Social Science Space

We often use the metaphor of a war to describe the human struggle against disease. This is a very unhelpful way of thinking, because it generates the sort of hubris exemplified by the Chan Zuckerberg program.

Another disease in the tropics has the World Health Organisation in a lather, and again biomedicine’s response will not be all that useful in the short term. Social science can help now to address the underlying problems that help the Zika virus to spread — if policymakers will listen.

Sense About Science is recruiting six ambassadors to represent the Ask for Evidence campaign and give talks to different groups […]

A new report from the World Health Organization on the response to the African Ebola outbreak backs up what our Robert Dingwall has been writing all along — by downplaying social science lives have been lost. The question now is whether a new WHO can improve.

There is no point in improving the innovation pipeline for antibiotics, argues Robert Dingwall, if the drugs that come out at the end all fall into the same chaotic patterns of use as today.

The general election manifestos of five of the UK’s biggest parties contain sweeping claims about the causes of crime and policies to reduce it. Experts are warning today that such broad statements are nearly always wrong, and are calling on politicians to stop misleading voters.

The arrival of a report calling for the British government to better support social science has raised questions about the role, responses and responsibilities of a ‘public sociology.’

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa reminds us of a key lesson in public health, notes Robert Dingwall: Biomedical solutions will always come late, while social science-based interventions can break the cycle much sooner.

There is a genuine cost from ignoring lessons from social science in the fight against Ebola. What’s even sadder — these lessons were taught in blood three decades ago in the fights against AIDS. Are we ready for the next malady?

WHO is supposed to be a global health organization, not a global biomedical organization. The Ebola crisis, argues Robert Dingwall, reveals the extent to which it has lost sight of this mission.

As the independence vote moves from all-consuming question to historical incident, what are the lessons that Scottish universities and in particular Scottish social scientists should take away?

Social Science Space talks to Margaret Levi about her goals for re-imagining the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.