Some Observations on Social Science Research

Abstract

EVERY WORK of social science today establishes itself on a scale whose two ends are theory and data: that is, the great theoretical structures by which we attempt to understand our age at one end, and the relatively minuscule experiments and data which we collect as practicing social at the other. In between are smaller schemes of generalization as well as larger and less precise observations. The relationship of the two ends of the scale to each other has never been completely clear, and all efforts simply to resolve the problem by comparisons with the natural sciences, or by drastic rejections of one or the other end of the scale, have failed to achieve general acceptance. Social in pursuit of professionalization of their craft and of status as scientists are disturbed by this state of affairs, and are hopeful that, if not now, then soon the theory-data tension can be reconciled by some operational formula, and that there will then be no doubt as to what is social science. In this paper, I propose to indicate some reasons for skepticism as to these hopes, and some reasons for thinking that the tension is a productive one in the present state of the art, one we might as well enjoy. To be sure, some deny there is any problem of reconciliation by arguing that only experiments and data are science while all the rest, though it may be produced by people who call themselves social scientists, is art or polemics, journalism or whatnot. Still others escape the problem