To be presented at the panel, "xx", at the annual meeting of the xx Association, xx place, xx date. I am indebted to xx for encouragement and intelligent commentary.

Physical scientists do not face social scientists' special challenge of keeping in mind simultaneously what is and what might be, so their job is intellectually easier.

Thou Great First Cause, least understood:
Who all my sense confined
To know but this — that thou art good,
And that myself am blind:

Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And binding Nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will.

— From Alexander Pope "The Universal Prayer"

People find physical science so demanding because of the mathematics (or, closely related, the rigorous experimental logic) it requires. Mathematics is perceived as difficult because it is so unforgiving; one either understands a problem and gets the right answer, or one's ignorance is painfully obvious. Mathematics provides nowhere to hide.

Social science is seen as easier than physical science first because one can hide so easily. When knowledge fails, one can always agree with the professor's political leanings, dress up in pompous words⁽¹⁾ and styles, and bury the reader under a thousand correlations, twentyfive panel-corrected factor analyses, and a cloud of dust. These practices are difficult to eradicate, because even quite monstrous statements ("Hitler was the epitome of morality") have no immediate, decisive refutation — and certainly no objective refutation.  Nor is the problem so simple as "student laziness" or "student dishonesty";  these are simply the natural result of students trying to make sense of what seems like a very fuzzy subject.

Social science is also seen as easier than physical science because its more complex logic eludes us.  The logic is so complex because the social scientist must distinguish the inherent nature of human beings and social systems from the imperfect — often systematically imperfect — version one commonly sees.  Oppressive social systems train up oppressed members, and the resulting characteristics — of both society and members —are easily enshrined as reality, leaving us unprepared for the constant revolutions of thought and structure that overturn our existing understandings.⁽²⁾  To prevent this confusion, social scientists must keep in mind simultaneously what is and what ought to be, just as the subjects of our inquiries do.  Physical scientists need not.  Physical science will be as demanding as social science the day electrons go on strike to demand more neutrinos.

So one gets into a feedback loop:  teachers having only a weak grasp of the material's logic teach students who flounder in a logical morass, who learn bad habits to cope with the confusion, and who go on to teach students in their turn (and to be authors, journal reviewers, panel discussants, and so on).

From time to time, people suggest to me that scientists ought to give more consideration to social problems - especially that they should be more responsible in considering the impact of science upon society. It seems to be generally believed that if scientists would only look at these very difficult social problems and not spend so much time fooling with the less vital scientific ones, great success would come of it. Most scientists do think about these problems from time to time, but we don't put full-time effort into them-because we know that social problems are very much harder than scientific ones, and that we usually don't get anywhere when we do think about them (Feynman 1999:19-20).

1. Paradigm. Problematic. Deconstruct. Causally connected with. Post-modern.

2. After all, isn't this "reality" empirically observable everywhere around us?

The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.
Copyright © 1999-2006 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.