scholarly journals Improving Social Science: Lessons from the Open Science Movement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Engzell ◽  
Julia Marie Rohrer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Scientific Exchange ◽  
Research Transparency ◽  
Science Movement

The transdisciplinary movement towards greater research transparency opens the door for a meta-scientific exchange between different social sciences. In the spirit of such an exchange, we offer some lessons inspired by ongoing debates in psychology, highlighting the broad benefits of open science but also potential pitfalls, as well as practical challenges in the implementation that have not yet been fully resolved. Our discussion is aimed towards political scientists but relevant for population sciences more broadly.

scholarly journals Can we Trust Science and, if so, Why?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Wuttke
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Open Science ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Research On Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Knowledge Claims

The trustworthiness of scientific findings is at the center of current scholarly and public debates. The contestation of scientific knowledge claims is reason to take a break from our every-day tasks as scientists and to reflect upon our doing as professional truth-seekers. This essay reviews two recent books on foundational and practical questions on the scholarly generation of knowledge. 'Why Trust Science' (Oreskes) is an intellectual expedition into the epistemological foundations of science. 'Transparent and Reproducible Social Science Research' (Christensen, Freese, Miguel) is the first book-length primer on contemporary Open Science debates in the social sciences. Together, these books demonstrate the range of what we can learn from the new wave of ‘research on research’, both as curious citizens and as academic scholars.

scholarly journals Evidence on Research Transparency in Economics

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-214
Author(s):  
Edward Miguel
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Science Practices ◽  
Radar Screen ◽  
Rapid Transition ◽  
Research Transparency ◽  
Journal Policies ◽  
Economics Research

A decade ago, the term “research transparency” was not on economists' radar screen, but in a few short years a scholarly movement has emerged to bring new open science practices, tools and norms into the mainstream of our discipline. The goal of this article is to lay out the evidence on the adoption of these approaches – in three specific areas: open data, pre-registration and pre-analysis plans, and journal policies – and, more tentatively, begin to assess their impacts on the quality and credibility of economics research. The evidence to date indicates that economics (and related quantitative social science fields) are in a period of rapid transition toward new transparency-enhancing norms. While solid data on the benefits of these practices in economics is still limited, in part due to their relatively recent adoption, there is growing reason to believe that critics' worst fears regarding onerous adoption costs have not been realized. Finally, the article presents a set of frontier questions and potential innovations.

scholarly journals I Saw You in the Crowd: Credibility, Reproducibility and Meta-Utility

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nate Breznau
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Specific Topic ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Replication Research ◽  
Many Core ◽  
Science Movement

Crowdsourcing enables novel forms of research and knowledge production. It uses cyberspace to collect diverse research participants, coordinate projects and keep costs low. Recently social scientists began crowdsourcing their peers to engage in mass research targeting a specific topic. This enables meta-analysis of many analysts’ results obtained from a single crowdsourced research project, leading to exponential gains in credibility and scientific utility. Initial applications demonstrate positive returns for both original and replication research using various research instruments, and secondary or experimental data. It can provide more reliable Bayesian priors for selecting models and is an untapped mode of theory production that greatly benefit social science. Finally, in addition to the credibility and reproducibility gains, crowdsourcing embodies many core values of the Open Science Movement because it promotes community and equality among scientists.

scholarly journals Open Science Practices are on the Rise: The State of Social Science (3S) Survey

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garret Christensen ◽  
Zenan Wang ◽  
Elizabeth Levy Paluck ◽  
Nicholas Swanson ◽  
David J. Birke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Open Science ◽  
The State ◽  
Scientific Change ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Institutional Policies ◽  
Science Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
Major Social Science

Has there been meaningful movement toward open science practices within the social sciences in recent years? Discussions about changes in practices such as posting data and pre-registering analyses have been marked by controversy—including controversy over the extent to which change has taken place. This study, based on the State of Social Science (3S) Survey, provides the first comprehensive assessment of awareness of, attitudes towards, perceived norms regarding, and adoption of open science practices within a broadly representative sample of scholars from four major social science disciplines: economics, political science, psychology, and sociology. We observe a steep increase in adoption: as of 2017, over 80% of scholars had used at least one such practice, rising from one quarter a decade earlier. Attitudes toward research transparency are on average similar between older and younger scholars, but the paceof change differs by field and methodology. According with theories of normal science and scientific change, the timing of increases in adoption coincides with technological innovations and institutional policies. Patterns are consistent with most scholars underestimating the trend toward open science in their discipline.

“We Speak the Truth!”

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Sari Hanafi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Qualifications

This study investigates the preachers and their Friday sermons in Lebanon, raising the following questions: What are the profiles of preachers in Lebanon and their academic qualifications? What are the topics evoked in their sermons? In instances where they diagnosis and analyze the political and the social, what kind of arguments are used to persuade their audiences? What kind of contact do they have with the social sciences? It draws on forty-two semi-structured interviews with preachers and content analysis of 210 preachers’ Friday sermons, all conducted between 2012 and 2015 among Sunni and Shia mosques. Drawing from Max Weber’s typology, the analysis of Friday sermons shows that most of the preachers represent both the saint and the traditional, but rarely the scholar. While they are dealing extensively with political and social phenomena, rarely do they have knowledge of social science

Approach to the Social Sciences in Religion Past and Present

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 15-20
Author(s):  
Robert Segal
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Social

The social sciences do threaten theology/religious studies even when they do not challenge either the reality of God or the reality of belief in the reality of God. The entries in RPP ignore this threat in the name of some wished-for harmony. The entries neither recognize nor refute the challenge of social science to theology/religious studies. They do, then, stand antithetically both to those whom I call "religionists" and to many theologians, for whom there is nothing but a challenge.

