Decline of Ideology: A Dissent and an Interpretation

1966 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph La Palombara
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
The United States ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Literary Intellectuals ◽  
The One ◽  
And Behavior

With increasing frequency and self-assurance, the scientific objectivity of American social science is proclaimed by some of its prominent practitioners. Various explanations are offered for the onset of social science's Golden Age, but central to most of them is the claim that modern social science has managed to resolve Mannheim's Paradox, namely, that in the pursuit of the truth the social scientist himself is handicapped by the narrow focus and distortions implicit in ideological thought. Presumably, the social scientist can now probe any aspect of human organization and behavior as dispassionately as physical scientists observe the structure of the atom or chemical reactions. For this reason, it is claimed by some that the ideologically liberated social scientists—at least in the United States—can expect to be co-opted into the Scientific Culture, or that segment of society that is presumably aloof from and disdainful toward the moralistic speculations and the tender-heartedness of the literary intellectuals.The behaviorial “revolution” in political science may have run its course, but it has left in its wake both obscurantist criticisms of empiricism, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, an unquestioning belief in “science.” Quite often the latter belief is not merely anti-historical and anti-philosophical but also uncritical about the extent to which empirical observations can be colored by the very orientation to values that one seeks to control in rigorous empirical research.The claims of modern social scientists are greatly buttressed by the views of Talcott Parsons.

Islamic Perspectives on Theory Building in the Social Sciences

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Ibrahim A. Ragab
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Western Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Islamic Science ◽  
The One ◽  
Science Movement

The issue of the relevance of Islam to modem "scientific" thinking isflanked on both sides by extreme positions. On further investigation,however, these positions tun out to reflect certain misconceptions only,perpetuated by certain structural and pemnal factors that lend themselvesreadily to systematic analysis and, hopefully, correction. On the one hand,we have legions of Muslim social scientists who still flinch at hearing ofattempts to integrate divine revelation with science. Many of them wouldfind the title of this paper problematic, if not outright self-contradictory.What does Islam, or any other religion for that matter, have to do withscience or with theory building, they would ask.This response should hardly be unexpected, considering the type ofacademic and professional indoctrination that we all have gone through.The scientific establishment, with its overriding positivist-empiricistleanings, has long adopted and encouraged an attitude-or more correctlya "faith"-of sepamtion between science and religion. Consider, for example,the following statement by no less an authority than the NationalAcademy of Sciences in the United States, in 1981:Religion and science are separate and mutually exclusive realmsof human thought, presentation of which in the same contextleads to misunderstanding of both scientific theory and Feligiousbelief. (Sperry 1988, 608-9)This terse statement is representative of the attitudes of those whoadhere to the old paradigm, seemingly totally oblivious of the fundamentalcriticisms leveled from all directions at that type of outmodedview of science.On the other hand, we have those Muslim scientists already active inthe Islamic science movement who may find the content of the paper objectionablebecause it does not depart enough from the Western model of ...

Applied Anthropology Society Formed In Canada

1981 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-19
Keyword(s):  
Social Scientist ◽  
The United States ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
Provincial Government ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Consulting Firms ◽  
Academic Settings ◽  
French And English ◽  
The 1960S

Canada bears some similarities to, and yet in many respects is distinctively different from the United States of America. Composed of two linguistic communities, French and English, and demographically lop-sided, with the majority of its inhabitants living within 200 miles of the U. S. border, the nation presents questions for the social scientist with applied interests which while not unique, are not easily resolved by recourse to American models. Until fairly recently, the social sciences in Canada, and anthropology in particular, were only sparsely represented within and without academia. The 1960s were witness to a rapid growth pattern, with substantial recrutiment of social scientists from the U. S.A, Great Britain and Commonwealth countries such as Australia. The establishment in time of graduate programs led to the present situation, in which positions in Canada are increasingly being filled by persons with Canadian training. Many of these positions are in non-academic settings, such as museums, federal and provincial government agencies, private consulting firms and elsewhere. Many social scientists in Canada find themselves today in applied career patterns.

WOMEN‘S STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY: A PERFUMED GHETTO?

