Impact

Health, Engineering, and National Security Experts laud Life-Saving Impact of Social Sciences Impact

Free images from ponsulak

Health, Engineering, and National Security Experts laud Life-Saving Impact of Social Sciences

October 18, 2012 1686

“I am extremely impressed by what the social and behavioral sciences are doing and what their prospects are… What a wonderful way to try to achieve a more rational civilization, to not back away from the complexity, but to be ambitious about it and to design inquiries in ways that would be meaningful…to take on the ambition in the first place, that the scientific method is valuable, even if you’re studying things that aren’t dead.” – Ralph J Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences

On September 24, 2012, a group of scholars and experts who are not traditionally associated with the social sciences were found in one location discussing the important accomplishments of social and behavioral scientists. This symposium, titled “Social and Behavioral Sciences in Action,” is available free to the public via webcast by clicking here.

SAGE and CQ Press were honored to sponsor the event, which was organized by the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE) of the National Research Council for of the National Academy of Sciences. It began with an introduction by Kenneth Prewitt from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and chair of the DBASSE advisory committee.

“How do we make sure that the resources of scientific intelligence, whatever the disciplinary base is, actually get into the settings that they want to be used?” asked Prewitt. “Use is itself a social phenomenon. It is not a biological phenomenon, it is not a natural history phenomenon, it is not an engineering phenomena, it is something that people do. So the second major challenge for the social sciences is not only to help a society think about responses to social conditions that need attention, but also to think about how much of our knowledge is used and how will it be used. That is a social science problem.”

Rita R. Colwell, a natural scientist and president and chairman of COSMOSID, delivered a compelling keynote address as she discussed how the social sciences enabled the implementation of a water filtration system in Bangladesh villages. She stated that the work of the social sciences functioned to understand the cultural practices of the Bangladesh people and then to put into practice a filtering system that prevents cholera and saves lives.

In a panel presentation and discussion on the importance of the social and behavioral sciences for Medicine, National Security, and Engineering, three additional researchers and experts made a compelling argument for the role of social sciences in their life-saving work.

Lucian L. Leape, from the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Harvard School of Public Health, lauded the social sciences for their role in implementing better health care systems. He stated that issues of hospital culture including improving teamwork, promoting disclosure, and stifling disrespectful behavior, are studied and implemented only through the social sciences and can have crucial impacts on hospitals.

Robert A. Fein, from The Metis Group and Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, discussed the important role of the social sciences in making important discoveries about national security including assassination, school shootings, and interrogation. His own social science research has led to real changes in the secret service and to discoveries about patterns common to many school shooters.

The last speaker of this panel was John D. Lee from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He discussed the technology and human cognition balance in research about problems surrounding distracted driving. Lee stated that research that focuses exclusively on technology fails as it can have little effect on actual behavior and can’t capture the dynamic relationships that people create with new technology.

The meeting was concluded with remarks by the presidents of the three organizations represented within the National Academy of Sciences – Ralph J. Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences, Harvey V. Fineburg, President of the Institute of Medicine, and Charles M. Vest, President of the National Academy of Engineering.

Ralph’s remarks summarized the mission of the event succinctly as he commented on the precision that is involved in social science research, “I see tremendous rigor in the way that most of you are taking on really complicated issues…In experimental design for example, in certain fields of social and behavioral sciences, there was more rigor, more pre-thought going into how to design an experiment to be able to get to the heart of the matter, than I was seeing in all of the fields I was familiar with … There was tremendous commitment to rationality, to take on really complicated issues.”

For more information about the Social and Behavioral Sciences in Action initiative, click here.

Read Related Articles

A Sociology of Financialisation?

The Importance of Studying the Obvious

Rejoinder to Gary Guttings Doubts about the Behavioral Sciences

A Response to Recent Attacks on Social Science

Sage, the parent of Social Science Space, is a global academic publisher of books, journals, and library resources with a growing range of technologies to enable discovery, access, and engagement. Believing that research and education are critical in shaping society, 24-year-old Sara Miller McCune founded Sage in 1965. Today, we are controlled by a group of trustees charged with maintaining our independence and mission indefinitely. 

View all posts by Sage

Related Articles

Lee Miller: Ethics, photography and ethnography
News
September 30, 2024

Lee Miller: Ethics, photography and ethnography

Read Now
‘Settler Colonialism’ and the Promised Land
International Debate
September 27, 2024

‘Settler Colonialism’ and the Promised Land

Read Now
Webinar: Banned Books Week 2024
Event
September 24, 2024

Webinar: Banned Books Week 2024

Read Now
Research Assessment, Scientometrics, and Qualitative v. Quantitative Measures
Impact
September 23, 2024

Research Assessment, Scientometrics, and Qualitative v. Quantitative Measures

Read Now
Paper to Advance Debate on Dual-Process Theories Genuinely Advanced Debate

Paper to Advance Debate on Dual-Process Theories Genuinely Advanced Debate

Sage 494 Impact

Psychologists Jonathan St. B. T. Evans and Keith E. Stanovich have a history of publishing important research papers that resonate for years.

Read Now
Revisiting the ‘Research Parasite’ Debate in the Age of AI

Revisiting the ‘Research Parasite’ Debate in the Age of AI

The large language models, or LLMs, that underlie generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, have an ethical challenge in how they parasitize freely available data.

Read Now
Trippin’ Forward: Management Research and the Development of Psychedelics

Trippin’ Forward: Management Research and the Development of Psychedelics

Charlie Smith reflects on his interest in psychedelic research, the topic of his research article, “Psychedelics, Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy and Employees’ Wellbeing,” published in Journal of Management Inquiry.

Read Now
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

5 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments