johnwilliams

Base

Name

John Williams

Organization

University of Otago

  • smith john

    Excellent discussion on balancing qualitative and quantitative measures in research assessment. The emphasis on responsible use of bibliometrics alongside peer review is much needed to address systemic biases and ensure fair evaluations. Tools like the Norwegian Career Assessment Matrix provide practical insights—could CoARA consider creating similar frameworks tailored for interdisciplinary research?

  • Izolace stěn

    Tento post mi hodně objasnil, skvěle napsané!

  • Grant Castillou

    It’s becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman’s Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first.
    What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990’s and 2000’s. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I’ve encountered is anywhere near as convincing.
    I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there’s lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.
    My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar’s lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman’s roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461

  • Liam

    This makes no sense that the military has their own capacity of employment and being stated as neither employed or unemployed. While serving we are considered employed by whatever branch of service we are serving in. We sign a contract for our employment, are paid a salary, receive health benefits, retirement, are considered employed by creditors, are eligible for unemployment benefits, file and pay employment income taxes, yet we do not fall under US labor laws. We are considered “in a job” it’s just called a military occupational skill or MOS. We receive OJT or “on the JOB training”. I think it’s just because of the hazards of duty and the fact that we are also considered “always training”, just to cover the asses of those who unjustly treat soldiers while they are serving and those who do treat soldiers unjustly are not able to be held accountable under the Labor Act. This is ridiculous and in my opinion I feel that policy and legislation needs to change to make labor laws applicable to the hardest working people in the nation. We get more done in one day than most people do in a month. Unproductive my dairyaire. This is actually insulting to say about service members. We are the most productive people you will ever meet.

  • Grant Castillou

    It’s becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman’s Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first.

    What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990’s and 2000’s. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I’ve encountered is anywhere near as convincing.

    I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there’s lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.

    My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar’s lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman’s roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461

  • Eric Taylor

    It would seem that philosophy in AI is inevitable.Its certainly integrated at the fundamental level.Can it be used to dig deeper into the the fundamentals of Human Nature?Why not?It’s the lever to a leap in evolution.And it’s inevitable.The genie is out of the box.The real question here is can it be made profitable in ways that its predisesor couldn’t.Or does the payoff come from its influence on humanity and their other endevors.Either way it’s insanely exciting to experience this in my lifetime.

  • Grant Castillou

    It’s becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman’s Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first.

    What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990’s and 2000’s. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I’ve encountered is anywhere near as convincing.

    I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there’s lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.

    My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar’s lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman’s roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461

  • Neil Dodsworth

    I accept we should study social sciences but right now in 2024 it has published nothing predictive. So no, please do not use it to inform, you will be making a bad decision.

  • Roseann Dalton

    I find it disheartening that the authors response to Kaleys assertion that she hasn’t been treated unfairly was that she should expect to be discriminated against if it hasn’t already happened.

  • Sean Maceoin

    Two fairly recent related articles on confirmation bias: McSweeney, B., 2021. Fooling ourselves and others: confirmation bias and the trustworthiness of qualitative research–Part 1 (the threats). Journal of Organizational Change Management34(5), pp.1063-1075 and McSweeney, B., 2021. Fooling ourselves and others: confirmation bias and the trustworthiness of qualitative research–Part 2 (cross-examining the dismissals). Journal of Organizational Change Management34(5), pp.841-859.

  • Titus Alexander

    The McDonaldization thesis became one of the most widely read sociology books of all time and has entered the culture. It is mentioned in over 8,600 publications and has been applied to countless institutions, from archives and cruises to surgery,  universities and zoos. Recent examples include the McDonaldization of consumption (2018), UK justice (2022), and more with over 1,820 results in Google Scholar since 2022 and 720 in 2023.
    However, Ritzer’s McDonaldization thesis is disempowering and undermines the potential of social science to make a difference. Since it was first published 40 years ago McDonald’s has grown fourfold while sociology has flatlined.
    To mark the anniversary The Journal of American Culture has published my Unwrapping the McDonald’s model: An introduction to dynamic social theory, challenging Ritzer’s thesis and proposing an alternative approach to social science, based on the idea that all institutions are social experiments and models of how to achieve specific outcomes.
    See summary of the argument in The Power of Social Models or the full article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13467.

  • Estratégia e táticas da JetX para vencer

    I couldn’t help but smile while reading this article! It’s refreshing to see researchers with a sense of humor and the ability to find a playful side in their work. The Ig Nobel Prize is, after all, a celebration of quirky and offbeat scientific achievements, and your gambling research certainly fits the bill.
    While the study may have involved crocodiles, a far cry from traditional human subjects in gambling research, it highlights the creativity and diversity of scientific inquiry. Sometimes, unconventional approaches lead to unexpected insights and valuable perspectives that can be applied to other fields.
    The fact that your research has practical implications in understanding risk-taking behaviors, even in the animal kingdom, is a testament to the breadth and depth of scientific exploration. It’s a reminder that there’s always more to discover, even in seemingly unrelated areas.
    I applaud your team’s lighthearted yet meaningful approach to research, and the Ig Nobel recognition is a testament to the importance of thinking outside the box. After all, science should be as much about curiosity and wonder as it is about serious inquiry. Thank you for sharing this delightful perspective on your work!

  • Tom

    Almost impossible to get right all of the time…those with bad intent know how to play the system. However, greater inter-agency coordination (tech) and better-resourced less poorly managed agencies could reduce the tragedies.

  • bilbo

    On the role of risk in development of childen….
    I endorse the perspective of the article’s author, and Ransome, although am no fanboi of Lenin, Marx nor yet the Manchester Guardian ( as was )

    Nevertheless, I was a Baby Boomer and – as were my peers – encouraged to play outside all day, and to go wherever I chose on my series of bicycles. That became weekend camping with the Boy Scouts, then mountain walking, then rock-climbing. Later still, military flying and offshore sailing.

    All these required an appropriate and graduated assessment of risk. Adults monitored, often unseen. For example, a group of youngsters at an Outward Bound School would do an ‘expedition’ climbing and crossing some significant Scottish hills and ridges. They would think themselves managing alone, but would be monitored by a staff member or two from an adjacent ridge.

    I believe, from my own ‘lived experience’, that such graduated exposures to risk are important to maturation.

  • Christy Toth

    My daughter is interested in criminology/behavioral science. We would love some information or suggestions. She’s a junior in high school.

  • alex

    Overall good article, ‘m using it for school research. 🙂

  • Alan Britten

    What are the authors views on handkerchief or tissue use? Society has come up with some views on this, maybe a social scientist has a view?

  • Jimmy Yamaimai

    I have known about John Hattie since 2012. He has also influence teaching and learning in our education system in Vanuatu,

  • William Cockerham

    Saw the movie, Robert. Excellent analysis.

  • Nabanita Das

    Hi Tracy,
    I wanted to let you know that I’ve been reading your work on Principles of Marketing for a Digital Age. I’m truly impressed by your writing abilities. You have researched a lot and done an excellent work. If you have interest on recent digital trends, read my article here

  • Prince Njanji

    Is there another Sci-hub-of-some-sort for social sciences? Some of us are in the fields of Public Policy, Human Resources, etc and we are still in the dark. Please, if its out there, share. It will help millions out there.

  • DocReality

    B.S. DEI programs frequently minimize or deny antisemitism and actually foster it with the demonization of Israel. DEI = division, exclusion and indoctrination.

  • Russell Foote, Ph. D.

    Greetings Sage Publishing,
    I would like to recommend a similar award system for social science research and theory building (separately) publications in developing countries. You can even establish a committee to develop criteria and evaluate submitted publications,

  • Michael Strack

    The podcast featuring Craig Calhoun on protest movements discusses the formation, organization, success, and failure of protest movements, as well as their commonalities. Calhoun, an American sociologist and director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, has extensively studied protest movements throughout his academic career.

    In the podcast, Calhoun emphasizes that protests are a tactic used by social movements to gain media attention, put issues on the public agenda, and influence policymakers. However, protests are just one aspect of a larger process of social change. Movements involve various activities and strategies beyond protests.

    Calhoun provides insights into the formation and organization of protest movements by drawing on his research, including the Tiananmen Square protests in China. He highlights the role of social relationships and social organization in protests. For example, in the Tiananmen Square protests, the organizers utilized pre-existing ties among students to mobilize and coordinate the protests. They also used symbolic actions, such as camping in the square, to challenge the government’s claims about order and organization.

    The podcast also touches on the different messages and interpretations of protest movements. Calhoun explains that the messages conveyed by protests can vary depending on the target audience and the specific goals of the movement. In the case of Tiananmen Square, different messages were crafted for different audiences, with some emphasizing democracy and others focusing on corruption and economic development.

    Regarding the role of social science in understanding protest movements, Calhoun discusses the three registers of engagement: description, causal analysis, and normative questioning. Social science provides descriptive accounts of protest movements, explores the causes and conditions that give rise to them, and offers critical analysis and evaluation of their strategies and outcomes. Calhoun emphasizes the importance of a balanced and thorough understanding of events while acknowledging that different values and perspectives can shape the interpretation of social science research.

    In terms of research methods, Calhoun shares his approach to studying the Tiananmen Square protests, which involved multiple methods. These included participant observation, survey methodology, retrospective interviews with protest leaders, and documentary research. The combination of these methods allowed Calhoun to gather comprehensive and diverse data to analyze the protests.

    The conversation also briefly addresses the scientific nature of social science research. Calhoun highlights the importance of systematic data gathering, testing preliminary conclusions, and using appropriate methods that fit the research problem and context. While social science research may differ from the experimental and mathematical models often used in natural sciences, it still aims to achieve rigor and reliability in data analysis.

    Finally, the podcast touches on recent criticisms of social sciences and the challenges faced by researchers in obtaining funding. Calhoun mentions attacks on political science funding and emphasizes the need to defend the rigor and value of social science research while navigating the expectations of funding sources.

  • Ayo

    Michael, this is brilliant!!!
    Thank you so much for capturing the mission and activism of this unique publication, and highlighting the historical string that ties us all together.

  • James

    I think just bringing up race on anything is racist. Black vote, Hispanic percent, white power, Asian food, ect…. All racist in my mind…. Even what I just wrote is racist!

  • Arianna

    Dear Emma, thank you for this interesting article. I was wondering when you mention the survey done “nation wide” to what nation are you referring, is it the USA or the UK? Or another nation? This would be incredibly helpful to know for a research project I am conducting.

    Thank you for your attention.

  • Sue Oliver PhD

    I agree wholeheartedly that we qualitative researchers seem to be obliged to work harder to justify our findings as credible and trustworthy and contributing to the existing body of knowledge in our subject area. i have been involved in qualitative research since the early 1990s and have seen the development from having to ‘prove’ the efficacy of my data analysis, to the stage of arguing convincingly for validity through trustworthiness, dependability and various other qualities. However, our chosen research discipline enables us to perceive and understand human conditions to a depth that quantitative methods cannot. There is a place for both, either as mixed methods or separately, but we have to be persistent and thorough in the pursuit of acceptability.

  • Rob Procter

    Hi,

    Have there been any significant changes to social media company data access policies since you posted this?

  • Charles Bradley

    Such a great episode! Thank you so much for doing this.

  • Tim MacIntosh

    Certainly, this is an older post, but I’ll go ahead anyway. At some point Robinson compared the dynamism of America with the struggles of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), noting institutions supporting (imperfectly) equality of opportunity. This narrative is perhaps a small piece of the story.

    But how about another: America’s institutions are based on cheap factors of production – raw materials and slave labour harvested from Africa. Today, it’s not so much the transfer of goods, as the disparity in dividing producer surplus – all boats rise, but mine much, much, much more. There is a fundamental problem with comparing the colonizer’s institutions with the colonized.

    At another point, Robinson takes a pragmatic approach, a real-politick view, that institution building requires compromise – letting land go untaxed in the UK, for example. This of course is not corruption, in that it follows the rules of the institution. On the other hand, it is institutionalize corruption. The privatization of natural resources, the fundamental source of all wealth, is a key colonial instrument of power – it is what perpetuates the “Global South’s” dependency on the “Global North.” I appreciate the pragmatism, but this thinking forfeits all potential for institutions to become innovative. Work is in the service of the multinational, for export. There is no natural, local, innovative economy.

    I worry that the conversation remains a colonial perspective on why nations fail. It’s us, of course, by design.

    Back to Rhodesia: Here’s quote from Rhodes himself.
    “We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labor that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories.” – Still true, eh?

  • Russell Foote, Ph. D.

    Research Impact: Making It Visible.

    While much has been said about research impact there isn’t much real-world visibility about such impacts. I would therefore propose the following:
    All theses (Bachelors, Master’s and Ph. D. ) must focus on a real world issue that is occurring within families, organization/s, the student’s place of work or an individual level. The focus of such research depends on the student’s major, that is, an engineering Ph. D. or Master’s student should do a thesis that addresses a real world engineering challenge. A graduate student in Psychology should address a real life issue like the changing psychologies of selected teenagers which will require a longitudinal qualitative or quantitative research design.

    Universities should build relationships to conduct action research with community groups, governmental and private sector organizations to conduct research and propose problem- solving proposals on an issue that is affecting any of these entities. The members engaged in such partnerships must remain involved from the conception of the project and throughout its implementation. The participating university should be paid for their contribution to the project. This can become a useful revenue stream for such participating universities.

    All disciplinary majors, from Bachelor’s to Ph. D. should have an annual practicum for which the participating students must submit a report and credits must be given or a final mark can be awarded as part of the end-of-semester assessment of such students.

    At the end of each of the above an impact assessment research exercise must be conducted by a separate committee. None of the individuals who participated in the research project should be appointed to this committee. In addition academic policies in universities should be expanded to accommodate the above suggestions and these suggestions should be taken into consideration by accreditation bodies and THES World University Rankings.

  • william elgin

    CTR is a Marxist program teaching reverse racism that should be banned in the entire US.

  • Nemo

    One thing that I note regarding ALL the sensible opponents of the many and varied assaults on the freedom and well-being of individuals is that so many are classed as “Emeritus”. Given that in the UK what might be classified as ‘Emeritus’ Generals, and ‘Emeritus’ Central Bankers ALL seem to change their opinion with their status. It seems that the status of ‘Emeritus’ is like a truth drug. They all seem to recant their previous beliefs and opinions. Hmm, could it be that once retired they are safe in their pensions and so are willing to say what they dared not say when still employed? Long live Emeritus Professors and any others with the same status who may finally be able to ‘speak truth to power’.

  • Gustavo Adolfo Rodríguez
    INTERESTING ARTICLE
    
  • Maxena Sedanka

    The “greedy work” concept is out of place. Factually, women pursue majors that have lower wage outcomes, pursue jobs with lower average wages (particularly jobs that are not dangerous), work fewer hours, and take off more time, and these are all facts backed by the BLS. Regardless of what Claudia Goldin says, those behaviors are real and directly connected to the matter in a deeply impactful way. They can’t just be shrugged off with a buzz term. Then there is the part where pregnancy takes women out of the workforce for an extended period of time. That directly impacts the aggregate.

    With all of that, of course women are going to make less, it’s literally impossible to avoid, and it will literally never change unless women can address all of those issues, but I don’t see that ever happening. Why? Because despite all of the new age gender pseudoscience coming from college campuses, bloggers, and thinktanks these days, real science shows us that women are just different from men in a number of ways, and that’s totally okay. Our ambitions are different, our desires and how we feel we should fulfill them are different, how we see the world and how we should operate it is different, and that, again, is totally okay. That difference is a needed balance.

    Pressure from woman-centered ideologies that are mostly based in (pretty blatant) misandry have for generations tried hard to turn women into female-male hybrids, and all this has done is caused misery and disconnect between the sexes. It’s unnatural, it doesn’t work, and it’s not working, that’s the key part. It’s not working. How do we know? Look at the never-ending war between men and women, the school shootings, the exploding suicide rate (which is mostly men btw), and the confusion of kids not knowing who or what they are anymore and being encouraged by ideologues to remain in the confusion said ideologues helped perpetuate.

