Science and Social Problems

Social science. Computational social science.

Demography as social science and policy science

Science and social responsibility*

Science in the aggregate has not lived up to its promise to work for the benefit of society as a whole. This problem stems from the narrow perspectives that basic and applied researchers typically take to their work. Among the barriers to broadening those perspectives, the most tractable is the myth that the overriding purpose of science in human affairs is prediction; that such predictions are...

Realism and Social Science

The science in social science.

A recent poll showed that most people think of science as technology and engineering--life-saving drugs, computers, space exploration, and so on. This was, in fact, the promise of the founders of modern science in the 17th century. It is less commonly understood that social and behavioral sciences have also produced technologies and engineering that dominate our everyday lives. These include po...