There is an ongoing (and seemingly perpetual) debate between historians and social scientists over the purpose, feasibility, and value of each others’ work and discipline. As a historian, I am “true to my school,” and can easily poke holes in the premises and theories of social scientists. At the same time, I am alive to the conflicts, limitations, and overreaching of my fellows.
Social scientists critique historians by saying that the latter fail to advance human understanding, that the mere chronicling of human events might well be interesting and their stories might be engrossing, but that without theories and models, we have no way of evaluating behavior and come to an understanding of how and why people do what they did (and do). Historians might respond that their work often (usually) incorporates social science theories (e.g., the will to power/domination, the importance of community compliance and acceptance, or the economic value of personal fashion). Historians would also stress 1) that such theories only go so far in explaining historical actions, 2) that there is so much that is unknown about human motivation, and 3) that there is so much contingency in human events; that theories aren’t, in the end, worth very much.
Historians’ critique of social scientists builds off these points. They emphasize that theories and models may have all sorts of mathematical elegance, but for all their complex calculations, they are still crude approximations of behavior. For example, extensive studies have been made of the correlates of war as social scientists seek to understand what causes such conflicts. Historians remain dubious (to put it mildly) of such efforts, pointing out the significant difficulties of defining what is meant by war (and its various theoretical causes), not to mention the limited number of cases of war in human history, each of which has so much distinctive context as to make them incommensurable.
A central component of social scientists’ defense of their approach is that they are at least trying to derive meaning from the sprawl of human experience. They emphasize that—as social scientists—they a pursuing an ever-greater approximation of an accurate depiction of the nature and practice of humanity. It is no accident (and here both groups agree) that “science” is part of the rubric of this set of disciplines. The methodologies and language used by social scientists—including experimentation, testing hypotheses, and statistical analyses—are all grounded in the “hard” sciences. Their aspiration is to replicate the amazing success of physics, chemistry, and biology over the past half-millennium only, this time, in terms of understanding economic behavior, voting patterns, and social structures.
The value of science lies in its production of knowledge that enables us to predict how nature will work in the future. By “nature” here, I mean all manner of ‘things:’ blood vessels, comets, and the addition of a liter of nitric acid to five kilograms of granite. Science, however theoretical or “pure,” is not merely about understanding stuff; historically; it has to lead—eventually—to our ability to interact with nature in the future. The success of science historically can be seen in the extent to which we as a species have gained confidence that we can predict this aspect of the future: the apple that fell from a tree onto Newton’s head gives me confidence that I could determine (with appropriate testing of the tree and stem, combined with an evaluation of the wind) when the apple that sits over my head will fall on me or how, with appropriate design, the ceiling that sits over my head will NOT fall on it. The “scientific revolution” of the 16-18C is a short-hand description of not only the process of gathering such knowledge, but, more importantly, the dramatic boost in human confidence in the understanding, management, and predictability of nature.
Science has leveraged mathematics to foster this sense of confidence and to accommodate its incompleteness (science inherently being a “work in progress”). We can’t be entirely sure that some rogue asteroid won’t hit our planet, but we can speak of a 99.9999% degree of confidence. This is close enough to “true” that we can thereby get on with our lives. This (apparent) precision is an inestimable part of creating the appearance of accuracy as a source of trust.
Few parts of the social sciences can aspire to this kind of precision, much less this degree of approximation of ultimate accuracy. There are too many variants and vagaries in human psychology to support it and there are too many contingencies in the future course of events to enable predictability. Stated simply, social scientists necessarily produce fewer “9s” than their “hard” science counterparts (I will, of course, grant that there are no bright lines here (for example, between physiology and psychology).) What social scientists can produce at best are plausibilites, likelihoods, and indications as to whether Amazon Prime Day prices will result in larger sales volumes, or recent diplomatic gestures regarding Palestine will cause Israel to moderate its attacks.
Academic social scientists at least insert some number of caveats into their work, even if these often don’t make it into the popular press reports or these same academics when they become talking heads on TV or the Net. Applied social scientists (by which I mean the vast majority of white-collar jobs such as business managers or other bureaucrats, salespeople, educators (including history teachers), or therapists) were either never aware that they don’t know exactly what they’re talking about or have forgotten it.