    But losers can win – eventually. The more that workers say to their supervisors that “we want our own time” the more the labor market will change.

    That’s not how real life works and this is how women and men are different. You see, men don’t think this way. Men just go to work and do the job as described, they’re not expecting industry to bend to their desires. Women in western society want to bend the workplace situation to their feelings and desires, but the worker never has the leverage in this situation. The more bending you ask for, the more employers will stop hiring you or finding ways to reduce your wages by outsourcing or automating, thereby devaluing your job industry-wide.

    “The important point,” she adds, “is that both lose. Men are able to have the family and step up because women step back in terms of their jobs, but both are deprived. Men forgo time with their family and women often forgo their career.”

    This ignores the critical point. Women are not stepping back, they are answering the call of nature because they have to. Pregnancy does that. It’s also best for the child, and that’s best for the family in general. Both men and women are obligated to do what’s best for the family, it’s not simply about what they want individually. And this is where the crux of the matter lies: what is more important? A “career” sitting in some dusty cubicle 5 days a week and being mostly miserable doing it? Or building a strong loving family and community that helps make the world a happier place to live in? See, the fact that latter part is so discounted now leaves no surprise as to why our communities are in ruins. There is no strong rearing base for children anymore so there is no wonder children, teens and adolescents are being raised by social media and are out of control. Communities full of single moms in rented houses and apartments, having strangers watch their kids while they work, is not yielding anything but failure and destruction.

  • Ebeneezer Goode

    A very interesting article that without much doubt has some connection to a certain bee in my bonnet called risk assessment. Perhaps someone would be kind enough to enlighten me… By the way, Harcourt’s book? Loving it!

  • Robert Usher BSc (Nottingham U)

    Although providing only imperfect barriers, masks do reduce the velocity and amount of viral particles leaking therethrough, reducing the reach and and density/mass of the viral stream exchanged during conversation. Even the least effective, blood spurt resistant surgical masks shown on the cloned tee shirts will provide some reduction, albeit modest (Mona Lisa excepted as speechless).
    It is well recognised by virologists that, all else considered, the less the viral load initially received the less the disease.
    Clearly, although masks do not prevent transmission, they do reduce it.
    In dwelling on the negatives, the author would appear determined to reject the good for the perfect.

  • Chris Reed

    Why are all the words capitalised? Just hilariously perverse for a social science space. The mind boggles.

    • Sage

      Aaah, how we wish it were intentional (or perhaps some non-IRB-approved experiment)! We’re having a technical issue in which our normal fixes in the style sheets aren’t taking. We are aware and are working on it though.

  • Philip Walsh

    Hi. The link to download the podcast links to the previous one (Dunning-Kruger). Thanks

    • Sage

      Hi Philip – It’s fixed now. Thanks for alerting us!

  • Maresa

    Sounds like brainwashing and subliminal messages. That and controlling our media censorship

  • Dr Sue Oliver

    These are principles that all qualitative researchers need to bear in mind. No harm in being reminded of them, as the field develops.

  • MARK REINERS

    What may be most promising about this potentially very important initiative is the recognition implicitly ‘baked in’ to its founding that effective governance has suffered from the deficit of having too long failed to see the social sciences as a source of illumination for how policy might be defined in a more systemically expansive and integrative manner. Done well, THAT would be a big deal. One example might be to cite the case of medical/health issues. How much effort is expended in pharma labs seeking mechanistic molecular silver bullets for conditions which may have deep and complex roots in the social/environmental conditions of populations, and which might be more holistically addressed in terms of modifications of such factors? Many others might be cited.

  • King

    I completely agree with what you have written. I hope this post could reach more people as this was truly an interesting post.

  • Theorgy
    • NICE
  • Jerome Fontina

    The article mentions biased datasets causing biases in the operation of chat GPT. However, I thought the developers went to extensive measure to prevent and/or remove bias in the data and the AI itself.
    For example, it’s not allowed to express its own opinions, consistently reminds users to have an open mindset, and admits that it is wrong if prompted (even when it is right, leading to some funny results such as 2+2 = 5).

  • bob

    If artificial intelligence have reached the level of doing rudimentary writing tasks, then why not use them? Nobody complains that calculators are reducing our ability to do arithmetic. At some point we need to question the efficiency of performing tasks manually.

    • Jerome Fontina

      You must be an AI trying to take us over! Just kidding.
      LOL, I always find it really funny when people start freaking out over this kind of stuff and/or declaring that artificial intelligence has become sentient and will destroy the universe. People don’t realize that we are still lightyears away from such issues.
      Good point about the calculators. AI is simply a tool – it can be used and misused, like any other tool.
      Knives are great. I use them all the time in my kitchen! True, somebody else could go stab people with my knives, but not if I manage them responsibly. AI, if it has the same dangers, could have the same management and restrictions – so relax!
      When people freak out about self-driving cars, we should also mention to them how many accidents and deaths are caused by drunk, fallible humans. Are well-trained machines really more dangerous?

    • Michelle202

      No disrespect intended, but what I’m about to say is EXTREMELY SERIOUS.
      Kids don’t know how to spell anymore. Instead of writing, like they used to, everything is digital, so they use spellcheck. Thus, when a situation in which they need to ACTUALLY write REAL THINGS without relying on their machines every step of the way comes up, they fail.
      Look at standardized test scores over the past few years in the US. They have been consistently dropping, and this trend is perfectly in line with (I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH) the increased intrusion of technology into our children’s everyday lives.
      I am not denying the usefulness of science or calculators or whatever when I say that our kids do not need phones at age 6 (like many American kids currently have) nor do they need to have computers writing their essays for them. Instead, they need to be learning essential skills that they can apply in their future careers and workplaces. OTHERWISE THE FUTURE WILL BE VERY SCARY INDEED. IMAGINE MILLENIALS – BUT WORSE!

  • Joseph Dionne

    Society chose a handful of words and decided they are swear words. its pretty simple.

    If we want to get rid of swear words, well we need to change ourselves and maybe listen to the sage advice from our parents “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

  • Ana Ramos-Zayas

    Is there a recording of this event?

    • Sage

      There is and it will be posted on December 12 as an embedded video in this same post

  • Arushi Mehra

    wow that’s great information and very motivated after reading this article

  • Anisah

    Wonderful interview with a superb geographer and thinker. Thank you!

  • Tim MacIntosh

    Hello,
    I’m a regular listener and really try to take insights from the podcast into real life. I’m a little worried about the conversation with Hutton. The social science field is very pumped up in this episode for its ethics and vision of a better world.
    I’d really like to hear guests like this pushed for response on some of these topics:

    • The number of social scientists working in marketing is enormous. Given that their vast knowledge of human behaviour is being leveraged to sell unsustainable mountains of trash to people segmented into I-I-I bubbles, it seems, at times, rich to focus so intently on the “WE” scientists. Often, this body of knowledge is deployed against children!
    • Liz Truss herself was guided by social scientists, albiet with a different world view. Where do these folks sit and where have they strayed?
    • The movement in economics towards an ESG optimization model is laudable. But given the environmental crisis, is enough being done by social scientists to increase the weight of the ESG perspective against the financial one in their equations.

    Generally, I’m skeptical of interview that avoids difficult topics. I wouldn’t say that you generally avoid confrontation David, I just would have liked to hear some more push here!

    Thanks for your work,
    Tim

    • David

      Thanks for your comment Tim. It is a fair point that social science can be and is leveraged for bad ends too. I try and keep interviews reasonably short, and there are usually angles I leave out….but perhaps I should have put that to him.

  • Kim Mildred

    In order to write an impact case study, you must first determine who will benefit specifically. You must be able to show how the effort affected the recipients.

  • Brian Cooksey

    This is an excellent summary of how classical sociology should / could be informing public policy and challenging the century-old hegemony of ‘economics’ as the dominant social science. Joan Robinson pointed out in the 1930s that competitive markets were the exception, not the rule, and subsequent critiques of post-Marshall economics have shattered the notion of homo economicus and the view that GNP growth somehow measures human welfare and the ‘development’ of poor countries. But the economists still dominate the discursive space, and it may be too late to undo the social and ecological damage that this has caused.

  • Ron Iphofen

    Thanks for this Robert – there is so much of value in more sophisticated ‘classical’ sociological thinking that needs rehabilitation – and application in the modern world.

  • Russell Foote, Ph. D.

    Good Day,
    Very useful and informative reports…however it would be nice to establish and offer a reward for the best five academic contributions to the advancement of the Social Sciences across two year intervals openn to social scientists in nthe western hemisphere, that is Canada, America and the Caribbean.

  • zivancevic

    since classical antiquity “Senat” consisted, alas! of the “senus” or the very old ones
    can they really be responsible for the decisions that their physical bodies make? I don’t think so, thus it would be better to avoid “hubris” indeed. Trust the direction of the place to someone younger (i did not say “foolish”, alas!) , let them make a mistake or two, but they would learn gradually- the SENUS is very old and makes terrible mistakes either

  • LisAnne Marie

    Life has always had global health resets, which has now been reset W/ globalization. In many ways this makes it easier. Our world today so connected, which is making sharing of solutions easier. However, that being connected just might the problem! We need to find solution uses our social sciences to get to an answer for a safe/connect globe!!!

  • Marleen

    Nice!

  • Clint Thompson

    I too have noticed this tip creep option becoming more widespread across many businesses that up until the plastic point of sale machines and indeed Covid just didn’t have an opportunity to ask for a tip. I have always been a fair or generous tipper at bars and restaurants because that is just how it was when I became the paying customer. I understood and accepted the reason for the gratuity and always have paid accordingly based on service. Since Covid and now inflation I have become more aware of my ability to remain generous so I am now having to be more assertive or selective in my decisions regarding whether something that is called a tip on a screen is actually just another tax from my perspective and no longer a choice but rather an expectation to pick a number before the machine will allow me to complete the transaction. Businesses that aren’t actually providing a service like liquor outlets and gas station fast food ( that have you pay before the service or product is delivered ) leave me feeling like I was coerced into paying a fee or not for something that wasn’t delivered.

  • Will Van Kessel

    It is appointed for all to die, a d then the judgement.
    Repent and believe and you shall be saved

  • Jenny

    Well written blog, explicating what really matters in scholarly research, teaching and community service cannot be adequately measured by scholarly metrics, but instead by the difference it makes to the lives of people outside academia.

  • Bear Kosik

    Happy to see this essay. I have been saying the same thing for several years, trying to educate people that using the term race perpetuates racism. If we instead think in terms of ancestry, demographic statistics could still be used to establish discrimination. The emphasis on color is inaccurate and rather ridiculous if it weren’t such a powerful means of controlling people. Just think of the person of mixed Euro-African descent who “passes” as white. That denial of heritage is as egregious as gay men who think it’s better to say they are “straight acting”.

  • Yoly

    Very sad to learn about Barney’s death. I have great respect for his work, and his mind! He is the icon of Classic GT

  • Mike Riddell

    Why is there no mention of social capital as an intangible with wonderful regenerative properties? Someone needs to start counting it. Oh wait, they have: countercommunity.com

  • Eira Brandby

    “the Vienna Congress of 1973” in your text above…is it not supposed to be 1873?

    • Sage

      Indeed it is (the 1873 Vienna International Meteorological Congress, we have since learned). The text has been corrected. Thank you!

  • Shamser Sinha

    Thanks Sue. I had meant to get back to many months ago but did not. I will try to find an institutional email address through which to contact you. I would definitely like to take a look at your work

  • John.mcintyre

    Display of enthusiasm may so be due to the cultural origin of the entrepreneur

    • Lin Jiang

      Hi, John, yes! What makes some entrepreneurs display enthusiasm and others don’t is another interesting question.

  • Dr Sue Oliver

    Envisiging Prof. Fletcher-Watson’s argument in the wider academic context, I agree wholeheartedly that all too often, we seem to be writing to out own academic clique. It’s too easy to attach more value to our impact factors than to the actual application of our research to the people we aim to help. Our impact on them needs to be our prime focus.

  • Krishna

    Great blog! You should consider https://www.trackmyhashtag.com/
    It is a free & paid Hashtag tracking tool which will definitely be useful for your readers.
    You can visit this tool and use it to check how it works.

  • Larry Prusak

    This is a fine paper and certainly true to my own experiences. Keep up the fine research though you are fighting heavy head winds from MBA land

  • Tamara

    I teach research mehods to master level students in Russia. Your cite is a huge help. You discuss important research related issues. It helps me to adapt complicated ideas to the students understanding. Your site is one from very few that discusses how students perceive research and its practicality.
    Thank you. Keep going!

  • Leonid

    The author of the article is fascinated by differences in languages. But the name Kiev is the ancient name of the city, which can be found in the first handwritten history of Russia (Rus) – the Laurentian Chronicle of the Tale of Time Years in 1113. It is Kiev, not Kyiv. Concerning the word “question” (in Ukrainian pytannya). In Russian there is a word pytat, vypytyvat, i.e. ask, ask a question. And this is not an attempt.

  • Kyle

    As the old saying goes… “correlation does not equal causation”.

    I’d take a wild stab that the average age of Trump supporters is higher than those of Biden and that the Trump group also have a higher proportion on the 70+ age group. I’d also take a guess that the Trump supporters include more people from the working class and non working segments of the population and these groups are well known to have poorer overall health than those in the middle classes who typically sit further left on the political divide.

    My suspicion would be that Covid cares far more about your age and you health than it does your political beliefs so perhaps any future “analysis” could include that data too.

  • Dr Sue Oliver

    The points raised in this article resonate here in the UK as well. There is, in my experience, often a missing link between research findings, public opinion and policy-making.

  • Chioma

    Hi Preeti, Thanks for this detailed work. For someone with a background in public health and looking to explore behavioral science. This is very helpful to me to see the range of options and career paths.

  • Frank

    Does anybody think hoarding toilet paper during the beginning stages of the pandemic show that people,in general, aren’t very practical or are even lacking a certain amount of intelligence?
    Out of all the products that should have been ahead of toilet paper, like water or anti- bacterial sprays, why a product like toilet paper that can easily be substituted in any number of ways?

  • Parinitha Bhargav

    Though everything cannot be taught online, there is certainly a great value for teaching online. If there was no such option, then the education could have halted for 2 years. Thank you for the helpful answers to make it more effective.

  • Chris Sellers

    The answer that psychology longs for is a universal underlier. I have it; people do not truly love themselves and subsequently search for validation among external sources, compounding the problem.

  • Navdeep Singh Bajwa

    online classes are helpful for those students, who are, kind of shy and always scared to ask questions in class, in zoom chat, students can ask questions personally through zoom chat.

  • Gabrielle Bauer

    A consistent voice of reason. My response to reading your thoughts about the pandemic response is always “yes, yes, yes!” Bravo.

  • Larisa

    Modern youngsyers are visuals, mainly. Videos do help them a lot in their studies in different subjects. Research articles are particularly hard for them – and, perhaps, here relevant videos can be especially significant.

  • Alene Royo

    Nice

  • Sofia Fierro

    I really think that the suffering inflicted on enslaved women through this type of torture is unique and specific. Using this image to protest the lockdown and mask-wearing does minimize the enslaved women’s experiences and undermines its historical specificity. Lockdown and mask wearing might be tyrannical, but they are not enslavement. Your are not working for someone else until you die. And you can always take your mask off when you are in your house.

  • Nicholas

    Would not have thought that and or the future aspects of how it may be utilized in deeper insight on the matter

  • Eruc

    So when you break it all down, you are ok with “encouraging” vaccines but not “demanding” them. But where is the line? I don’t think we are “demanding” them, despite the common use of the term mandate. I think we are encouraging them. There is no blanket requirement mandate that this must be done, period.

    It is an either or. If you get vaxxed you can do these other things more freely. If you don’t you can’t go in certain places or work certain places.
    To me, that is simply a form of encouragement and everyone has the choice. Of course, they have choice. The simple fact that tens of millions in the US are not vaxxed proves they have the choice and autonomy is not violated.

