Cutting NSF Is Like Liquidating Your Finest Investment
Look closely at your mobile phone or tablet. Touch-screen technology, speech recognition, digital sound recording and the internet were all developed using […]
Reflections on the Centenary of the Armistice
At the 100th anniversary of the end of World War, Robert Dingwall asks how has English sociology asked questions about the experiences and the legacy of the war — or if it even has broached those issues.
New Report Packages Themes from Evidence Week
“The question we must therefore ask is: are we all really working to the best available picture of what is going on in the world?” So asks a new report that summarizes the themes discussed in June’s first-ever Evidence Week.
Campaign for Social Science Report Argues for International Staff Safety Net
Three out of every 10 academics working in UK universities, finds a new report from the Campaign for Social Science, are nationals […]
Social Science Data Solving Social Housing Problems
The ESRC describes Knowledge Transfer Partnerships as a relationship between a company/organization and staff in a knowledge base institution in which the the institution’s knowledge base is applied to a challenge presented by the organization. Here, Farida Mustafazade describes her experience in such a partnership.
Extreme Polarization Is Bad But Need Not Be Inevitable
Are Americans now stuck in animosity and anger that will undermine democracy, or can the nation pull out of it? Here, Jennifer McCoy shares some of the findings of a collaborative research project she led that examined political polarization in 11 countries, including the United States. Their research shows that the most democratic of actions – participating in elections – is exactly the thing to do to help reduce polarization.
Nick Adams on Textual Analysis
Fake news, whether truly phony or merely unpalatable, has become an inescapable trope for modern media consumers. But apart from its propagandist provenance, misinformation and disinformation in our media diets is a genuine threat. Sociologist Nick Adams, in this Social Science Bites podcast, offers hope that a tool he’s developed can improve the media literacy of the populace.
Andrew Leigh on Randomistas
When Angus Deaton crafted the term ‘randomista’ to denigrate the rampant use of randomized controlled trials in development economics, Angus Leigh saw an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons. In this Social Science Bites podcasts he explains how he turned randomista into a compliment and promotes the use of trials to improve social programs worldwide.
Golden Goose Award Recognizes Implicit Bias Work
U.S. government-funded research that on its face looked only at fame, names and gender turned out to be pioneering work into implicit bias. This year a Golden Goose Award went to three researchers who developed the concept of implicit bias and then made a huge impact on popular culture by giving the world a test to measure it.