As I have repeatedly remarked, historians are also at risk of forgetting the necessary caveats in their work or, worse, of forgetting that our knowledge of the past (or as close as we can get to it) provides no more basis for predicting future behavior than for any other profession. Generally, however, we avoid even talking about such precision or accuracy. In other words, we don’t even claim any “9s”
Social scientists critique historians by saying that the latter fail to advance human understanding, that the mere chronicling of human events might well be interesting and their stories might be engrossing, but that without theories and models, we have no way of evaluating behavior and come to an understanding of how and why people do what they did (and do). Historians might respond that their work often (usually) incorporates social science theories (e.g., the will to power/domination, the importance of community compliance and acceptance, or the economic value of personal fashion). Historians would also stress 1) that such theories only go so far in explaining historical actions, 2) that there is so much that is unknown about human motivation, and 3) that there is so much contingency in human events; that theories aren’t, in the end, worth very much.
Historians’ critique of social scientists builds off these points. They emphasize that theories and models may have all sorts of mathematical elegance, but for all their complex calculations, they are still crude approximations of behavior. For example, extensive studies have been made of the correlates of war as social scientists seek to understand what causes such conflicts. Historians remain dubious (to put it mildly) of such efforts, pointing out the significant difficulties of defining what is meant by war (and its various theoretical causes), not to mention the limited number of cases of war in human history, each of which has so much distinctive context as to make them incommensurable.
A central component of social scientists’ defense of their approach is that they are at least trying to derive meaning from the sprawl of human experience. They emphasize that—as social scientists—they a pursuing an ever-greater approximation of an accurate depiction of the nature and practice of humanity. It is no accident (and here both groups agree) that “science” is part of the rubric of this set of disciplines. The methodologies and language used by social scientists—including experimentation, testing hypotheses, and statistical analyses—are all grounded in the “hard” sciences. Their aspiration is to replicate the amazing success of physics, chemistry, and biology over the past half-millennium only, this time, in terms of understanding economic behavior, voting patterns, and social structures.
The value of science lies in its production of knowledge that enables us to predict how nature will work in the future. By “nature” here, I mean all manner of ‘things:’ blood vessels, comets, and the addition of a liter of nitric acid to five kilograms of granite. Science, however theoretical or “pure,” is not merely about understanding stuff; historically; it has to lead—eventually—to our ability to interact with nature in the future. The success of science historically can be seen in the extent to which we as a species have gained confidence that we can predict this aspect of the future: the apple that fell from a tree onto Newton’s head gives me confidence that I could determine (with appropriate testing of the tree and stem, combined with an evaluation of the wind) when the apple that sits over my head will fall on me or how, with appropriate design, the ceiling that sits over my head will NOT fall on it. The “scientific revolution” of the 16-18C is a short-hand description of not only the process of gathering such knowledge, but, more importantly, the dramatic boost in human confidence in the understanding, management, and predictability of nature.
Science has leveraged mathematics to foster this sense of confidence and to accommodate its incompleteness (science inherently being a “work in progress”). We can’t be entirely sure that some rogue asteroid won’t hit our planet, but we can speak of a 99.9999% degree of confidence. This is close enough to “true” that we can thereby get on with our lives. This (apparent) precision is an inestimable part of creating the appearance of accuracy as a source of trust.
Few parts of the social sciences can aspire to this kind of precision, much less this degree of approximation of ultimate accuracy. There are too many variants and vagaries in human psychology to support it and there are too many contingencies in the future course of events to enable predictability. Stated simply, social scientists necessarily produce fewer “9s” than their “hard” science counterparts (I will, of course, grant that there are no bright lines here (for example, between physiology and psychology).) What social scientists can produce at best are plausibilites, likelihoods, and indications as to whether Amazon Prime Day prices will result in larger sales volumes, or recent diplomatic gestures regarding Palestine will cause Israel to moderate its attacks.
Academic social scientists at least insert some number of caveats into their work, even if these often don’t make it into the popular press reports or these same academics when they become talking heads on TV or the Net. Applied social scientists (by which I mean the vast majority of white-collar jobs such as business managers or other bureaucrats, salespeople, educators (including history teachers), or therapists) were either never aware that they don’t know exactly what they’re talking about or have forgotten it.
As I have repeatedly remarked, historians are also at risk of forgetting the necessary caveats in their work or, worse, of forgetting that our knowledge of the past (or as close as we can get to it) provides no more basis for predicting future behavior than for any other profession. Generally, however, we avoid even talking about such precision or accuracy. In other words, we don’t even claim any “9s”
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