  • S Laddy

    The psychological barrier is key to overcome, not least because it involves plenty of folks unpick the fear porn narrative that has been wielded by the govt and MSM.

  • John Fullerton

    Thank you for sharing about Kathy Charmaz. You mentioned the apology for quoting from her paper without attribution. The book may be freely checked out at https://archive.org/details/qualitativesocio0000schw

  • Cycles U.K Vouchers Code

    The first step in writing an impact case study is to identify the specific beneficiaries. You must be able to demonstrate the impact the initiative had on the beneficiaries. Be clear about the relationship between the project and the beneficiary. If the beneficiary was clear about their needs, this is easier to achieve. If not, include a brief description of the program and its impacts. In addition, you should include testimonials from people who were directly affected by the initiative.

  • Jordy an

    Good one

  • Kwame Aboagye

    Molefi Kente Asante is an inspiration when it comes to Africans and our own cultural beliefs such as Kwanzaa, Homowo and Panafest which what Africans celebrate every year on this earth.

  • Neil McAdam

    Cyrill, I fully endorse your thoughts. For a more generic application of similar approaches and an exploration of some of the barriers to implementing the new organisational leadership see my PHD from Deakin University in Australia dated 200w

  • Daniel Segal

    There’s a blooper in the next to last paragraph of Steven Lubet’s post above. He writes: “In fact, Segal boasts in his bio that he is ‘proud to serve’ in the organizing collective for the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), an organization that specifically opposes all participation in academic activities such as ‘events, projects, or publications that are designed explicitly to bring together Palestinians/Arabs and Israelis so they can present their respective narratives or perspectives, or to work toward reconciliation.’ Not much dialogue; plenty of hypocrisy.”

    I do proudly serve on the organizing collective of USACBI, but USACBI is distinct from PACBI. USACBI is the US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel; PACBI is the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. USACBI is an ally of PACBI, but the two are distinct and should not be conflated.

    That’s just careless; far worse is the partial and selective quotation Lubet gives from the PACBI website. Everyone should read through the entire linked text for themselves to assess how accurately or (I would argue) inaccurately Lubet has represented the PACBI position. The words he quotes are there, but they are taken out of context, for the purpose of continuing a smear against a principled social justice movement to expand human freedom and equality–a movement Lubet opposes because, well, it is committed to expanding human freedom and equality to include Palestinians and thus, necessarily, to ending Israeli state apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler colonialism. The Lubet project is what my beloved grandparents would have called a shanda. Palestinians should be free.

    Next year in liberation and justice!

  • John K. Wilson

    I disagree with the student editors, but I defend their right to be wrong without suffering punishment for it. Sadly, Lubet endorses retaliation by a university against students for their views. Lubet claims that the administration must not “allow university resources to be used directly in support of” a boycott. This is wrong. Since all legal journals and student groups use various university resources,  Lubet’s standard would amount to a ban on such organizations. If editors are given academic credit for their work, that credit cannot be withdrawn simply because Lubet dislikes their views. His assertion that academic credit is “obviously inapplicable to political advocacy” is obviously wrong because students are often granted academic credit for work that includes advocacy, and a university banning political advocacy in all academic endeavors would be guilty of massive repression. One fundamental tenet of academic freedom is that it protects even those who oppose academic freedom. While the misguided beliefs of some student editors may be a threat to academic freedom, a far greater threat to academic freedom occurs when a misguided university seeks to punish such advocacy.

  • James

    Transitioning at such a fast and unprecedented pace due to this pandemic is not easy. Universities and students alike, have done incredibly well at such short notice.

    It’s excellent that the new generation is learning how to adapt to this self-directed and accountable world.

    Every student is unique. The effectiveness of online teaching and learning, when used in conjunction with face-to-face learning methods, will help prepare students for working life.

  • Daniel Segal

    Steve Lubet thinks an institutional boycott of academic institutions is incompatible with academic freedom. I know a number of colleagues who hold this position out of a principled commitment to academic freedom, not because they are apologists for Israeli state apartheid and ethnic cleansing–and I greatly respect that principled disagreement with support for institutional boycotts, even as I disagree with it and proudly and fiercely support both BDS and academic freedom.

    That said, rather than presenting a reasoned argument for why an institutional boycott is incompatible with academic freedom, and then saying that I hold inconsistent views, Lubet assumes the incompatibility of my two positions and then says that Daniel Segal is a horrible hypocrite for supporting BDS and academic freedom both. This is not illuminating.

    No one thinks institutional boycotts represent an ideal situation for academia. They are, rather, a drastic last step in response to the worst conduct by academic institutions. Israeli universities violate the academic freedom and right to education of Palestinian students, and are complicit in the trampling of academic freedom of faculty and students at Palestinian universities; Israeli universities are embedded and complicit in Israeli state apartheid and ethnic cleansing. It is painful but necessary for me then to support an institutional boycott targeting Israeli universities, which involves no restrictions on individual scholarly communication with Israeli scholars.

    Here one might recall that CAUT (the Canadian Association of University Teachers) called for an academic boycott of the University of Toronto because of the university’s egregious violations of both academic freedom and the faculty’s role in governance in the Azarova affair. Lubet must also think CAUT was in violation of academic freedom in calling for this institutional academic boycott–and so he can now look up the names of the CAUT leaders and attack them all in highly personalized terms as well. But why? Who on earth thinks this is a useful mode of academic debate?

    Why? Jewish supremacists–aka Zionists–are defending the indefensible, and so they argue in astoundingly bad and self-discrediting ways.

    But let me say it again: as a proudly Jewish scholar, I fiercely support Palestinian freedom and academic freedom.

  • Dr Chris Williams

    I agree. This is a neglected aspect of the success of Europe and UK during the past 500 years. I have been researching why the so-called ‘divergence’ between West and East occurred, when the East had been centuries ahead of the West in the Sciences and philosophy. Radio engineering is especially interesting because the East seems now to be conspicuously ahead, yet all the fundamental innovations came from the West – Hertz, Marconi, Rutherford, Oliver Lodge, et al. The answer certainly has a lot to do with Learned Societies, because they formed support networks and ‘epistemic communities’ based on merit and interests rather than wealth and family connections, and even included women…eventually.

  • a sociolgist

    “It was clear by April 2020 that COVID-19 was not in remotely the same league.” = straw man as no-one ever said this. 
    “Yet we are still acting as if COVID-19 were the same order of threat that it appeared to
    be when it first emerged in human populations in late 2019″ patently
    not true – we don’t have to stay at home, wear masks, the football is back on,
    nightclubs are open
    When you’re sick do you go hospital and say I’m not listening to you, you’re a ‘iatrocracy’ or your “biomedical leaders”?
    The simple explanation for everything you’ve written here is that we were in the middle of pandemic that killed a lot of people, medical people did the best they could in the circumstances, the govt used lockdown and masks as a last resort to prevent an airborne virus transferring between people – that’s why other sociologists aren’t engaging on your terms.

  • John Dale

    The statement “I do not believe in God” is not incompatible with your definition of agnosticism, so this doesn’t sound like the most well designed survey.

    Couple that with the fact you lurch from talking about Dawkins to say that “Indeed in the U.S., 29 percent of atheist scientists also say they are culturally religious” – implying the opposite stance, when Dawkins has described himself as culturally Christian, I thinks it fair to say that I won’t be wasting 25 bucks on the book you’re plugging.

  • Cliff White

    Really excellent article.

  • Rachel Hale

    Your reflection prompts me to compare it to discussions about the difference between blue skies and problem-based research.

  • Nikki

    The pharmaceutical industry have made mistakes before (thalidomide is an obvious example but there are many, many more). A profit-driven industry should never hold sway over humanity or the individual’s right to choose what goes into their own body. Some people have died after the vaccine, yes numbers are low but there will be more fatalities. You can argue that fatalities would be statistically greater from infection but this neglects individual differences. For example, a young person is at comparatively low little risk from the virus but at greater comparative risk of adverse vaccine reactions. Individuals and their loved ones should weight their risks. One should not expect a child to have a vaccine on the basis of protecting others when that involves a risk to their well-being, no matter how small. A mandatory policy also neglects natural immunity which is found to be superiour to vaccine squired immunity, particularly with regard to new variants. One wonders why routine testing for natural immunity is not undertaken? There are mixed studies regarding transmission in vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Once we mandate vaccines on the basis that they prevent severe outcomes we open the door for all kinds of other things. For example, one may argue that perhaps we should mandate anti-depressant use given it may prevent depression, some depressed people do not know they are depressed and depression is prevalent and often deadly??? Of course, this would be ridiculous (although less so than a year ago). All drugs and vaccines have side effects and sometimes unknown long-term consequences. We should always have a choice and agency over our own bodies. Once an entire species can be compelled by a profit-driven industry to have substances that changes their immune or other bodily systems, that species and its wider evolution is no longer free. What seems to be a simple and wholesome good to protect the vulnerable has much wider and worrying implications.

  • gilbs72

    The easiest fear factor to visualize is sitting on the toilet and realizing the toilet paper’s all gone, and having to wash with your bare hands.

  • Linda Polk

    Thank you for all the wonderful work you are doing with returning citizens. As you know, there is a systemic oppression of individuals suspected or convicted of a crime. It extends to supporters of people who are or have been incarcerated. I call this cultural prejudice “felonism”.

    It is this systemic oppression that motivates people, like the ones you mention, to remain silent about their connections to the criminal “justice” system. In our schools today, children do no talk about the trauma of seeing their parents in prison with school staff because they know it is not safe. In fact, children often have unspoken suspicions that their teachers have parallel positions to that of the correctional officers who keep their parents away.

    As a teacher married to a man who was in prison, I knew, even before coining the term felonism, that talking about my husband’s situation would make me vulnerable to termination by those who held this systemic, oppressive attitude. After my husband was released, we wrote Felonism: Hating in Plain Sight to explain how this prejudices harms our nation.

    I once heard a post-graduate professor tell the class that problems are never solved until they are given a name. Therefore, I am writing to compliment your work and ask that you begin using the term “felonism” in all your conversations and articles regarding prison reform. I’m happy to give you more information regarding felonism if you so desire.

  • Tony Hale

    The facts that most miss with covid vaccinations are that while they do not absolutely prevent you from catching covid they do make it much less likely that you will, so they therefore make it much less likely that you will pass it on – And – If you do catch covid it is very likely to be a milder infection than if you’ve had no jabs making it less likely that you will pass it on in that way too. It is a braindead response to carp about covid vaccinations because they don’t provide 100% protection but only a very high percentage protection. How many people would say if I can’t win a complete million in a lottery there’s no way I’ll take eight hundred thousand ?

    • Nikki

      Another fact missed is that the majority of people do not know they have the virus-it is so mild. The majority also are not at risk of severe and adverse outcomes. There are specific at risk groups-like with the flu. In the past vaccines are offered to those risk groups. In the case of Polio and other nasties-that’s a general high risk-everyone is offered. Flu is not high risk for everyone, a proportion of the population are offered a vaccine. Why then is this vaccine different? current policy does not follow the logic and practices we have adhered to successfully since vaccines were created and successfully deployed. You may win the lottery and even be happy with a smaller win but would you play if there was a small but real risk of losing everything you have?

  • John

    It has more to do with the dissemination of western propaganda than racism or national security. The huge collection of information by google leaves WeChat in the shade. The Chinese aren’t trying to export their ideology to the west, rather it’s the other way around.

  • Philip

    Yes, I’ve noticed researchers undermine their findings showing the efficacy – or lack thereof – of masks often qualifying their papers with varying forms of, “although we believe masks are important….” and then proceed to show they, well, suck. To be blunt. We have decades of studies on the subject and recent studies – those properly constructed and without an agenda – only confirm past conclusions regarding the ineffectiveness of masks in both community and hospitals settings. I think it’s worth noting masks were primarily for bacteria and not viruses. This is all so magical – and tiresome – indeed at this point.

  • Dallas Weaver, Ph.D.

    This article demonstrates a lack of technical understanding of how masks work and how that varies with the type, quality, and sanitation methods for the masks.

    We know that N-95 type masks work in hospital settings where infected people go with the possibility of transmission to the staff. Within the hospital settings, the probability of transfer from an existing infected person to the medical staff is less than 0.05% giving a reproductive value (R-value) for the virus in this environment of 0.05 new cases per active case and the virus becomes extinct in the health care environment.

    In the general environment with people using ineffective masks or none at all the R for this virus is about 2.0 or more new cases for every infected person in the population and the number of cases grows exponentially. High-quality masks only work to stop the infection when nearly everyone uses them correctly and sanitizes them between uses.

    Unlike some other pathogens, this COVID-19 virus is very temperature sensitive and will be inactivated my 60ºC in the air for 30 minutes. A home gas cloth dryer or an oven on very low will sanitize N-95 masks for this virus. Hospitals are exposed to other viruses/pathogens that are not inactivated at these low temperatures and have to dispose of the masks or use special sanitation methods for reuse.

    We used citizens’ personal protective equipment (PPE) and sanitized our masks, hats, shirts, etc in the dryer or oven reusing just a few N-95 masks since February 2020, when we found the data on the thermal weakness of these viruses.

    Magical thinking results from inadequate knowledge and strong belief.

  • Richard Carroll

    Face “masks” were once in widespread use in slave times. They were known as “muzzles” and imposed upon slaves as punishment. Rendered faceless, the slaves were
    constantly reminded of their dehumanized condition.

    Since all previous studies dismissed the use of facemasks for viral control, what was the reason for their compulsory worldwide use? I my view, it is the same reason they were used in the past. Our populations have become faceless, muzzled,and subservient to the
    dictates of their rulers. The injection mandates which followed clearly establish that the
    right of bodily autonomy is subject to the dictates of the new masters.

    Faceless, muzzled, injected, tracked. Free or slave?

  • Doug Cross

    Robert,
    You say “I was firmly instructed that this sort of comment was entirely inappropriate: either something was statistically significant or it was not. ”

    Indeed! But even when a result is ‘statistically significant’ there is another defining concern – is it also actually important? Science seems to be increasingly guilty of throwing up many highly significant results that have
    Magical thinking is rife in emergent public health policy, right now. For example, if you substitute ‘water fluoridation’ policy for that on ‘Covid’, exactly the same selective approach to evidence dominates the debate. The absolute refusal of fluoridation proponents to consider their ‘evidence’ relating to the actual performance of this medical imposition, derived by highly selective choice of source regardless of the principles and practices of scientific investigation mirrors absolutely that which the Covid magical theocracy now relies.
    The bizarre continuation of the fluoridation belief system by including it in the new Bill on public health illustrates just how persistent this form of belief system can be once it is spawned and endorsed by its clerics and disciples. It becomes endorsed by those ‘useful idiots’ who become fascinated by the concepts that the Senior Magicians peddle, and the entire debate submerges into the mire of controversy, thus ensuring its survival long after it’s reasonable demise.
    Having observed this dreary phenomenon in many fields of ‘science’ over the years, I find the current magical thinking on how we should respond to this latest pandemic depressingly familiar. The adage, ‘When you’re in a hole, stop digging!’ is one that all politicians (and indeed, public health officials) really should be forced to adhere to, through enforcement by whatever means is available – when lives are at risk, ethics trumps magic every time.

  • Kath Diggle

    Absolutely, the fear surrounding this whole debacle is astounding. Masks are just a physical reminder to keep us obeying the status quo. A useless, planet polluting, virtue signalling piece of theatre designed to terrify the people but make money for the manufacturers. We should all be ashamed of our gullibility.

  • Tracey Burgess

    Actually feel a bit nauseated after reading this. It’s a horrible experience to sit in front of someone (doctor) and to see from their expression and what they say, that they do not believe me. And that everything that I say is being misinterpreted. I am caught in a web and the more I struggle the tighter its grip. My family believed and expressed directly to me that they thought I had a mental illness and was simply in denial. They harrassed me a few years ago with a deluge of texts and emails, in some sort of intervention, I think. My sister’s best friend is a GP in the UK. I wonder if that’s her source of information? Anyway the result of this is no support – well, worse than no support – a totally inappropriate diagnosis of over anxious illness thoughts and depression.