1981 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-8
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Women’S Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact

One of the fields of sociology which is experiencing a dramatic explosion is that catch‐all area of Women's Studies. Books and articles touching on women's experiences in the labour market or in the home, the education of girls or images of femininity, the impact of the law on women or sexism in the social sciences have been proliferating in the last decade. Much of the impetus has been provided by the renascent Women's Movement, and the various academic concerns echo the diverse attacks on the status quo being made by politically active women. The one thing which holds all this material together is an explicit concern to bring women to the centre of the stage in the social sciences, instead of leaving them (as they so often have been) in the wings or with mere walk‐on parts. Taking the woman's point of view is seen as a legitimate corrective to the tendency to ignore women altogether. But is this sufficient to constitute the nucleus of a new speciality within sociology, which is what seems to be happening to ‘Women's Studies’ and ‘feminist’ social science? More seriously, should sociological discussions of women be ghettoised into special courses on women in society? As a preliminary attempt to redress the balance maybe such separate development can be justified, but if that is all that happens, the enriching potential of feminist social science may well be lost to mainstream sociology. It is not just that feminist social scientists want women to be brought in to complete the picture. It is not just that they claim that half the picture is being left unexposed. The claims are often much more ambitious than that: what much feminist writing is attempting is a demonstration of the distortion in the half image which is exposed. An injection of feminist thinking into practically any sociological speciality could lead to a profound re‐orientation of that field. More than this, a feminist approach can indicate the ways in which traditional boundaries between sociological specialities can obscure women and their special position in society. Feminist social scientists throw down the gauntlet on the way in which the field of sociology has traditionally been carved up. But if women's studies are kept in their ghetto, this challenge will be lost: to me, the explicitly critical stance which feminist research takes with respect to mainstream sociology is one of its most exciting qualities, and such research has important insights to contribute to the development of the discipline.

scholarly journals The Use of Drones in the Spatial Social Sciences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ola Hall ◽  
Ibrahim Wahab
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Good And Evil

Drones are increasingly becoming a ubiquitous feature of society. They are being used for a multiplicity of applications for military, leisure, economic, and academic purposes. Their application in the latter, especially as social science research tools has seen a sharp uptake in the last decade. This has been possible due, largely, to significant developments in computerization and miniaturization which have culminated in safer, cheaper, lighter, and thus more accessible drones for social scientists. Despite their increasingly widespread use, there has not been an adequate reflection on their use in the spatial social sciences. There is need a deeper reflection on their application in these fields of study. Should the drone even be considered a tool in the toolbox of the social scientist? In which fields is it most relevant? Should it be taught as a course in the universities much in the same way that geographic information system (GIS) became mainstream in geography? What are the ethical implications of its application in the spatial social science? This paper is a brief reflection on these questions. We contend that drones are a neutral tool which can be good and evil. They have actual and potential wide applications in academia but can be a tool through which breaches in ethics can be occasioned given their unique abilities to capture data from vantage perspectives. Researchers therefore need to be circumspect in how they deploy this powerful tool which is increasingly becoming mainstream in the social sciences.

Value judgments in social science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom L. Beauchamp
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Values ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

Leading theorists in the social sciences have insisted that value judgments should be strictly separated from scientific judgments, which should be value-free. Yet these same thinkers recognize that social scientists are often committed to values in carrying out their work and may be motivated by moral goals of removing or remedying social conditions. From this perspective, scientific conclusions (one sort of fact) and moral commitments (one sort of value) are intertwined in scientific practices, and the question arises whether a social scientist qua scientist makes value judgments or only makes such judgments in a nonscientific capacity. Related questions concern the role played by moral, social, and political values in the pursuit of scientific knowledge and the impact of these values on scientific theories and methods.

Social Science and US Foreign Affairs

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy Rohde
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social

Since the social sciences began to emerge as scholarly disciplines in the last quarter of the 19th century, they have frequently offered authoritative intellectual frameworks that have justified, and even shaped, a variety of U.S. foreign policy efforts. They played an important role in U.S. imperial expansion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Scholars devised racialized theories of social evolution that legitimated the confinement and assimilation of Native Americans and endorsed civilizing schemes in the Philippines, Cuba, and elsewhere. As attention shifted to Europe during and after World War I, social scientists working at the behest of Woodrow Wilson attempted to engineer a “scientific peace” at Versailles. The desire to render global politics the domain of objective, neutral experts intensified during World War II and the Cold War. After 1945, the social sciences became increasingly central players in foreign affairs, offering intellectual frameworks—like modernization theory—and bureaucratic tools—like systems analysis—that shaped U.S. interventions in developing nations, guided nuclear strategy, and justified the increasing use of the U.S. military around the world. Throughout these eras, social scientists often reinforced American exceptionalism—the notion that the United States stands at the pinnacle of social and political development, and as such has a duty to spread liberty and democracy around the globe. The scholarly embrace of conventional political values was not the result of state coercion or financial co-optation; by and large social scientists and policymakers shared common American values. But other social scientists used their knowledge and intellectual authority to critique American foreign policy. The history of the relationship between social science and foreign relations offers important insights into the changing politics and ethics of expertise in American public policy.

scholarly journals The Use of Drones in the Spatial Social Sciences

Drones ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 112
Author(s):  
Ola Hall ◽  
Ibrahim Wahab
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Learning ◽  
The Social

