Both society and government rely on social science a great deal, and those who criticise it for what they see as its failure to predict events have misunderstood the nature of the knowledge it can produce.
The entire purpose of social science is to apply disciplined, logical, and serious analysis to of all aspects of contemporary social life. Whether ‘scientific’ or not, this process of exploration is intrinsically valuable.
Everyone has experience being human, and so findings in social science coincide with something that we have either experienced or can imagine experiencing. The result is that social science all too often seems like common sense.
In an era where Social Science is being asked to prove its relevance the development of a broad Digital research agenda could, in my opinion, should be the way forward.
The claim that real politics is messier than the statistics are capable of capturing is obviously correct. But the implied corollary – that the government shouldn’t go out of its way to support it – doesn’t follow.
As a world-famous library holding over 150 million items, we have a lot to share. And we are keen to share it […]
Here is the latest weekly round up. Irish referendum See our selected links via the elections blog. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation international summit The […]
Here is our latest round up of key and interesting sites for social scienctists. This week view our selection of news and […]
In recent years there has been an increased focus on how research papers and supplemental data can be preserved openly. Andy Tattersall, Liz Such, Joe Langley and Fiona Marshall argue equal attention should also be paid to curating communication outputs aimed at engaging non-academic audiences.
Michael Burawoy, whose embrace of public sociology and the public at work lead him to describe his influential academic niche as “industrial […]
To address research credibility issues, we must reform the role of metrics, rankings, and incentives in universities.
In recent years there has been an increased focus on how research papers and supplemental data can be preserved openly. Andy Tattersall, Liz Such, Joe Langley and Fiona Marshall argue equal attention should also be paid to curating communication outputs aimed at engaging non-academic audiences.
A new people has emerged in the digital age, that of ‘internet famous’ celebrities. And that new people has a class of […]
Xenotransplantation is a fascinating subject – for obvious reasons, as it involves transplanting organs or other body parts across species boundaries (in […]