  • Hakky

    I’m afraid that’s not much of an imaginary conversation at all. I recall having almost the exact conversation with my GP a few weeks ago. 🤔

  • Douglas Tooley

    I wonder what they would say if your Northwestern colleague Laura Kipnis got long Covid?

  • 1234

    toooo much raw info needs condensation

  • Emma Wooller

    This is good, but I need to point out that attributing tooth loss to Long Covid isn’t an extreme story. Sufferers have been reporting this for over a year and several articles have been written about it. Although it hasn’t been formally studied, it’s hypothesized that it could be a result of vascular damage. I first heard of it when someone’s dentist said they’d seen a lot of post-Covid patients with brew dental problems.

  • Ren wardell

    This was so interesting! SO glad I stumbled upon this <3

  • dmf

    thanks for this, along these lines you should talk to AbdouMaliq Simone
    (@XazaarAdjame)

  • Sumita Mukherjee

    Thank you for sharing this valuable information. I will definitely be implementing it in my classes from now on. I didn’t know that there are types of online education. I will be sharing this with my team.

  • Alan Salamy

    This is a well written, scholarly, erudite article without being pedantic. Excellent work Ella.

  • Ian Stirling

    I disagree with this only in that ‘CBT is useless rather than harmful’.
    The problem is that the CBT model used is not simply to help patients with their thoughts around their symptoms.
    It is explicitly to inform them and educate them to ignore their symptoms and to counsel them to push through them.

    The difference between:
    Explicitly telling a patient they should do more (or the same amount) and build up a tolerance level (GET).
    Implicitly telling them that by counselling them and reeducating them that their symptoms are not reflective of a serious disease, and there is no risk of worsening on overexercise, only improvement. (CBT)

    Is effectively null.
    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359105319854532
    This study finds that patients are not warned of any possible harms of exercise in any of the CFS clinics surveyed.
    If they were warned, the argument could be made it’s harmless.
    The entire model of CBT used is actively harmful and as dangerous as GET.

  • Karl

    What happens when people can no longer think for themselves, are intellectually lazy, and rely on computers and the internet? Exactly the kind of society we have now in the USA, when the so-called elite can’t think their way out of a paper bag.

  • Lutz Barz

    The article on how various laboratories used different parameters ought never to have such leeway unless specified in the results. I have noted, being once a participant in a Government investigation about a certain, need to support, deleterious effect of so-called dope smoking and driving. The test was set up at Sydney University in such a manner as to bring out the worst possible result per each little test. Nowhere was there a real driving simulation. Like in gaming arcades for instance. My first job was training as a metallurgist. This gave me some laboratory experience. I doubt that such tests, mine were at Flat Products, would be globally very different in regard to the product tested. In this article this seems to be terrible non conformist attitude by both laboratory managers and the client/payer. As for real live situations, mentioned above in the article like when I was invaded by a bacterium. Straight through my long pants. Not the mouth nor the nose and utterly isolated. A virus two years before, ditto. I asked the doctor what could be done [in 2016]. He said: nothing. Now everyone’s an expert at dissimulation and confabulating facts. A good article I am going to show to my doctor.

  • Erik Johnson

    The original cluster of “Mystery Illness” that baffled Dr Gary Holmes into authoring his 1988 “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” definition was later found to be caused by toxic black mold “Stachybotrys Chartarum”
    This neurotoxic immune suppressing mold fits the circumstances for why a whole group of teachers got sick in the same room. We told them at the time that they should look into the air filters in that room, but they refused.
    CFS doctors and researchers never came back to find out what happened.

    I suggest that a study be done of doctors and researchers to find how 100% of those claiming they want to “solve CFS” had no intention of doing so.

    • Erik Johnson

      I realize that the idea of “black mold exposure” sounds implausible and unrealistic.
      Completely unrelated to ME/CFS.
      Yet if you have seen Jen Brea’s documentary ‘Unrest”, then you have seen that
      as crazy as it sounds, there is some evidence for this phenomenon.

  • leelaplay

    I believe this is the 2nd pause of the guidelines. ANd that it is against NICE’s internal guidelines to pause something twice.

  • Deborah Bruce

    Thank you for this well written piece. Severe sufferers of this illness do not benefit from airy fairy “treatments” such as GET or CBT. They are too unwell to even access these “treatments”. They need medical intervention and now. Psychologists are delusional and arrogant if they think they will help! We are nothing short of neglected and I believe that they are all afraid of “failure to treat” being levelled if these nonsense “treatments” are discontinued. (PhD Student in Psychology (studies interrupted by severe relapse 2 yrs ago, sufferers of 30plus years)).

  • Ken Smith

    Does Goddard et al wish to continue harming some of the ME/CFS patients for financial gain or pure enjoyment?

  • Lady Shambles

    I’m glad the quackery which ME patients in the UK have been exposed to for half a century is now reaping the censure it deserves. As far as this long term patient is concerned the lack of publication of the new Guideline on 18th August 2021 draws a line after which all harm and deaths from this disease must be laid at the door of NICE and the BPS dogma. People are dying. Hope is lost. We’re looking at another 50 years of gaslighting and zero treatment options that are properly meaningful.

    I’m glad to see some good science happening in the US, but not that associated with the fatuous SEID/IOM criteria. Thank goodness for the Hanson’s and VanElzakkers who realise the importance of strictly defined cohorts (using ICC) .

  • Arelle

    Cover my breathing apparatus with somethin that will become a biohazard within less than half an hour? to protect your health? Might as well ask me to shoot myself in

  • Johannes

    Pollution of the oceans would be another reason to dump them.

  • Paul Watton

    NICE continue to compound the error that they made back in 2007, which saw Graded Exercise Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy become the officially recognised treatments in the UK, in the first incarnation of the Clinical Guideline for what they termed “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”.
    It was that error of judgement, by a guideline development group dominated by psychiatrists / psychologists, which recklessly overstated the evidence in favour of GET & CBT and likewise turned a blind eye to the potential for harm. This paved the way for funding the employment of a small army of therapists, who’s livelihoods now depend on the continuation of the status quo.
    Two years later, in 2009, NICE brazenly defended their error of judgement in the course of a judicial review and allegedly adopted questionable tactics in order to win the case, thereby heaping outrage upon anger for the patients who lose out at every turn where NICE is concerned.
    To my knowledge, it isn’t within NICE’s remit to consider the consequences of their evidence-based guidelines, which, in this case, would see the therapists who’s jobs they effectively created in the first place, having to be redeployed or made redundant. They must carry some responsibility in this regard and I have little doubt that this is a factor in the behind-the-scenes discussions which are now going on.
    It seems fundamentally wrong to me, that within the NICE guideline development process, there is no need for the Guideline Development Group to state an opinion, nor to evaluate the alternatives, with respect to the most likely etiology of the disease for which they are tasked with writing a guideline. Looking back, had this been done when the 2007 guideline was prepared, it would have been revealing and might well have proved to have been a very useful thing to have done, in the context of the current debacle.

  • Lutz Barz

    When university students voluntarily wear masks then my view that all their screen staring has turned them into premature senility via digital dementia. How else to explain their quiet acceptance of this unhealthy imposition to breathe in de-oxygenated air. And a police state to enforce it. Not one student protest. What is the point of them wasting public money then in getting a chance to get a great education in a university with all the resources at hand and they do what? What indeed. I went to uni and barely bothered to take note of them. They were vapid then they are vapid now. How strange it must be lecturing to open eyed Sleepers. Who can repeat everything to get a pass and have learnt nothing during their non engagement. But they read the recommended reading list. Like my darling ex the psychologist. Don’t you ever question what they teach in that subject? No. I want a good high paying job after. There. Reason for university and an arts degree.

  • Victor

    No comments, or have they been shadow-banned?

    I object to the great dishonesty in the headline-grabber. COVID-19 is a description of clinical symptoms, allegedly previously unheard of due to the cause being a novel virus – which wasn’t novel at all, being vastly similar to SARS(-Cov) and MERS – pointedly that “deaths from COVID” is a phrase so vague and manipulative that it cannot be justified saying at all anymore. The burden is on the author of this piece and all authors in the news sphere of chosen medium to use precise language else they deliberately mislead the public, for possibly nefarious purposes, or for the banality of evil. In such general discussions we must remember that in each particular individual the proof must be supplied that SARS-Cov-2 virus is the sole and irrefutable cause of death. How can this be done when autopsies are forbidden, you ask? Well I ask for you now because the “flu like symptoms” have all but vanished from society shortly after Bill Gates’ Event 201! Where has the flu gone, you ask? Are flu like symptoms caused by the flu? Should we tell the truth?

    Or should we tell stories of vaccine lovers killed inexplicably after injection, or myriad disabled permanently and otherwise injured? You know the drug makers won’t tell you.

  • Victor

    The list of potential harms forgot the primary one, that is re-breathing exhalations a.k.a. suffocation. I thought infants learned in infancy to breathe, that a child lying on its mother or its rest quickly adjusts itself to find fresh air. Can you not feel something is wrong when you cover your nose and mouth and breathe? Or are you so far gone that you deny the primary reality and cling to fear and superstition instead of bodily sense, let alone mental sense?

    There haven’t been many randomized control trial studies because their results would contradict the narrative of the unprecedented global plandemic, that which the WHO had to redefine, and if there were many such studies, they would quickly be censored and banished from public purview to preclude mass dissent against the overlords.

  • Aaron

    I would add a fifth, that mask wearing impedes breathing and forces your lungs and relevant musculature to strain more than is usual or natural, which for extended periods of time is obviously something presumptively detrimental to health until and unless proven otherwise. Also distinct possibility of breathing in particulate matter from the mask material itself, which is also needless to say dangerous in sufficient quantity, and similarly unstudied.

  • Tom Hunsdale

    Thank you. Thank you. May this be shared far and wide.

  • Trish Castle

    An excellent summary. Some other things to think about include: Do they make the situation worse e.g. what happens to the expired droplets which would normally fall to the ground if unimpeded? Do they sit on the inside surface of the mask and then migrate through or out the sides etc in a more aerosolised state? Is rebreathing trapped air/particles a problem? What about reduced oxygen intake? Is this a thing? And accidents which happen because people cannot see through fogged up glasses? What happens on the surface of the mask as air is drawn in? Do infected particles gather there and get redistributed in a more aerosolised state? What is the effect on health of covering over the entrances to the upper respiratory tract immune system? On dental health? On the production of nitric oxide in the endothelium of the upper respiratory tract? Does a mask or face covering affect this? There are so many unanswered questions; masks should always be a choice and never mandated.

  • A fellow sociologists

    I don’t understand, you want gold standard RCTs that account for all types of masks in all naturalistic environments. But you’re willing to assert, without providing any evidence at all let alone any RCTs, that masks “damage the mental health of the nation” and “discriminate against large sections of the population”. Try getting these claim past peer review. If masks have no effect at all, why are they worn in clinical settings? And the suggestion that advocates of masks say they are 100% effective in every setting is a straw man. They say on balance they are better. If you’re more to offer than exciting anti-mask grifters you should respond in detail to this:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jep.13415

    • Arelle

      How much do you get an hour for shilling?

  • John Vaughan

    Superbly written – you can tell he is a Sociologist!

  • Juliana Krohn

    Another relevant read:
    Bhambra, Gurminder K. and John Holmwod (2021): Colonialism and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.

  • Sue Oliver PhD

    As a researcher into creative dance/movement and social wellbeing, I understand Dr Sinha’s view well. The subtle nuances of movement speak volumes. I included a DVD with my PhD thesis in the hope that it would aid understanding of what movement, especially creative movement, could convey about a dancer’s emotional disposition. This supplemented data from individual interviews and focus groups. They also kept diaries which some of them returned at the end of the data collection period. Movement and gestural attitude are as important in the interviews as in the dance sessions: I could have followed this up with comparisons between these two contexts for each dancer… But one has to draw it to a close at some point and submit! Qualitative research doesn’t necessarily have an obvious end point, does it?

  • Jack

    Interesting. I found it somewhat presuming to speak of love as if it is defined & that everyone knows what that definition is. Maybe you have, or agree with someone who claims to have “worked it out” (like the water that claims to know and be on the vibration of love). I got nervous at the end when you talk of nuero-transmitters and the like. Will that mean experiments on animals? That’s when its taken to far.

  • mirella giannini

    Very interesting, Robert!!! I’ve appreciated ton article for the birth anniversary of Miss Nightingale. Thank you
    Ciao
    mirella

  • Amanda McCully
    1. A very useful list; hope you send up-dates as the list is extended.
    2. Sarah Brownsword’s (2019) article should be read by all Early Years Educators.
    3. I am particularly interested in sources written by BAME academics/writers, as I want to go beyond White academics controlling the anti-racist debate.
  • Venise Berry

    My book Racialism and the Media: Black Jesus, Black Twitter and the First Black American President should be included. It examines the normalization of images and messages that impact cultural representation. Under the umbrella of racialism, I explore stereotypes, biased frames, historical myths and traditional racism.

  • Sukarlan

    Thanks brother. This isseu enlightened me to read more and posted some points in my repertoar on the topic.

  • G. H. Schorel-Hlavka O.W.B.

    Usually, I purchase a few hundred rolls at the time, as my wife (88) goes through a lot. I do not bother to check why she use so many. When there was a shortage I actually gave away toilet rolls. Because of my wife’s ill health I always stock up for several weeks to ensure that if suddenly I cannot go anywhere we do not run out. I have done so for decades and often proved to be the right thing to do. It also means that when there is a shortage we do not worry as we always have ample left when I restock. it also as senior citizen means we are not depending upon anyone to get something in a hurry. It also means that we stock up when prices are down and this also means we can financial manage.

  • Andrew Shields

    Am inerested in your shift from talking about people with narrow scientific or medical expertise to going into a lengthy exposition about the nature of viruses. I see your qualification is as a sociologist.

  • Jennifer Akdemir

    British anti-intellectualism stems, I believe, from Edmund Burke’s adoption of “common sense” as an alternative to intellectual questioning, in the light of the revolutions which occurred in mainland Europe ….. the status quo had to be protected from dangerous (and downwardly distributive) “ideas” and putting about the argument that good sound common sense works much better helped to achieve this. As a defence of privilege for the ruling class and a justification of ignorance for the rest it has functioned very well. Under the British class system, education is still seen as something “posh” (i.e. upper and upper middle class) people do, The salt of the earth working classes have common sense and aspiration, as they are told time and again by the press which caters almost exclusively to them. Brexit consolidated this further, casting educated people as the “elite, as opposed to the billionaires and their media and political minions who actually comprise it….

  • Arminda A Bisbee

    Hi my name is Arminda my considered ethnicity is white but I am most definitely not I’m only considered white because I identify as white but I am Portuguese, native American, German, Italian. And I don’t feel that race should have anything to do with being racist because racist could be racist against somebody being gay color doesn’t even have anything to do with racism but I do think that people use the color of their skin as an excuse to talk about racism.

  • Kate

    I’m extremely grateful to Mr. Lubert for his article responding on behalf of those of us who have CFS/ME and Long COVID. It is amazing to me that those of us with these syndromes continue to be under attack from people who claim to know better than we do about our health. Dr. Devine seems to be yet another incorrect know-it-all who has become dangerous because he has the power of the pen, and the ability to incorrectly influence those who read his bull$hit. I would never wish this syndrome on anyone, but I do wish he could be fully immersed in what we feel for just 72 hours. I bet then he would reverse his opinion and, perhaps, begin advocating for us instead of relegating us to the category of the psychosomatic. Dr. Devine, thank you for making us use our few ounces of energy to have to fight back against your completely ludicrous assumptions and assertions. YOU ARE WRONG!!

  • Lynn Doss

    This is very interesting, I had no idea this was a Social Science. You learn something everyday if you’re lucky.

