The indispensability of social science

Every day, in universities across the world, social scientists research and debate matters of significant public concern. Every day, too, those matters are discussed by politicians, journalists and the public.

Yet there is a disturbing disconnect between the specialist and non-specialist camps. The faults lie on both sides. Social scientists are often too preoccupied with theory and methodology, tend to write gracelessly, and can be pathologically averse to taking a stance. Non-academics can be impatient readers, reluctant to engage with complexity, and unrealistic about what social science can and can’t do.

This isn’t a new problem, but it has become a pressing one. It’s widely remarked upon that we live in a post-truth, post-trust world, and social media abounds with convincing-sounding conspiracy theories as well as carrying a massive glut of information which is all but impossible to assess for accuracy.

In that context, academic social science potentially has a lot to offer, since its knowledge base ultimately derives from research which has been assessed by others with expertise. That peer-review system is far from perfect, but it provides a test which keyboard warriors and bedroom vloggers don’t face and would rarely pass.

Yet accessing academics’ work is difficult. It is often in subscription-only journals or expensive books. It is typically written in a way which makes little sense to those outside the academic community, and the reward systems of universities encourage that. Worse, even when ostensibly written for public audiences, it is too often pretentious and condescending.

To seek to address these problems, last year saw the launch, under my editorship, of a series of short books. The idea behind them is captured in the title—What do we know and what should we do about… X?, with the X being issues like immigration, inequality, the future of work, housing, internet privacy and social mobility.

Written by leading experts in each topic, they on the one hand show the state of current knowledge in the area. On the other, they give the authors’ prescriptions about what should happen to address specific problems.

No doubt there are many other initiatives underway to communicate social science to the public, and I mention this one not simply because I am involved in it but because it serves to clarify some of the issues involved, especially by considering the twin themes of “what we know” and “what we should do.”

Maybe the biggest of these is what counts as social science knowledge at all. In a sense, everyone is a social scientist, in that we all make sense of our social experience. Our data is our own lives and what we’ve gleaned of others’ lives, and we frame it in terms of theory. So, for example, someone might say that despite having been poor all their lives, like their parents and grandparents, they never stole anything. Therefore, they go on to theorise, stealing is explained by individual immorality, not poverty.

One thing that social science can do is to collect data which is broader and sometimes deeper than any one individual’s experience. This may show patterns—such as that, for example, theft and poverty are correlated—calling for different theorisations than individual moral failing. Or, using the same example, it may dig into the value systems which normalise crime in particular groups.

However, it is never as straightforward as “the data” speaking for itself, since the selection of the data and the interpretation put upon it are always a matter of judgment. That can be irritating for the general reader, who may want to “just be told the facts.” It can also be a problem for the social scientist, who may be tempted to say that “all interpretations are valid.” The boring answer is that it isn’t either/or: facts exist, but they are susceptible to selection and interpretation. However, those selections and interpretations can be assessed on the basis of logical argument and rational analysis, whether that be of a statistical or discursive nature.

The difficulties of prescription flow directly from those of description. A good rule of thumb is to distrust pundits who state that “all the evidence shows that…” In practice, social science rarely points unanimously and unambiguously to solutions to complex problems. More often, the best it can do is to clarify that complexity and problematise what may be common sense assumptions. It can also develop knowledge of what solutions have worked in other times and places as well as, sometimes, explaining why such solutions aren’t necessarily suited to the current time and place.

Beyond (or perhaps prior) to all that are ethical questions. Suppose it could be proved beyond all doubt that killing every person whose surname began with “G” would increase average income, reduce disease and yield a net increase in global happiness—would this justify killing the Gs? Political and social choices are ineluctably based upon ethical judgments as well as knowledge.

For these reasons, it’s tempting to think that social science is vague or even useless for formulating policy. But is that so? The Covid-19 pandemic shows that natural and social science are both needed—we need to understand how the virus behaves to tackle it, and also how people behave. The pandemic also shows that “following the science” is a rather empty slogan. The science can be open to different interpretations, and politicians and citizens have to make political and ethical judgments about, not simply follow the instructions of, science.

That doesn’t mean that crackpot internet theories about Covid-19 being caused by 5G masts are worthy of any respect (though it could be worthwhile for social scientists to study how such beliefs arise and why they have an appeal). It means that scientific and social scientific knowledge are similar in framing a range within which reasonable political decisions can be made, and clarifying the consequences of those decisions.

The goal of framing public debate and political decision-making within terms of evidence, logical argument and rational analysis may seem a rather modest one. In the present climate, it has the surprising character of being both necessary and radical.

Christopher Grey is editor of the series “What do we know and what should we do about…? (SAGE Publishing)