s, when the social science history movement emerged in the United States, leading to the founding of the Social Science History Association, a simultaneous movement arose in which historians looked to cultural anthropology for inspiration. Although both movements involved historians turning to social sciences for theory and method, they reflected very different views of the nature of the historical enterprise. Cultural anthropology, most notably as preached by Clifford Geertz, became a means by which historians could find a theoretical basis in the social sciences for rejecting a scientific paradigm. This article examines this development while also exploring the complex ways cultural anthropology has embraced—and shunned—history in recent years.

The Social Science History Association at 40: A Savory Chop Suey

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-563
Author(s):  
Susan Boslego Carter
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Multidisciplinary Research ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Academic Fields ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Geographic Regions ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Academic Rewards

Multidisciplinary conversations are tough. Language, habits of thinking, and styles of presentation and criticism differ profoundly across disciplines. Academic rewards to multidisciplinary research are unpredictable. Yet year after year, for 40 years running now, the Social Science History Association (SSHA) has hosted increasingly large, multidisciplinary conferences that attract scholars from a diverse set of academic fields and geographic regions. By fostering debate in an atmosphere of civility, respect, and inclusiveness, the SSHA has become a premiere venue for introducing the latest in social scientific topics, methods, and data. Here I salute the founders and guardians of the culture responsible for this impressive achievement with a multidisciplinary foray into the history of America's chop suey craze of the early twentieth century. Like the remarkable history of the SSHA, the history of chop suey illustrates the importance of civility, respect, and democratic inclusiveness in fostering innovation. It is a story that celebrates the rewards to institutions that promote such virtues.

A Social History of the Social Science History Association during Its Early Years

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 575-581
Author(s):  
Lynn Hollen Lees
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social History ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Early Years ◽  
University Of Pennsylvania ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

Social historians formed an important part of the Social Science History Association from its early days, and they widened its intellectual space beyond initial emphases on political history and quantitative methods. Lee Benson and other faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as Charles and Louise Tilly, were particularly influential in attracting a broad mix of scholars to the group. The openness of the association and its interdisciplinarity appealed to younger scholars, and those interested in the “new urban history” were early recruits. A growing number of women, many of whom were social historians, participated in the first conventions and newly organized networks.

scholarly journals Metaphors and social science

1999 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric D. Macpherson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Concerns ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
History Of

The social sciences have a considerable history of attempts to apply models and theories from the physical sciences. All such attempts have failed, primarily because social scientists have commonly not distinguished between applications and possibly useful metaphors.Attempts to apply non-linear mathematics to social concerns will similarly fail. There are now no non-trivial applications, and there are unlikely ever to be.But the phenomenon of reifying models and theories from elsewhere has long standing status in the social sciences, and DDNS can play an important role in monitoring those attempts.

Perhaps We Can Talk

2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-212
Author(s):  
David B. Ryden
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Science History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Interdisciplinary Exchange ◽  
Presidential Session

The title of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association in 2007 was “History and the Social Sciences: Taking Stock and Moving Ahead.” David I. Kertzer (2007), the president of the association at that time, explained that the focus of the conference was to determine “how far we have come in social science history” and to isolate “the most promising avenues for research.” The following essays were presented at the presidential session, titled “The Past, Present, and Future of Economics for History.” The presenters put forward a number of provocative arguments before a fully engaged audience, whose numbers spilled into the hallway of Chicago's Palmer House. While the authors were all economists by training and by department affiliation, there was an intense interdisciplinary exchange between audience members and the panelists. The session, in short, was a huge success in generating a range of ideas about the future of economics for history.

Evolutionary Behavioral Science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Crippen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Kin Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Behavioral Science ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Social Behavior ◽  
Maximization Principle

Genuinely evolutionary explanations of human social behavior are only dimly grasped by most social scientists. However, with increasing frequency, such approaches are yielding remarkable insights. In view of these considerations, this chapter isolates and briefly reviews the core principles of the evolutionary behavioral sciences. Specifically, attention focuses on the theory of kin selection, the maximization principle, the theory of reciprocity, and the theory of relative parental investment. These theoretical tools have been demonstrated to be extraordinarily productive in explaining various aspects of animal, including human, social behavior. Still, many social scientists continue to misconstrue or misrepresent the basics of evolutionary behavioral science. The chapter addresses some of the more common misunderstandings and, in the process, emphasizes the manner in which the social sciences may benefit from developing more explicit logical linkages with the fundamental principles of evolutionary biology.

scholarly journals Kuntowijoyo’s Prophetic Social Science (Chalenges and Consequences)

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
Luqman Rico Khashogi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Culture History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Observation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Working Device

The dynamics of social science in Indonesia today is likely looking for the ideal form. Kuntowijoyo, in this case, becomes one of the Indonesian Muslim figures who brings fresh air for the social sciences by integrating Islamic paradigm that is transcendental/divine (prophetic). The working device is expected to be applicable in the future in order to look at the social dynamics of the Muslims; its culture, its history of the social and political movements. Thus, the purpose of this study was to see the importance of the Islamic paradigm in the social sciences and also to assure that the application of the scientific framework (that is called by Kuntowijoyo) Prophetic Social Sciences should be started as soon as possible. Therefore, this study is descriptive-comparative. Kuntowijoyo ideas provide a comparison among the opinions of other social scientists to see the relevance of his thoughts within the dynamics of value-laden social science. This study presents that the social observation of the Muslim society so far is not only always value-laden, but also full of certain messages and also unwittingly spread the used paradigm, it is not only pure interpretation. Thus, the working device of developing social science today does not only need critical examination, but also need to be improved to scrape a variety of Muslim social problems; culture, history, social movements, and political. The prophetic values require provocative motion (da'wah), professionalism (jihad), and strong integrity (amanah).

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