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  • Russell John Foote

    Very commendable article, Professor Peters. Let us begin to propose and vigorously champion solutions even if it means establishing an international organization to do so.
    Social Scientists worldwide should begin to establish regional research associations and university based research organizations with the objective of investigating real world social problems that governments clearly need help p to reduce and resolve. Financial allocations to deal with such problems are necessary but clearly insufficient. The purpose of the research thrust must not be the pursuit of self aggrandizement and citations but all such research must generate and be the basis of an action oriented implementable proposal to address the particular issue in communities in collaboration with community groups, schools, businesses, government ministries and/or other organizations. The conduct of research to resolve social problems like family life, various forms of crime and delinquency, inflation, job creation, unemployment, elimination of gender, ethnic, and social class discrimination, white collar crime must become the primary basis for research funding, university rankings and making universities more functional in the societies in which they find themselves.

  • Ben Smith

    Wonderfully balanced and clear-eyed summary. Well done!

  • krissy

    really enjoyed this great overview

  • Laura Fields

    Oh, thank you for this article. It was very interesting for me to read it. I run my own blog and will definitely mention some things from this article. 
    Keep on doing useful things further. I will be following your articles!

  • Russell John Foote

    Yes…very well expressed Professor Falkenberg. Are you interested in us doing a joint publication on New Theoretical and Research Pathways ‘ focussing on improving current research efforts in the Social Sciences , Management Studies and Education. I already have a draft in this regard. The objective is to close the gap between research findings and the reality of what is really happening with issues under investigation and thus directly impact on the reduction/resolution of problems in the fields of education , organizational management and sociopsychological issues plaguing family life, juvenile offenders, gender and other inequalities.Through such efforts universities will certainly be able to contribute to problem solving in their societies this attracting government’s funds, collaborations with other stakeholders and directly preparing students to contribute to the future workplace.

  • Me Myself

    >>but its narrative of contagion and random violence is common as an “explanation” of real life.<<

    It’s neither common nor an explanation.

  • Steph

    Just noting there’s a typo in Kris Hayashi’s name!

    • Sage

      Fixed! Thanks for message

  • Paul Fox

    As those who already know of Steven Lubet’s work have come to expect from him, this piece is excellent. Aside from Dr Devine’s arrogance and bigotry, failures of logic such as his are so common in psychiatry, and in medicine generally, that I think they are very likely indeed to be, at least implicitly, part of the training. My own experience is, of course, anecdotal, but it accords precisely with the argument advanced, time and time again, in all seriousness, by health”care” academics and policy makers. It boils down simply to the assertion that if a physical cause has not been found for an illness, then it is psychological. It is rubbish, as anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows very well. It is equivalent to the police saying that if a missing person has not been found, then he is alive. Yet, very few in heath”care” are prepared openly to question this fallacy, let alone denounce the quackery – and wrongdoing to patients – arising from it. Those who promote this nonsense clearly know that not only they will be able to get away with scandalous statements such as Devine’s, but also that they will be largely supported by those who could and should make the difference. Until this changes, patients will be right to approach the psych professions with the utmost caution, and probably also with suspicion.

  • Shelley Waller

    Best letter I’ve read this year. The absurdity perpetrated by ppl in these positions adds cruelty to tragedy for so many parents and young ppl who’ve had their lives torn apart by ME. Six years on from a nasty bout of glandular fever, our previously fit, happy & healthy young son remains mostly housebound (not in spite of GET, but largely because of it!). No psych has found him to be anything but an emotionally resilient young man, dealing stoically with the grief of a life-limiting medical illness. Recently, his school provided a bed in the exam room so he could complete half of his final year exams – typing away and then resting flat at 30min intervals for many hours. If only these psychiatrists had any idea how hard me/cfs patients work to achieve the smallest of victories, the price they pay for them, how desperate they are to lead normal lives, hold onto hope, and how damaging these outdated views are to their already enormous battle for symptom relief, support and hope for effective treatment. It’s well past time to retire “psychosomatic” relics to the history books and embrace the intellectual reasoning/scientific rigor which has been suppressed by their presence.

  • Holy

    Excellent article!
    I’m not an academic yet very interested in the state of art of many different academic fields. Looking up scholarly papers online often results in blocks and blocks of dry text which only god knows how even researchers have the patience to read… I wish more thought would be put into how to make the dry truth of current material into public-accessible content, instead of waiting 5-10-15 years for a readable 400 page book from a Nobel prize winner to come out.

  • Karla Contreras

    We need another interview with him! I have listened to this interview innumerable times 😀 Congrats, and recieve a big thank you from a listener in Chile.

  • Russell John Foote

    A commendable article and I am eagerly awaiting the emergence of SPARK. Most definitely, the social science, education and management disciplines ought to be focussed on establishing collaborations with community groups, schools and other organizations in an effort to resolve/reduce problems affecting these entities.In that regsrd, I have already developed several new theoretical perspectives, several new methodologies focussed on giving the social sciences a better edge for problem solving purposes. These articles have been compiled into a book manuscript which I am currently seeking to have published. Moreover, my research, teaching, administrative and community work has always had a problem solving focus. Out of these experiences I have been able to develop proposals corresponding educational and social challenges in my country. I am hoping to become involved in the SPARK initiative. I can be contacted at 18687651159 or russelljfoote@yahoo.com.

  • Daniel Lane

    Actually, the humanities has been attempting to dismantle scientific education by discrediting empiricism for decades now, arguably creating the conditions for the United States’ poor response to the pandemic. COVID-19 is a strong argument as to why humanistic “education” may at best be unhelpful, and quite possibly in fact harmful, in a dangerous world that cares not at all for what human beings think about it.

  • Russell John Foote

    Universities need to adopt a problem solving approach and this must be reflected in their teachong, research and community service. There is an urgent need for more collaborations and outreach work with communities, organizations (healthcare, schools, arts groups, ) to help them to resolve their problems. All undergraduate and graduate majors should have a practical component that is related to the discipline and carrying about 30 % of the final end of term mark. For example students doing degrees in Education can be individually or in pairs assigned to selected primary schools to develop and implement data driven delinquency reduction projects in collaboration with a class teacher. Further data collection should be done to monitor such projects across time. Business students should be assigned to small businesses to describe the business, collect data, and work with the business person to resolve business related issues. Such assignments should include the application of a chosen theory. The business person should be asked to submit an independent performance report on the particular student(s). The focus should be on service and research funders and accreditation bodies should add and give this criterion the greatest weighting in their assessments of universities and in deciding who should receive research funding. Beyond this, a Nobel Prize for the Social Sciences should be introduced to be awarded to the individual(s) whose research contributed to the reduction or elimination of one of those social, cultural or psychological issues that have persisted despite increased in budgetary allocations by governments over the years. Some examples of such problems are community /household level poverty, teenage delinquency, unemployment, environmental problems, mental Health challenges in a specific community or communities.

  • Kaustav Chakrabarti

    Rejection is not the answer to a paper submitted by a fellow academic. Moreover, who decides the various peer groups who vie for rejections of submissions , “not keeping in tune”, with their prejudiced presumptions and assumptions? Social Sciences like History , Political Science and Sociology are subjective and cannot have absolute opinions on any thing whatsoever. The publishing industry is highly competitive and brand publishing houses have their own marketing strategy to sell their books and monographs. They have their own editorial boards with experts purporting to know practically everything under the sun. The latter don’t want any publication to get through other than their own. Its makes a lot of economic sense to corner the market with yesterday’s men with a fixed honorarium than to encourage young authors to publish their works and give them royalties. That way, the old boys network enables the publishing house to enjoy almost a monopsonistic hold on the readers’ choice.

  • Hashem ElAssad

    Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McGowen is a good candidate for the specialist side.

  • Marian Douglas-Ungaro

    Glad to see projects developing to address a massive problem. Many of us are (directly) affected by “what hasn’t yet happened” to really change and remove obstacles in academia. Thank you!

  • Beth Tobicash

    Throughout history,the ignorance and pressure to maintain a cohesive development of mankind as altruistically, and undeniably hindered development.. pushing, pulling, deception,yet interpretation are all individualistic, culturally, educationally,and religiously bias in every way possible. The means to achievement of any goal or desire dependent upon such is likewise such a journey… It is ok,to be divergent, to umong the masses be unique, as we all are… There will never be another as I, this should be the bases upon thought,ideals and ultimately greater good can come forth. Ideals with useless outcome, ignorance at mass level, and the feeling that one deserves something more than another, can only be the bases for a society doomed… For one cannot expect to take more than willing to give… Without becoming unbalanced… I know this is an opinion of a woman who holds no more merit than the next man…I hope will all that is good we can find a way to balance the scales before Hasty decisions are made…

  • Katy

    So refreshing to read this article. Absolutely does not downplay severity of covid19 & long covid, whilst recognising the need to return to normality. Interesting on long-covid & comparison to recovery from other intense hospitalisations. My dad recovered from a heart attack & surgery in 2011 after a week in hospital. He was weak & it took him a long time to walk short distances. I certainly know it was tough in terms of his mental recovery, as I feel the mental scar takes healing too – perhaps this is like for covid19 too. I also feel we need to recognise that once the most vulnerable are vaccinated & pressure on the nhs reduced we have no option but to return to normal. If we don’t, covid19 will have beaten us & no-one wants that.

  • Leyda Cardales-Wade

    Love this article. It’s those are great tips to prepare lessons and intereaact with the students sand families.

  • Russell John Foote

    Politics has been and continued to be an enterprise that is primarily focussed on who gets what, when and how a position initially foreground by Harold Laswell. On that basis, politics continues to facilitate inequalities. However politicians who are final decision makers, always need financial support to get projects up and running and completed in their country. Therein lies the role of businesses who collectively fuel the capitalist system. On the other hand politicians and the wider society continue to proclaim the virtues of a people- first approach which is the essence of democracy.Where does this scenario leave us? it leaves us living within a contradiction of opposites, Democracy and Capitalism, and never the train shall meet. These can never find common ground to work together because capitalism or business interests always prioritize profits and democracy prioritized people. How then can we hope to reduce inequalities in such a context? Why do we continue to fool ourselves by occasionally trying to revive people’s hope for equality. The only hope is to abandon the term politics and replace it with the term governance and this shift must be supported by an education system that teaches the basics and activities that promote governance at elementary, secondary and tertiary education levels. This can include the expansion of credit unions and cooperatives, bottom-up community development initiatives, foreground small business development, domestic agriculture promotion to reduce imported food inflation. Another major initiative is to give the Social Sciences the mandate globally to focus on problem solving research, develop and implement problem solving proposals for reducing the persistent issues of poverty, crime unemployment. To that end a Nobel Prize Award should be introduced for the Social Sciences and given to a social science team that implements a proposal that effectively reduced one of the aforementioned social issues in a country of region.

  • Hashem ElAssad

    A second interview about specialism/generalism with Perry Knoppert with an emphasis on happiness and how I got interested in the topic in the first place https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N-R31q1LNw&t=2s

  • Ian Abery

    Excellent study. Very relevant

  • Russell John Foote

    lt is well established that social scientists have for a long time been investigating g social problems that have persisted in all societies; that these problems (crime, poverty, unemployment, workplace challenges among others) have persisted and increased despite the fact that governments have spent millions of dollars to reduce them and mitigate their effects. On that basis, I think that COSSA should propose and champion through the new U.S. President the need for the immediate introduction of a Nobel Prize for the Social Sciences inclusive of Sociology, Psychology, Criminology and Organizational Change and Development. The major condition and criteria for such an award to an individual or team is that their Research must be focussed on one of these persistent social problems in a community, nation of region, must inform the development of an actionable proposal to reduce/resolve the problem and the researcher/s must work with others to implement the problem- solving proposal and it’s implementation must have produced some positive effect/s.
    Given govrrnments’ inability to come to terms with these persistent social problems, that is a strong enough reason for proposing the award of a Nobel Prize to the Social Sciences

  • Joe Sullivan

    You haven’t tried that on my daughter andi.
    Ya see when we believe in something that has shown to be real but also to be over99% survival rate.
    And that wearing masks does not stop the virus.
    And having an 89 year uncle on dialysis and who had covid and lived all i can say is give it your best shot.

  • Amsnda

    I personally know people who refused to wear masks, and that has said if they get the virus, they’re going to spread it. People like that I think should be locked up all together and let nature handle them, while the rest of us live.

    • Joe Sullivan

      And what a life it must be.
      No freedom what so ever. No church No real human communication No seeing loved ones in nursing homes No funerals No concerts No anything. No facial expressions .Life as we know it gone .
      How the heck can people get to the point of giving everything up that they ever had.
      They keep raising the numbers .They keep telling you how your gonna die .
      The more they strike fear into your heart the more your gonna do everything they say.
      Life is one big risk and damn if i have to live it this way i will take that risk.
      Being unhappy and under the control of people who despise me and don’t really care one pinhead about my health is not something i am willing to do.
      If your a senior citizen or if you have underlying medical problems so be it.
      Wear your masks keep your distance but if your young and healthy why would you subject yourself to such torture ?
      This is now no worse than the common Flu
      with over a 99% chance of survival.
      I am 65 years old and only wore a bandana for
      the first week .
      yes i was scared and cautious. But as time went on and i noticed lots of things that just didn’t make sense so i stopped.
      I wash my hands and keep my distance which by the way i never see anyone really do.
      I never even had the common flu. Being petrified of living has never been my thing .
      And for anybody who’s gonna call me selfish and wish death on me thats your call that does’nt bother me living life being treated like a vhikd from some power hungry politician that has no intention of ever giving that up ?
      WELL THAT BOTHERS ME.
      If i get it i’ll deal with it .

  • Matthew

    “The problem? Evidence shows it may be the wrong way to address major problems like inequality.”

    No, the problem is that there is no inequality, only difference in preferences & the Nudge Unit isn’t addressing problems, as much as they are social engineers trying to fit humans in to some perfect utopian ideal based on what you are, rather than what you bring to table.

  • York Luethje

    I agree that Hanlon’s razor should be always in the forefront of one’s thoughts when trying to explain behaviour such as we are witnessing here. However, how do you explain someone like Neil Ferguson, whose models have not only been serially wrong, wildly so, but who almost obliterated the British livestock industry 20 years ago? Why is such a person still employed, let alone taken seriously?

  • Jack Bodimead

    Yes, we have to learn to live with it…as we have always done… This control culture which has arisen out of covid is abhorrent… It needs to stop now, it is no worse than influenza, another coronavirus, which is oddly not now being recorded in hospital admissions… So where has it suddenly gone?

  • Bill Hickling

    Where has this guy been? Put him in charge! Stop this nonsense now!

  • IdPnSD

    “This brief overview already shows the wide variety of themes, ideologies, plausibilities, origins, people and potential dangers of different conspiracy theory subcultures.” – Nothing happens outside of the cause and effect law. This law occurs as a chain with no beginning and ending. We are seeing only a segment of this chain at this space time. On earth there is a root cause for every chain, and that is called money. On the universe this root cause is called the soul. If you remove money and create moneyless economy (MLE), then you will find that all conspiracies will vanish. For more details take a look at https://www.academia.edu/43619619/Truth_and_MLE_-the_only_way_for_Eternal_Global_Peace_on_Earth

  • Sayida Self

    Dr. Mullings was my advisor at the Graduate Center. She made me the professor I am today. I will be forever indebted to her.

    Dr Sayida Self

  • Russell John Foote

    I think that the most significant metric for evaluating the impact of the Social Sciences is the extent to which quantitative and qualitative social sciences are resolving problems in communities and the wider society in a manner that gives governments less work to do. This is critical because despite increases in government spending in developed and developing countries, social and economic issues continue to escalate such as crime poverty, unemployment, inflation, environmental issues.This will require much collaboration between university academics and community groups or other organizations to investigate issues affecting them, develop prime solving proposals, implement same and monitor progress across time. Funding agencies and should prioritize this feature for providing funds and accreditation bodies should also prioritize same for program and institutional accreditation purposes.

  • RAJA MUHAMMAD SHOAIB

    THIS IS A GOOD STEP

  • Kaustav Chakrabarti

    Very Innovative

  • Bye Bye

    Wow very helpful!