Diplomasi Versi Minangkabau

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-144
Author(s):  
Muhammad Yunis
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Qualitative Observation

Pasambahan a Minangkabau society how to speak, the speech full of philosophy which delivery indirectly. This turned out to be complicated understood by some people who did not understand the pasambahan. In the present study, the authors sought to express the values of the philosophy contained in pasambahan as how to speak the traditional Minang community. As time goes, these traditions are disappearing from everyday society, for it needs a way to preserve it back. Pariaman is one area that has always practiced this tradition. In this study, the authors attempted to peel pasambahan text in a manner which according to the author deconstruction approach is one approach that is very controversial in the social sciences today. The process of data analysis by using some theories of social science (eclectic). Among the pragmatic theory and semiotics. The method used in the form of qualitative observation, the authors go directly spaciousness and interact with competent informants. From the discussion, the authors found ten diplomatic elementscontained in tradition and pasamabahan text. These elements in them, '' opener, apology, positioning/element of certainty, stringsattached, request (permission), receipt, delivery destination, contracts/agreements/agreements, offers, and resolver ''.

ISLAMIC SOCIAL SCIENCES

1988 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Abul Fadl
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Human Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
Western Values ◽  
Culture Brokers

The need for a relevant and instrumental body of knowledge that can secure the taskof historical reconstruction in Muslim societies originally inspired the da’wa for the Islamizationof knowledge. The immediate targets for this da’wa were the social sciences for obvious reasons.Their field directly impinges on the organization of human societies and as such carries intothe area of human value and belief systems. The fact that such a body of knowledge alreadyexisted and that the norms for its disciplined pursuit were assumed in the dominant practiceconfronted Muslim scholars with the context for addressing the issues at stake. How relevantwas current social science to Muslim needs and aspirations? Could it, in its present formand emphasis, provide Muslims with the framework for operationalizing their values in theirhistorical present? How instrumental is it in shaping the social foundations vital for the Muslimfuture? Is instrumentality the only criteria for such evaluations? In seeking to answer thesequestions the seeds are sown for a new orientation in the social sciences. This orientationrepresents the legitimate claims and aspirations of a long silent/silenced world culture.In locating the activities of Muslim social scientists today it is important to distinguishbetween two currents. The first is in its formative stages as it sets out to rediscover the worldfrom the perspective of a recovered sense of identity and in terms of its renewed culturalaffinities. Its preoccupations are those of the Muslim revival. The other current is constitutedof the remnants of an earlier generation of modernizers who still retain a faith in the universalityof Western values. Demoralized by the revival, as much as by their own cultural alientation,they seek to deploy their reserves of scholarship and logistics to recover lost ground. Bymodifying their strategy and revalorizing the legacy they hope that, as culture-brokers, theymight be more effective where others have failed. They seek to pre-empt the cultural revivalby appropriating its symbols and reinterpreting the Islamic legacy to make it more tractableto modernity. They blame Orientalism for its inherent fixations and strive to redress its selfimposedlimitations. Their efforts may frequently intersect with those of the Islamizing current,but should clearly not be confused with them. For all the tireless ingenuity, these effortsare more conspicuous for their industry than for their originality. Between the new breadof renovationists and the old guard of ‘modernizers’, the future of an Islamic Social Scienceclearly lies with the efforts of the former.Within the Islamizing current it is possible to distinguish three principal trends. The firstopts for a radical perspective and takes its stand on epistemological grounds. It questionsthe compatibility of the current social sciences on account of their rootedness in the paradigmof the European Enlightenment and its attendant naturalistic and positivist biases. Consistencedemands a concerted e€fort to generate alternative paradigms for a new social science fromIslamic epistemologies. In contrast, the second trend opts for a more pragmatic approachwhich assumes that it is possible to interact within the existing framework of the disciplinesafter adapting them to Islamic values. The problem with modern sciene is ethical, notepistemological, and by recasting it accordingly, it is possible to benefit from its strengthsand curtail its derogatory consequences. The third trend focuses on the Muslim scholar, rather ...

Comparative Area Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Köllner ◽  
Rudra Sil ◽  
Ariel I. Ahram
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
The Social ◽  
Small N ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Science Disciplines

Two convictions lie at the heart of this volume. First, area studies scholarship remains indispensable for the social sciences, both as a means to expand our fount of observations and as a source of theoretical ideas. Second, this scholarship risks becoming marginalized without more efforts to demonstrate its broader relevance and utility. Comparative Area Studies (CAS) is one such effort, seeking to balance attention to regional and local contextual attributes with use of the comparative method in search of portable causal links and mechanisms. CAS engages scholarly discourse in relevant area studies communities while employing concepts intelligible to social science disciplines. In practice, CAS encourages a distinctive style of small-N analysis, cross-regional contextualized comparison. As the contributions to this volume show, this approach does not subsume or replace area studies scholarship but creates new pathways to “middle range” theoretical arguments of interest to both area studies and the social sciences.

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