Cutting NSF Is Like Liquidating Your Finest Investment
Look closely at your mobile phone or tablet. Touch-screen technology, speech recognition, digital sound recording and the internet were all developed using […]
Return to Planet Quantophrenia
Robert Dingwall argues that numeracy and and a grasp of quantitative method of course have a place in the education of a social scientist, but they shouldn’t be the only skills in the graduate’s quiver. How about he ability to walk around, for one?
Quantophrenia is Back in Town
Many social scientists find themselves members of a cult of quantification, argues Robert Dingwall, in love with numbers for their own sake even when those numbers produce no useful knowledge.
Tamiflu and the Ethics of the British Medical Journal
No one expected Tamiflu to be a wonder drug, but indications are that it’s moderately useful in fighting a serious public health threat. But that message was lost last week in an ill-starred rush to beat up on ‘wicked’ Big Pharma, argues Robert Dingwall.
Publication Ethics and Biomedical Imperialism
Applying ethics to social science research can raise as many issues as it answers. A new set of guidelines on which Robert DIngwall consulted gives clarity in some cases like manipulation of images and duplicate publication but leaves some other controversies unsettled.
Floods, Politics and Science: The Case of the Somerset Levels
Feel-good interventions that don’t provide a practical good, or at least one not supported by evidence, generate questions that hinge specifically on future responses to climate change and more broadly on government decision-making in general.
The Ethics of Impact
Back in the summer, John Holmwood, the current BSA President, sent me an email about impact and research ethics. Various contingencies have […]
The Rule of Optimism – Thirty Years On
Not many social scientists introduce a phrase into the English language and its subsequent history is instructive about the ways in which the impact of successful sociology becomes invisible. It is also a nice example of how ideas become assimilated into a societal environment that finds it hard to accept the sociologist’s focus on systems and organizations.
Why Social Science Education is as Important as STEM…
A recent Ipsos-Mori survey reveals the crucial role that social science has to play in modern democracy, a role which is frequently sabotaged.