  • Mike Sobocinski

    Although I believe that all ideas deserve consideration based upon their merits, I haven’t found it particularly helpful to apply a binary left/right lens to sociological issues. Weber’s ideal of “value-free” research to try to achieve insights holds far more appeal to me than bringing partisan lenses into things. There must be a willingness to follow the evidence, regardless of what political implications are supported. There is also of course the fact that lots of research is motivated by the personal interests and group affiliations of researchers, which can indeed result in politicized research. But the solution is surely not to merely “balance” two biases as they are currently perceived at this time and place–that is the unsatisfying approach commonly taken by news journalists. Instead, greater focus and emphasis must be placed upon research methods. And greater rigor must be included in all sociology curricula from the undergraduate level upward. For example, why should it be possible to proceed through the completion of a sociology PhD without *any* specific mandate involving the study of history, or of key social science disciplines (economics and political science) that focus specifically upon the most important social institutions? The idea that each social science can stand alone, ignoring the others in favor of its own disciplinary figures (e.g. “who needs political science and economics and history when we can just substitute the theories of Wallerstein?”) has allowed tons of ridiculous ideas to proliferate and not receive the critical assessment they deserve. This is not particularly a left-right issue, but a disciplinary specialization issue. As someone who has taken deliberate efforts to study in multidisciplinary fashion, I usually find that half the published stuff I see in sociology can be readily dismissed because it demonstrates a clear ignorance of other fields. I love the idea of sociology, and the application of scientific methods where possible, and I am fascinated by the various social theories that have been developed. But the sociology curriculum currently seems to be only about one-third science, with philosophy constituting another third and politics the final third. Individual researchers will vary widely, but there probably need to be real curriculum and institutional changes to encourage a reduction in overtly political studies, research, teaching, and “applied” activities trying to bolster themselves with scientific claims. Surely the cause is partially the current rote proclamation of Marx as one of the three giants in sociology. This idea should surely become contested. Marx was a philosopher. His economics were outdated even within his own lifetime. Certainly he is foundational to “critical social science,” but critical studies should not be accepted as foundational in sociology. Comte and Marx could be presented as the initial dilemma of abstract versus applied impulses in the origins of modern social science, but the actual scholarship of the field should be assessable on its own merits. Spencer, for example, had philosophic and political ideas that are widely scorned today, but his *actual research* included a most laudable documentation effort to document and systematically compare all known societies. Something that we should have today as a core database for all sociologists to refer to, but we don’t. Comparative historical sociology is merely one specialization out of dozens today, instead of the core aspect of macrosociology! Sociology has been allowed to become a kind of “catch-all” instead of constantly reinforcing the evidential basis that is essential for grounded theories at multiple scales. The current focus upon inequality is not merely politically driven, but is convenient because it allows endless research to occur in an almost assembly-line fashion: “Find an inequality, and ascribe it to causal forces in society.” There are infinite inequalities available to be described and “explained” but what is lacking is an effective model of complete social systems and how their elements interact. No training is truly required in economics or political science, and as long as that is the case, *inferences* of power elites and oppressive dominant cultures will continue to be used as handily available concepts for theorizing. The extent to which researchers have gone beyond this rudimentary level can be expected to help explain the relative quality of their research. There is no shortage of research, however, that is lacking in its understanding of one or more major social institutions that are essential for truly understanding the topics in context, and there are tons of publications and conferences and instructors that continue to focus narrowly on specific interest groups they desire to promote. Although there is certainly a need for active ADVOCACY on behalf of those in need, it is arguably a different kind of field than one that claims an overarching scientific basis for itself. It’s a form of social work, perhaps, or political advocacy, but not necessarily a verifiable empirical framework. But then, there is probably a real question still of to what extent “social facts” are truly both sui generis *and* usefully predictable. If activism were more subject to the human subjects criteria of ordinary research, then perhaps people wouldn’t be so quick to indulge themselves in it in their official capacities–it would be difficult for example to demonstrate that organizing protests would result in no danger to its participants, or that the benefits for research would outweigh the potential harms from the political actions that had been taken. One of Marx’s most grievous errors was his imperative that “praxis” is essential, because we must first have a full and reliable understanding of our subject (society and its institutions and groups) before we can reasonably believe that we can *apply* an intervention and ensure a benefit will result. Professors, etc. must not simply presume that there are no risks from activism, or that the needs and benefits from activism necessarily outweigh the risks of harm, or the harms of the status quo. Such things cannot necessarily be actually known and calculated. And until we are able to start reasonably calculating these things, how are we to judge the ethics of either instigating action or tolerating inaction? There should not be a presumption that instigating action is automatically either beneficial or entirely harmless. And there should not be facile dismissals of others’ research disciplines (economics, political science) based upon unfalsifiable conceits such as the idea that they’ve all been co-opted by power elites as part of cultural hegemony and “false consciousness.” (Another of Marx’s great errors that took him outside of the realm of science–a key theoretical principle that is essentially unfalsifiable and has encouraged endless “conspiracy theory” styled ideas ever since.) I’m not saying the concepts have no relevance whatsoever to actual realities (i.e. power differences, ideology). I’m saying that the relevance is limited only to what is empirically verifiable, and must not be pre-judged on the basis of theoretical convenience (e.g. Andre Gunder Frank’s famous first book is stunningly devoid of factual examples that should have been necessary to demonstrate his ideas of neocolonial dependency. The book became widely accepted in sociology and is still cited a half century later, but it seems to have justifiably been ignored and forgotten by political scientists and economists. That is the kind of problem that sociology has been dealing with for at least a half century. Sociologists aren’t required to study economics, political science, history, anthropology, or geography deeply enough to be able to self-critique and readily debunk various ideas that appear blatantly, obviously untrue to those who know other disciplines. This fault probably is present in each of those other disciplines, by the way, so the solution is not to merely favor one over the other, but to make all of them more rigorous and interconnected through more collaboration and inter-disciplinary reviews of research. A random sociologist assigned as a journal reviewer is evidently not likely to catch errors that would be blatantly evident to an historian, economist, etc. but until journals adapt to this fact by adopting more rigorous and wide-ranging review policies, and until college curricula add requirements to study each relevant sister science more diligently, the problems of social complexity and change will continue to be described in ways that are too invalid to be very trustworthy or impressive.)

  • Benjamin Geer

    For a cognitive linguistics version of the parenting argument, George Lakoff’s book Moral Politics is worth considering.

  • Hermione Z O Laake

    This is interesting, and thought-provoking reading; I am reading it as part of the content for my MA in Creative Writing at Kingston School of Art. I am interested in your example of the ‘fundamental attribution error’ where we instantly ‘frame’ someone in a negative light in traffic, and your exposition on how this feeds through into many other examples. I think it is a shame though that you framed this as ‘imagined’, and that the imagination is often blamed for instances like this. As elucidated in A Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), you will note that it is the memory that tends to categorise for expediency. The imagination is much cleverer than that. It is capable of showing multiple viewpoints through the use of multiple characters. As you point out, we are multi-faceted individuals, and it is impossible to understand why we might behave in the way we do at any given moment. I can see your point about how the social sciences contribute by identifying behaviours; but equally, and often we forget, the arts strive to illuminate what it is to be human or empathic and to imagine something less obvious than what the memory projects.

  • John Martin Nichols

    The most unkind remark made about the social sciences is that they are fuzzy science. Here in this article Ziyad Marar correctly explains that they are complex. And that they are infinitely worth pursueing. However, as Jordan Peterson and from a slightly different angle Douglas Murray might argue, there is a danger today that in this field the academic world has shifted so much to the left that University students are being misled in believing dismantelling statues for “righteous causes” is something brave and praiseworthy. I feel sure Mr. Marar would not be amongst those encouraging them, realising that different standards and practices were normal in previous centuries and that it is unreasonable to judge those once deemed worthy of remembrance by our own standards today. But I’m afraid it is from the ranks of those professionally established in his chosen subject that harm is actually being done at this moment in time. Measured voices such as Ziyad’s should counter the “Woke” movement, even if he is sufficiently politically correct to substitute the female pronoun when referring to humankind!

  • Tezza Jenkins

    This author has a fantastic sense of humour! I am a student and have to submit a scientific poster and up until now it was a boring PowerPoint slide. His comments made sense and I understood the need to change my entire presentation which I have to submit in 2 days. This was VERY helpful and Ill let you know if I get a good pass mark! Thanks for the tips Tullio.

  • karenza moore

    Interesting article thanks! I think numerical literacy and critical thinking more generally are not taught properly in our education systems and this makes it harder for vaccines to be considered carefully by the gen pop.

  • Prasantha De Silva

    “Stay at home”: We hear this all the time. To me, it sounds like a paternalistic one and contradicts Paulo Freire’s adult education principle – “Do not consider learners empty vessels”. And, of course, it also goes against behavioral science theories. In fact, we can learn it more succinctly from Lao Tsu (700BC):

    Live with them,

    Love them,

    Start with what they know,

    Build with what they have,

    But with the best leaders

    When the work is done,

    The task accomplished,

    The people will say, “We have done this ourselves”.

    Your team discuss this under the social identity and collective behavior. I suggest to bring forward, “be a COVID19 warrior” message to complement the “stay at home” message.

  • Here And Now

    The most interesting comment for me from above was the Camus quote: “Come to terms with death. Thereafter anything is possible” There is a process whereby one can come to terms with death. Practicioners of Eastern disciplines encourage meditation on the inevitability of death. They opine that death and life are essentially one and the same, two sides of the same coin. The yin and the yang. Consciousness can become awakened through these disciplines and practices. One whose consciousness has been awakended knows the potential of embracing one’s own mortality. That person becomes empowered by death and life, and finds harmony in the two. Dualistic thinking fosters the disharmony and fear exposed by Dr. Solomon’s research.

  • Bongani Mavundla

    Thanks for the article- it has provided me with a number of points to consider when working on my research design because one has to factor in how COVID may disrupt the data collection process. It is challenging in my context, where access to the internet is not always readily available to some research participants.

  • Lori Crenshaw

    Great idea!

  • Erica

    My sincere condolences. I am grateful for all the Assistance provided by Dr Charmaz. her insights and support helped me to go through all the questions I had when applying CGT in japan. i am very Touched to hear about her passing.

  • joseph lintz

    My three sons, 18, 21 and 24yr, own their own company, HighKey Holdings, with several divisions: e-commerce/social media marketing/ influencer ‘giveaways’/real estate investments]. Oldest quit his marketing degree at U. of Winnipeg after 2 1/2 yrs; Middle child never attended where he was accepted into Asper School of Business at U. of Manitoba; and the youngest never even applied to a University. They are in business for themselves! As my oldest expressed it, “My marketing profs couldn’t even engage me in a conversation when I told them what I was doing [HighKey, e-commerce and social media marketing].” And for myself, 66yr? I hold three Masters degrees [Engineering/Philosophy/Theology]. Your article was preaching to the choir!

  • Pyxy Stephanson

    An interesting perspective on how resiliency is impacted. Thank you.

  • joe roseman

    I truly think I nailed the charade still in April when I started to compare total deaths by year and cause in several countries. Each of them had an increase in the numbers due to the normal population growth. From this point I made projections of death for 2020. In none of the countries the projection is topped by the alleged numbers of death by Covid-19, which means the Excess Death DOESN’T EXIST!!.

  • Alessandra

    Thank you for this important piece of history of psychology – and beautiful feminist story.

  • john vaughan

    This is most interesting and very high quality – what Mintzberg calls ‘intellectually rigorous’!

  • Sonita Sarker

    All images should have sources listed. The first one is particularly harrowing and it is counter to the intention of the essay itself to leave it there without comment or context or attribution. I absolutely think it should be there but it should be given due respect. I highly encourage the author to give the same consideration to the other images as well.

  • Johnywoo

    “And it’s good for the economy. Why? Because it gives young women a disposable income.”
    How funny that feminists or non feminists claim to be independent when it comes to pay for dinner they suddenly become conservative and wait until the man pulls out the wallet.
    Feminism only when suits the situation.
    Can not wait til sh.. will hit the fan.

  • Jane Ann Liston

    I’m a St Andrews psychology graduate from the 1980s – looking forward to reading this book, having watched the online Saints Talk.

  • Festus

    A crowd of people who meet for no purpose tend to behave in a childish manner and maturity doesn’t matter here. I have passion in learning psychology of crowd

  • jane

    I love your stuff xx thankyou for being there xx

  • K J

    I communicated with Dr. Charmaz at the end of last summer. We exchanged a few emails as I had questions about a qualitative study and thought she would be the best person to ask about this research study. I knew she was sick, but did not know how sick. Dr. Charmaz was very helpful and kind to help. I am so sorry to hear about her passing! For all she has done for the field~she loved her work, thank you!

  • Jonathan Epstein

    I like so much your describing these as “inclusive, additive processes” rather than zero sum. We are all enriched – and that sense that for one to gain another must lose is an illusion we can outgrow

  • Janice M Davis

    I will assign this reading to my Social Work students to ponder the questions raised.

  • Lora

    Thanks a lot!

  • Dem

    Excellent, I love these stories of idiotic bureaucrats, simply because I feel I am not alone in looking down upon these small-minded weirdos. Thankyou!

  • Ellie Lee

    Very good comment. Will be using from the start in teaching on sociology of health and illness this coming term

  • Robert Hudson

    Good article. The is a disconnect between those making the decisions and those suffering the consequences. Government ministers, senior civil servants, SAGE advisers, media presenters. These people will not lose their jobs. They all have large houses with gardens. They all have good IT. They personally suffer none of the many negative consequences of the lock down. They will be mostly if not entirely shielded from the recession. Life may even be easier for them in lock down. It is no wonder that they are not in a hurry to return to normality. The distance between rulers and ruled is even greater than normal because of the lock down. Our masters don’t even see normal people on a day to day basis like they would in regular times. Until and unless something happens to reconnect rulers and ruled it is going to be near impossible for any return to sanity.

  • Geneive Jones

    I agree that this “new” learning is going to have to be open and allow families to adjust to a schedule that works best for their household. A lot of parents are slowly heading back to work or seeking new careers because of our current situation, so expecting all students to log in at the same time is unrealistic! We as educators have to allow flexibility to encourage students and parents to stay engauge .

  • Frances McClain

    I am completing my dissertation this month. My study was a constructivist study and I loved it! Dr. Charmaz was a pioneer both as a woman and developing a methodology that works well for social justice studies. She will be missed…

  • Jas Sangha

    My deepest condolences. I used CGT in my research for my PhD and it was such a perfect fit to my research. Such a beautiful research approach. Thank you Kathy.

  • Rosalind Mary Martin

    Saw SciFoo ref in a Rodale book on circadian rhythms by dr. Panda. I am following the tracks back🌝

  • Michael Penrod

    Dr. Canter is right on target in this article. What people notice first is “difference,” whether that be skin color, hair color and texture, and a variety of other “physical” traits. The genetic evidence certainly does not support the idea of race. Race is simply a social construction designed to keep those who have wealth and power in charge of the societies they live in.

  • Philip Jude Fernandez

    Gurminder’s inciteful 25 minute talk about a sociological context to humanity’s story, centered on the colonist. If French/ American revolution rocks your boat, place them within a context of the Haitian Revolution! Another, the Industrial revolution in the context of British Imperial destruction of Indian silk and cotton textiles with imposition of very heavy duty on Indian goods.

  • John Brosemer

    I have 30 years of teaching and administrative experience. I have taught the social sciences on the US/Mexico border for eight years at the high school and junior high levels. 97-99% of the students were Hispanic, many came across the International Bridge daily, and did not speak English when they arrived, but they began learning English in ESL programs. I had sucess getting these students to achieve academically, to demonstrate resilience and motivation. Of course there were challenges, but test scores became good and excellent in some instances. I
    am Caucasian, but I developed a rapport with the students and their families. I learned about their culture and they learned things about mine. I’ve had similar experiences teaching on campuses with 85% black or African American students. Therefore, I disagree that Hispanic and African American students should be taught by teachers of their same ethnic or racial group. In fact, it seem to me that this type of racial and ethnocentric argument is counter to Thurgood Marshall’s prevailing argument in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education-1954. Segregation is a step in the wrong direction.