Drones are increasingly becoming a ubiquitous feature of society. They are being used for a multiplicity of applications for military, leisure, economic, and academic purposes. Their application in academia, especially as social science research tools, has seen a sharp uptake in the last decade. This has been possible due, largely, to significant developments in computerization and miniaturization, which have culminated in safer, cheaper, lighter, and thus more accessible drones for social scientists. Despite their increasingly widespread use, there has not been an adequate reflection on their use in the spatial social sciences. There is need for a deeper reflection on their application in these fields of study. Should the drone even be considered a tool in the toolbox of the social scientist? In which fields is it most relevant? Should it be taught as a course in the social sciences much in the same way that spatially-oriented software packages have become mainstream in institutions of higher learning? What are the ethical implications of its application in spatial social science? This paper is a brief reflection on these questions. We contend that drones are a neutral tool which can be good and evil. They have actual and potentially wide applicability in academia but can be a tool through which breaches in ethics can be occasioned given their unique abilities to capture data from vantage perspectives. Researchers therefore need to be circumspect in how they deploy this powerful tool which is increasingly becoming mainstream in the social sciences.

Finale

The Age of Em ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Common Complaint ◽  
The Social

Over 150 readers have commented on previous drafts of this book. Here are very quick summaries of some of their most common criticisms. Most individual views are of course subtler than these summaries can be. If we include those who declined to read my draft, the most common complaint is probably “who cares?” Many just can’t see why they should want to know much detail about the lives of people who are not they, their children, or grandchildren. While many readers seem interested in the lives of past people who were not personally their ancestors, perhaps these readers make up only a small fraction of the population. Other readers doubt that one can ever estimate the social consequences of technologies decades in advance. It is not so much that these readers have specific complaints about my analyses. Instead, they have a general skepticism that makes them uninterested in considering such analyses. Many see human behavior as intrinsically inscrutable, and many doubt that social science exists as a source of reliable insight. A few are off ended by the very idea of estimating social outcomes, as they see this as denying our free will and ability to choose our futures. A more specific version of this sort of criticism accepts that it is often possible for us to foresee social consequences in worlds like ours, but then says that it is impossible to foresee the social behaviors of creatures substantially smarter than us. So, they reason, we today cannot see past the future point in time when typical descendants become smarter than we are today, and ems are effectively smarter than us in several ways. This view suggests that social scientists today are less able to predict the behavior of smarter people, or of people who are smarter than the typical social scientist. That seems incorrect to me. Still other readers accept my social analysis, but are disappointed that I consider only the next great era, and not the eras that may follow it. These readers mainly care about the long-term future. They reject my argument that understanding the em era is a good first step to understanding the eras that may follow it.

For Your Information

1990 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-25 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
The United States ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Criteria For Selection

The Society for Applied Anthropology invites nominations for the 1991 Malinowski Award. It is presented to an outstanding social scientist who has actively pursued the goal of solving human problems using the concepts and tools of social science in recognition of efforts to understand and serve the needs of the world's societies through social science. Each nomination should follow the criteria for selection as set forth by the SfAA. They are: 1. The nominees should be of senior status, widely recognized for their efforts to understand and serve the needs of the world through the use of social science. 2. The nominees should be strongly identified with the social sciences. They may be within the academy or outside of it, but their contributions should have implications beyond the immediate, the narrowly administrative, or the political. 3. The Awardee shall be willing and able to deliver an address at the annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology. 4. The nominees should include individuals who reside or work outside of the United States.

TANGLED LOOPS: THEORY, HISTORY, AND THE HUMAN SCIENCES IN MODERN AMERICA

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOEL ISAAC
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Behavioral Science ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
Herbert Simon ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Postcolonial States

During the first two decades of the Cold War, a new kind of academic figure became prominent in American public life: the credentialed social scientist or expert in the sciences of administration who was also, to use the parlance of the time, a “man of affairs.” Some were academic high-fliers conscripted into government roles in which their intellectual and organizational talents could be exploited. McGeorge Bundy, Walt Rostow, and Robert McNamara are the archetypes of such persons. An overlapping group of scholars became policymakers and political advisers on issues ranging from social welfare provision to nation-building in emerging postcolonial states. Many of these men—and almost without exception they were men—were also consummate operators within the patronage system that grew up around American universities after World War II. Postwar leaders of the social and administrative sciences such as Talcott Parsons and Herbert Simon were skilled scientific brokers of just this sort: good “committee men,” grant-getters, proponents of interdisciplinary inquiry, and institution-builders. This hard-nosed, suit-wearing, business-like persona was connected to new, technologically refined forms of social science. No longer sage-like social philosophers or hardscrabble, number-crunching empiricists, academic human scientists portrayed themselves as possessors of tools and programs designed for precision social engineering. Antediluvian “social science” was eschewed in favour of mathematical, behavioural, and systems-based approaches to “human relations” such as operations research, behavioral science, game theory, systems theory, and cognitive science.

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