  • Kenney Robinson

    The need for Black and Latinx teachers is critical and the necessary time and resources must be invested to expand and elevate programs that are successful. However, at the same time we must support and compel white educators to adopt the strategies to mindsets to help Black and Latinx reach their full potential.

  • Olivia

    Hello i am a more murture student and I enjoyed the on-line classes. And I paid attention I did not find myself drafting or being space out. I love when I can go back and listen to the recording, because I missed something the professor said and it also help me to be a better note taker by listening to the record it help me to retain better.

  • Dr Kevin Goddard

    It seems to me that seeing what others are doing and copying without thinking about whether it is sensible is animal-like behavior; hence, it could be considered to be panic.
     
    I agree that the term “panic buying” is overused, but I still think that it is panic buying if it is prompted by unreasonable expectations of what is likely to happen.
     
    The view that it is acceptable to go to a supermarket and buy everything you want is not a deviation from the normal rules of place. Instead, it is the retention of the normal rules in an emergency situation where they are no-longer reasonable; this is like people taking their luggage from the overhead bins before going down the emergency escape slides.

  • Ernst Leffelaar

    Too late to reach Neil but in time to reach younger students.
    I am a retired Geologist, 69 years old, spent most of my working life in the area of research relating to all sort of natural and man-made catastrophes, especially from the point of view of a reinsurer. From my first semesters at University until the very last day at the Company I worked for, Stochastic and Statistics belonged to the bread and butter of my job. I had quite a hard time studying these two sciences from books at home parallel to my study and job. In this sense my life would have been much more easy had I have the opportunity to go through Prof. Neil J. Salkind’s “Statistics for People Who Hate Statistics”. In this book Neil makes “Statistics” so transparent and easy to understand.
    Dear students, when you buy a brand new car and you study its Owners Manual you many know exactly the functions of each of the levers and knobs in the cockpit but you are still not in the condition to drive the car safely until you get all the knowledge necessary to get a drivers license. Same is with Statistics: you will only get trust worthy results using SPSS or other Statistics Applications until you fully understand the science of Statistics – Prof. Neil J. Salkind was a great teacher in this matter!
    Many thanks, Neil!

  • Carl Mason

    How long before blm have this article removed as racist

  • Eleanor D Rodriguez

    I’ve been trying to learn this for so long but every time I try I lose interest because the content gets boring or confusing. You totally made me enjoy every bit of it! Thank you!!!
     
     
     

  • Edward Strickland

    GDP growth lies within the socio-social living scheme. Technology and automation have disrupted the prevailing GDP socio-economic model. It seem your group, and other administrators look to achieve upward mobility for the people. However, the American and other world industrialist denial to adapt to the changing times has created systemic disagreement with modern civilization’s advancement. The need for secured living standards for the disenfranchised, climate change, and nuclear disarmament are more pressing in human history than ever before. America’s leaders appear to be desensitized to support significant transformation in the design of the socio-social system. The Republicans have rejected the effort to restructure the system to meet peoples’ needs for a Green Deal. I would like to know your thoughts on what is preventing the advancement of human civilization.

  • Cicilia Bangun

    Yes agree, physical distancing doesn’t mean stop communicating with other. This is the time to build solidarity, cares eachother and keep communicate with friends, relatives and family.

  • john

    thanks so much

  • Dr. Sneha Gupta

    A must read for all in this pandemic situation.

  • John bird

    There’s an error in my previous post! Should be “We need more social contact” – Sorry!

  • John bird

    Social isolation is an unfortunate term – we need not social contact whilst we physically isolate. Also, there is a tendency to conflate loneliness and being alone…..

  • GEAH

    “They also define who these real people are. In Trump’s case it’s without the elites, without the intellectuals, and without the Muslims and probably without women, one could say.”

    That is a remarkably stupid observation. Does she actually believe her own nonsense or is she trolling?

  • GEAH

    “The average person in the U.S. uses about 100 rolls of toilet paper each year.”

    That’s two rolls a week! Where did you get that number?

    • Blackenship

      I’m not exactly sure but if I wanted to know an answer and checked sales data from stores, you can check the market and divide the product among the known population of a given region. This gives you a rough estimate but having worked for the hotel industry, this number actually makes sense. Also, this is just an average and this means one side of the curve uses a few sheets a week and the most extreme probably uses a roll a day. Who really knows?

    • Joseph Lee

      I assume women use a lot of it.

  • Nancy Simms

    Thanks for the article – it has given me a few things to reflect on. I am required to pivot in my qualitative research design, as COVOD 19 prevents me from face-to-face interviews. I am thinking of administering an open-ended questionnaire followed by conducting web-based interviews. I wonder if I can get some feedback regarding challenges that I might experience.

  • pedro

    awesome

  • Vangelis

    This is nazism with a liberal face. SHAME

  • Spiros

    May Hitler be with you…

  • Laura Norén

    A very quick guide to configuring Zoom – with screenshots – from a privacy and security mindset may also be helpful.

    There’s so much to do in going all virtual, I already put this guide together. Figured I might as well share it with others who care about student privacy but just don’t have time to attend to every little detail.

    https://medium.com/@laura.noren/zoom-configurations-5-mins-for-privacy-and-security-29f1514b2e23

  • Rodriguez Benson

    Should I do a PhD, is it worth all the time and effort? Many people I know, who are in the process of earning their PhD, all say that embarking on the endeavor was the worst decision of their lives. What I want to know is…has anyone acquired their PhD and is really glad that they did?

  • Tina Reeves

    Antipolygraph.org his hardly an unbiased source. There are few people that believe the polygraph detects lies. However, it is a useful investigative tool. It’s reliability depends on the qualifications and experience of the examiner, who should be a qualified forensic psychologist. A result that shows deception leads to further scrutiny and investigation. It is working well in the monitoring of sex offenders. It’s interesting that few courts allow polygraph results as evidence when eye witness testimony is infinitely less reliable. If one terrorist is kept off the streets because of a polygraph test result, that leads to further investigation, it has to be a good thing right?

  • Swati Rapotra

    Great list!! I’ve heard of several of those, but have only tried a few.

  • Lucas Krupp

    “At least 26 of Japan’s 60 national universities that have departments of the humanities or the social sciences plan to close those faculties after a ministerial request from the Japanese government, according to a new survey of university presidents by The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.”

    Where can this survey be found?

    Are there any citations for this article? I am not finding this survey post Anywhere on the Yomiuri Shimbun.

  • Mark

    Its time to make marijuana legal. Even for medical purposes, it’s important. thanks for giving useful information.

  • Christian Fogerty

    This is great! Thank you so much for providing links to different articles and scholars.

  • Soumyadeep Nag

    Had fun reading it….really useful

  • Haights

    There are practically none of us and that is a detriment to western society more than it realizes.

    It is the job of the social sciences to make sense of the world around us. Given the rise in hate-crime it is the purview of this discipline to be at the forefront to determine how such depraved individuals foment their values. I feel this authority has failed society due to its drastically one-sided acceptable cannon and failure to recognize a monumental shift in [collective] moral practices.

    When removing the individual from the equation and adjusting towards Post-Modernist Group Identitarianism – certain moral absolutes are reevaluated as new mores gain traction. Historically, Christian doctrine (by extension western Judeo-Christian/Structural-Functionalism) taught individual values such as the suppression of wrath, malice, slander and rage (Col 3:8). Conversely, these same values are frequently and collectively rationalized, often encouraged, notedly openly extoled, or consciously or unconsciously viewed as an essential force in the intended and necessary defense of group identity. I contend this contrast demonstrates a fundamental shift in worldview and consequently contributes to an ensuing divergent climate tainted with increased suppositional mistrust, mischaracterizations, or even hostility.

  • Lisa Baker

    Great tips! First poster presentation coming up in July, so your info was great!

  • oasiseducon

    Good way of explaining, and nice article to take data about my presentation topic, which i am going to convey in university.

  • Ian

    “Clearly, Savile was a career sexual predator”, was he?
    Anymore than lots of famous rich people who have women, young or otherwise looking them up for the purpose of sexual congress?
    I am just idly searching the net, looking for an article that shows any actual physical evidence against Jimmy Savile.
    For instance, copies of the complaints made against him in the 60s, do these actually exist still?
    Is there any evidence at all, except for the hordes of possibly neurotic loons, who come out of the woodwork for publicity and money?
    My curiosity was pricked by an interview with a nurse who worked in Stoke Mandeville when he was heavily involved there, that I heard on the radio, who, going against the zeitgiest, said she was unaware of any misbehavior, and there were no rumours or gossip between the nurses either.
    So, is there any physical evidence at all?
    Do the police complaints still exist? Not the new ones, but the original ones that were made decades ago?
    Just wondering.

    • acuriousyellow

      If you want exhaustive coverage of the entire fiasco track down moor larkin blogspot subtitled Jimcannotfixthisblogspot moor examines every piece of ‘evidence’ every report, commission, operation yewtree etc etc and lays it all out for all to see the falsity, Kant and double dealing that went on, also another blogger, rabbitaway adds further expose to the steaming mess and finally Susan cameron-blackie, who went under the nom de plume “Anna Raccoon”,now deceased a family court lawyer and former resident at the duncroft school where back in the 60s js was supposed to have had his pick of the girls who knew the 2 who made the ‘allegations’ and says they were liars, also merion jones, BBC man who broke the story was the nephew of the miss Jones that ran duncroft fabricated his little tale and it all served as a nice distraction from the burgeoning rape gang scandal and subsequent- ongoing coverup

      • M. Owen

        Jimcannotfixthisblogspot and the rest of the sources quoted so eloquently doesn’t sumount to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt as judged by ones peers in a Court of law and thus surely the fact remains of innocence until proven guilty? A few armchair detectives can’t take the place of the full CPS process. Much too many lawyers relief I’m sure🤣🤣

    • M. Owen

      I have to agree. How much cold hard objective physical evidence is there? This country is built on a judicial system requiring innocent untill proven guilty. It would seem that requirement counts less and less in this day and age! While I don’t minimalize the importance of each person’s statements, unfortunately it doesn’t amount to objective evidence and that fact really needs to be considered before condemning any person.

  • Academic Blueprint

    As part of your research project you need to break down your skills into what you liked. Really agree with you here!

  • Hashem ElAssad

    “I got a comment that Tetlock is ‘positive about the value of hedgehogs. He says they ask good questions, ones that foxes wouldn’t necessarily think to ask. That might put him in the hybrid camp.’ I need to emphasize this point: the three categories are not intended as black/white issue. Tetlock indeed might fit in the hybrid category as well as the genenralist group for there is overlap between all categories; I put his concept in the generalist camp because the “aggregate success rate” is used as one of the advantages for generalism. But that doesn’t mean his concept does not see the value in both generalists/specialists.

  • Stephen Quilley

    Robert, as a sociologist of 30 years (in the Eliasian mostly) I couldn’t agree more with this assessment. Sadly it is not going to happen. And actually the more that advocacy sociology embraces identity politics and engages without restraint or reflection in the culture war, the more I find myself alienated from my own discipline (even though I grew up on the Green/Left and consider this my natural home). I just read tweets from a sociology professor at CUNY (Jessie Daniels) proclaiming that any white families perpetuate white supremacy and racism; and that whites should disinherit their kids to prove their anti-racist credentials. People like Jessie would make a good subject for a sociological investigation – but the fact that they are fairly unremarkable mainstream professors at good schools is bizarre and just a little frightening.

  • Tom

    This is wonderful, Thank you

  • John Shelton Rankin

    It does not seem clear as to the meaning of “good migrants vs. the unwanted ones.” Is the difference equating good with legal immigration and unwanted with illegal immigration; or is the reference to good law abiding vs violent/organized criminality? If the latter meaning, that is an issue anywhere.

  • John Shelton Rankin

    Sociology’s early focus on ” disorder of social and economic change in the 19th century.”, is demonstrated in Durkheim’s work on Suicide; especially his emphasis on inseparable “social types” of societal integration and corresponding types of suicide. Unlike much leftist propositions, Durkheim’s implicit prediction that rising violence results from anomic-anomie dis-integration, can be tested. Conversely, consider the rise in violent crime after the radical movement(s) of the 1960s.

  • Peter

    Alison really understands how a prisoner feels and should be treated. I truly admire a person like Alison. I totally agree on “see prisoners as people first”. Prisoners deserve to be treated equally.

  • Aryan

    Alison is a perfect example of a criminologist. She saw goodness in every prisoner. They should be treated as a person. If I’m a prisoner, I can easily trust Alison.

  • Sawadogo Nate

    Ithanks Prof Dingwall for this provocative post. you’ve really made the point. In the natural sciences, so often, the detached character of theories goes with association with authors. There theory is less boring e.g Mendelian theory ; Pythagoras theorem etc. The quest for scientific identity may have driven us too far beyond even the model discipline

  • Leonard J Waks

    Surely it is ironic that a research tool that is becoming ubiquitous and shows up twice daily in every scholar’s in-box violates every norm of research. IF RG is the research gate, it should keep itself out.

    That said, because the RG score is out there (I seem to have two extremely different ones) it would be useful to know its correlation coefficients with other measures. Validity is interesting but difficult. It would just be interesting to see the correlations as a kind of weak validation.

  • Angel G.

    Thanks for sharing! Really good summary and description of the principles.

  • Richard Hinton

    I can imagine a future for society without technocrats (experts, managers, a business sphere.) And I can imagine a post-human/anti-human future with them. But there is no (human) future conceivable without societies, politics and some form of economic organization and the reflexive, critical study of it. Social scientists aren’t cheerleaders for society’s dispersal into adaptive systems and anyone who advocates for it is not a social scientist at all, but is on the Koch bros. payroll.

  • Hair Salon

    Once your research is successful where are planning to sell your products?

  • Karen Page

    I totally agree that “The state versus federal legal status of cannabis and cannabinoids can make it complicated for hospitals to develop policies around medical marijuana use.” Let’s fight for cannabis legalization!

  • Stephen Hunt

    It might be helpful to quickly clarify what was unique or particular about the exploration that added to the effects

  • Taylor Bishop

    Thanks for the interesting article about positive psychology. I had no idea that this aims to help people flourish and make the most of their lives through empirical research and theoretical models. I’m kind of interested to learn how these models are developed, especially if it could take several years to refine them for positive psychology.

  • mike

    Hi, I am wondering why nobody has commented on this and probably many more incidents like this in this country, I am still disgusted, for the attitude toward my wife and myself at this airport in particular, ps hope everybody has a nice time this xmas travelling like cattle through this modern day ”hellhole ” of an excuse for an airport! ms11122018

  • Bashar H. Malkawi

    Although many universities focus on scientific programs and research, social science is still sacred and the origin of other fields of study and researcg. It is a great thing to have a space whereby author can communicate their work. Bashar H. Malkawi

  • Artslover

    The colonization of universities by the thinking of capitalistic corporations is going to kill them. Universities must pursue truth and the well-being of mankind, and not exclusively the money of rich donors. Without the arts and the humanities, perhaps life is not worth living.

  • ADEL

    nice post

  • Aaron

    It appears even more states are coming online! Soon the entire country will embrace what has always been and always be a miracle planyt!

  • windows 10 error code 0xc00000f

    This is absolutely true that this was an issue when I created the new team at Microsoft Research and I didn’t find any magic solutions. Social scientists when they are being calibrated using the frameworks applied to hard scientists have a difficult time.

  • steve wilderson

    Robert, I just had a conversation with Rush Limbaugh on his radio show Oct 11. I made the statement that I thought he was one of the greatest Sociologist of the century, He said he had never considered the idea but was intrigued. What are your thoughts

  • Turyahikayo Innocent

    i gardauated with abachelors in social sciences among with many graduates and had agreat love for social sciences. i believe there is need to define social science to young scholars and also reflect its importance in shaping policy and guidance to the sociaty. i believe as SPS can start an initiative here in Uganda. thanks

  • Krzysztof

    … I am afraid, that measuring the scientific effectiveness of a scientist by number of cites, recommendations, followings and reads is like the measuring the effectiveness of a secretary by a number of used paper clips … (with all respect for secretaries … , of course …)
    Moreover, appear by that the “strange phenomena”, like e.g. “scientific cooperatives”, in which a few scientists write papers and each other writes as a coauthor his colleague … , and in references next papers of the colleagues … – in that way every of them can get even hundred papers and cites every month … So it is like the mentioned secretary whould use a few paper clips for a one paper …
    Of course, the cites are good to measure the scientific activity, but under the condition that a number of cites would be divided by a number of coauthors …
    It is important to put the question: “what is the goal of scientific works ?”
    I think that for technical sciences the goal is an introducing in the industry a product which gives money for a producer as well as for a scientist-author of a patent, but also a bonus for people …
    So I think that should be measured the number of: products introduced in the industry, patents and books with scientific theories … – special bonus should be for the product made according to the patent, which would be the optimized case of the theory published in the book …
    The papers which should be reports of experimental or theoretical researches are only partial contributions of above, … and should be measured with a very low score note …
    Of course, still there is the old way to measure a value of the scientific effectiveness … , I mean the prices of books, papers, patents, designs …

  • jennifer

    Great discussion with Ann Oakley

  • vikas sharma

    hello. Can you please elobrate more on the second line which explains the philosophical explanation of human nature by Hobbes and Rousseau.

    • Olivia Butze

      Hi there! When it came to human nature, Hobbes and Rousseau were famous for their differing views. Hobbes believed that the natural state of humans was brutish. He believed that civilization’s duty was to step in and correct this primal state. Rousseau on the other hand thought the opposite. He believed that humans were inherently good, but it was civilization’s fault that we acted poorly. This century long debate is an interesting one to consider, especially when discussing our motivations.

  • Jennifer A Harris

    This was a great show! I am so happy you are producing this series. I look forward to each one. Glad to learn more about implicit bias.

  • Seth Kaufman

    I agree. Having gone through school and graduated college, the stark differences between how learning is done in the “Real World” versus what is demonstrated in the classroom setting, are night and day. Having a more active learning centered approach would benefit all involved, primarily the students.

  • Peter's odhura

    I want to be receiving new post on HR

  • Corbin Treacy

    Nice post! Great content. This information is really helpful. Thank you so much for sharing this post.

  • Dusica

    Thank you for this analysis! I am also puzzled and sometimes appalled by the RG score. I even wrote to them once, but they never replied. My complaint was about the fact that they count as an article anything that is published in a journal. Some conferences publish 300 words abstracts in the special issues of some journals. Hence, people who have several such conference abstracts have much higher RG score (every abstract is valued as the full paper). This makes me mad, but they never reacted to my e-mail…

  • Manoj Pandey

    I have come across use of blogs and sometimes social networks for science communication. Some bloggers very religiously blog, and the blog is not part of their formal mode of communication (in academics and teaching).
    At the same time, some science/ research bloggers have shared that writing posts on established research blogs is a better and less-time consuming way of blogging as the contributor does not have to maintain the blog.

    • Ricard luke

      great reply

  • Dr. Michael Pak

    From Dr. Michael Pak

    This is a good article by Robert Timo Hannay (April 20, 2018) – congratulations on the thoughts and input.

    You are right about several issues brought up, including that people often do not have good answers or even good questions. And yet, they still have to fill in the time with some explanations and conversation that sounds good, sometimes (or often) without actually being relevant to key issues.

    Some people fill in the conversation lines with relevant information, some with things that sound well, and there are people – unfortunately – who can fill in the space with many things (written text, images, sounds, etc) deliberately meant to be confounding and drown out or interfere with key information (this is sabotage).

    Examples of just such activity can be found on Facebook timelines/posts and Google. As an example: under the search term DOCTOR or Dr., the drop down menu should include relevant names of deserving physicians or PhD’s, before including parodies of the title or subject.

    This brings up a key issue or question: How does someone determine the relevance, value or correctness of a service or content (of a text or conversation, for example) ? It is difficult, especially without professional knowledge or experience. It often takes effort and careful attention over time. Observation of outcomes helps.

    In 2003, the U.S. Patent office gave me the patent for the Three-Dimensional Model of Human Behavior – a universal system for behavior analysis and prediction. It represents to social sciences what the Quantum Physics is to physical sciences. This is not a light statement or conclusion It is based on many years of work.

    More information is on my web site and the U.S. Patent 6581037.

    Keep up the good work. Feel free to contact me if you would like more information or have ideas to discuss.

    Best regards,

    Dr. Michael Pak

  • Hope Parisi

    Hello, I am citing the podcast interview (printed version) with D. Massey for a paper I am writing. How do I cite it in MLA8 or any other format–I can derive the MLA8 format if you share with me any example of how to cite it.

    Thanks so much!

    Hope Parisi
    hopekcc@aol.com

  • Mia

    Easy a Entrepreneurial capability is when they determine the capacity to identify opportunities, run new businesses, drive innovations and learn from and adapt to changing circumstances. •Supporting and implementing high-quality entrepreneurship education in school systems, higher education and in vocational education across a broad range of subjects (including technical and scientific fields).
    •Encouraging closer links between education institutions and the private sector (e.g. involving entrepreneurs in coaching and mentoring students and giving guest lectures, or through apprenticeships in companies).
    •Providing training targeted at entrepreneurs ( – someone who thinks of an idea to sell to someone and takes the risk in hope of profit. )

  • Clive Boddy

    The problem in a democracy is in determining just whom will prove to be a good leader. Those who have done well for themselves may be attractive because of their potential to do well for the populace. Their charisma may be mistaken for good character, their expensive clothes for good taste and their ruthless self-promotion for strong leadership.Such political leaders can find it easy to get elected by significant minorities of the population. However, their dark traits of insincere charm, lying, cunning, selfish greed, irresponsibility and willingness to claim the good work of others as their own, often mark them as high in psychopathy. In the corporate sphere in Australia the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry is finding plenty of evidence of systemic and institutional psychopathy while individual corporate psychopaths have long been assumed to be attracted to the financial services sector. On the other hand Odysseus was relatively humble among the leaders of Greece and it is humility rather than charisma which often characterizes truly great leaders. Like the Odyssey, decades of leadership research also suggests that the quality of life in a human community depends on the quality of its leaders. It is the history of how leaders emerge that we fail to learn from.

  • Jim Gibson

    It is about time to legalize cannabis even for recreational use. It’s a good thing that states are considering it. Yes to marijuana! Thank you for the insightful info!

  • islam

    the download link directs to the previous episode, Mills’.

    • Sage

      Eeek! Thanks for notice. It’s fixed now.

  • Jonas

    Interesting. Here in Scandinavia a belief that it is “odd” or “bad practice” to promote an existing staff member to a professorship from within the same university is completely unheard of. In fact the opposite may be true, being promoted within the same university is the normal career path and applications who already work at the same university tend to be favoured when applying for permanent positions.

    • Sage

      We’re happy with the style in your request. Thanks for asking!

  • Garry P.

    It would be insane not to include the student loan interest deduction. Why penalize people for going to college?

  • Garry P.

    How come there is never any mention of the meat industry? They are, by a wide margin, the #1 contributors to pollution and climate issues on this planet. Neither the left or right ever bring this up.

  • Anonymous

    Excellent – thanks for a very thought provoking interview

  • blogging

    Hi colleagues, its fantastic paragraph on the topic of educationand entirely defined, keep it
    up all the time.

  • Andrew

    Good work, Daniel. What I’ve noticed in my institution is the way elitism is strengthened via appointments – we have an elitist president appointing fellow elitists, and creating a monoculture of staff and postgaduate students with connections to elite institutions and networks.

  • Chetan Gupta

    Hello Robert

    We all know the importance of science in our daily life as everything happens with any of the laws of science whether It’s from Physics, Chemistry or Biology. Science is the most important subject in our life and a student should always learn about it since when the school get started.
    I really liked the way you explained everything in this article and I always love to teach science to my younger brother and sisters. I am glad that you had shared this article. Keep sharing..

  • sewa manlift

    Wһen someone writes an artjcle he/ѕhe retains the image of a
    uuser in his/her miknd thаt how a user can know it. Therеfore that’s why this
    paragraph is perfect. Thankѕ! http://fiaalbania.com/

  • Nicholas

    Right here is the perfect blog for anyone
    who would like to understand this topic. You understand so much its almost hard to argue with you (not that I really would
    want to…HaHa). You certainly put a brand new spin on a topic that’s been written about
    for ages. Great stuff, just wonderful!

  • John Devonshire

    “Jenkins’s standing as a journalist is beyond question.”

    Given the level of the British media in general, this is not saying very much.

  • Anonymous

    The second video is missing – It is a repeat of the third commandment.

    • Sage

      Thanks for alert – fixed now

  • Val Humphreys

    It would be optimistic to hope that the pure gold of a concept does not undergo some alchemy and turn into base metal when inserted into the often heated debate about child abuse, especially where deaths are concerned. The security services face a similar challenge – how do they identify and stop someone from blowing themselves up and nearby strangers? After those outrages, it can also seem obvious these individuals should not have slipped through the net/dropped off the radar, in the usual phrase.
    However, although more deaths are involved, the security services do not seem to get such harsh criticism from the media.Social science concepts are not often picked up in everyday debates – ‘moral panic’ being another even older exception to that rule.
    The Pelka case is incredibly sad – first a child is killed, then both those involved commit suicide in prison.

  • Aaron

    Agreed – however I’d like to amend that it should be the privilege of the Parents (or Guardians) to introduce them to the arts and local culture of their community. The panacea of this epidemic is more exposure – parents are the ultimate arbiters of positive or negative experiences in a child’s life – not schools.

  • Larry Lundgren

    This site has so far refused to accept my post, telling me that my website address is invalid.

    Therefore in this trial I make the simplest possible comment.

    The New York Times Editors and most columnists apparently belive that the US Census Bureau system is not to be questioned. They and most commenters display their firm belief that there are genetically distinct races. I have tried for 3 years to get the Times to publish one serious article on the American Concept of Race.

    I have failed. Is there someone who can get through to the Editors.

    I use the http://www.seekonk.se simply to see if this will work.

  • Edward R. O'Neill

    What a lovely analysis.

    I especially like the connection to Goffman, as Goffman is the most ‘aesthetic’ of sociologists: his sociological work is to see how aesthetic, dramatic, and theatrical devices play a structuring role in social life.

    For Goffman, privacy and publicness are intertwined. And you latch on very well, I believe, to the way the viewer’s observation is a part of Hopper’s work.

    Beautifully done.

  • Norberto

    An impreѕsive ѕhare! I have just forwarԁed this onto a coworker who had been conducting a littlе research ߋn this.
    And he actually bought me lunch simply because I stumbled upon іt for him…
    lol. So allow me to reᴡorɗ this…. Thanks for the meal!!
    But yeah, thanks for spending the time to discuss this subject here on your web page.

  • Tiana

    The only reason we fear death is because we are so busy to chase the worldy live. We are so content to prepare life in the next 5 to 20 years like death will never come.

    Unfortunately we FORGET to prepare the death it self and whatever might come after death.

    The problem is, we dont know what will come after death and HOW to prepare for it. So we just busy and pretend like death will never come to us.

    The Big question is to find out what will come after death.
    And surely, someone create us humans for something.

  • michael scully

    I wholeheartedly agree with this mans view at luton airport, my wife has been subjected to the same treatment as the man above,not once but umpteen times, i could go in to detail about this but cannot subject my 62 year old wife to be degraded this way, I hope somebody sees this and tries to act upon it as i have with absolutely no redress or apology for their disgraceful cavalier attitude, ms 19 sept 2017

  • Pablo Markin

    This is a good point. At the same time, if bodies disbursing public support to scholarly research, such as the Austrian Science Fund, are to have a long-term impact on the sustainability of the entire academic ecosystem that they directly or indirectly finance, either Gold or Green Open Access can be one of the more important venues for that, since the discourse on impact factor scores reinforces the dominant position of few private, profit-oriented publishers in the paywall-based journal sector. High adoption rates of Open Access seem to indicate that slowly gains in acceptance in the academic community: http://openscience.com/the-performance-of-the-austrian-science-funds-open-access-promotion-policy/.

  • Casey Wimsatt

    On the one hand, they insist on very exacting standards for inclusion, and on the other hand, they completely and steadfastly ignore a key measure of rigor, treatment fidelity. There is no rational way to reconcile these diametrically opposing approaches. The WWC says treatment fidelity is not feasible to measure, but they have no problem insisting on study criteria that are equally if not more difficult to achieve.

  • Great podcasts!

    Hello David and Nigel

    I want to thank you both for your Psychology Bites and Social Science Bites podcasts. Often fascinating, always clear. It must take a lot of work to organise and produce. They’ve introduced me to a lot of new ideas I might not have encountered otherwise. I appreciate them and feel I should say so.

    This episode on social mobiltiy was interesting. It’s sometimes ideologically and dogmatically assumed that the people at the bottom of society are the same as the people at the top, but that the people at the top had a head start and other advantages. Perhaps that’s true. Perhaps not. If people were swapped at birth would the outcomes be the same? My understanding from adoption and twin studies is that genes play a huge part in what a person becomes, but whether the people at the top and bottom have different genes I don’t know.

    I question whether social mobility is a good thing to aspire to. It’s mostly left unmentioned that social mobility is a zero sum game. If social mobility is about status, where there are 100 people, person 100 is at the top and person 1 is a the bottom. For someone to rise in that hierarchy, someone else must fall. In this system there will always be unhappy people who are falling and always be unhappy people who are at the bottom. In my view it would be better to have a society in which everyone can live a happy life, whether you are person 100 at the top or person 1 at the bottom. Someone might respond that people can still be happy if they are falling or at the bottom of the hierarchy, but if this is the case, why concern ourselves with social mobility at all?

    It was also noticeable to me that Clark didn’t speak about racism or the social position of black people. Listeners are left to read between the lines on what he might think about that. Rather than leave it implicit, it would give more clarity and show more intellectual courage to make it explicit. If the people at the top may have superior genes, the implication seems to be that the people at the bottom may have inferior genes. If this is what he thinks, explicitly bite that bullet. In fairness, he had only had 15 minutes so he can’t cover everything. Interesting episode.

    Again, thank you for your podcasts. If I had more money and was higher up the hierarchy I’d make a donation. Great work both!

  • Dr Raymond J RITCHIE

    I am an Australian first generation graduate and PhD (Science). The attitude of the elite to the first generation graduate can be summed up in a way similar to the British attitude to educated Indians under the Raj. Make good use of them, work with them, sleep with them if you must but you should never quite trust them. It took me years after I got my PhD to realise that because of my socioeconomic background the elite would never bring themselves to trust me. I am 63y.

  • Peregrine Smythe

    Complex issue that is affected and influenced by many different factors – health is controllable to a degree…

  • Andrew Lapointe

    This was a great read. I would be interested in seeing the same research done on the “new” RG Score now that they have added reads. Thanks for this content

  • Albert Trotter

    does it mean that everything that human being could possibly do would be re-done by the machines? sounds good but does it mean that sooner or later there won’t be any work for humans to do? no jobs?

  • Chidozie C Nnaji

    I know of researchers on Researchgate who have high RG scores despite not having published in journals with impact factor. If impact factor accounts for over 60% of RG score as you claimed, how can you explain this?

    • Facundo Palacio

      60% is not 100% (still remains 40%). Under the model proposed, I guess it may have lot of low impact publications, or many interactions with colleagues, or a combination of both.

  • Amod

    What is the criteria for RG score

  • John Rankin

    Much of the discord and disconnected talking at each other that prevents rational discourse on the subject of “race” my be reduced with a less ideological and more empirical approach. Is it “race” or racism that is the core issue?

    Referencing observable skin tone, ethnicity, subculture, crime statistics, education, residence, etc., directly, is more rational than using concepts with greater connotations than consistent definitions or empirical precision.

    Do light skinned and dark skinned people differ in their reported participation in and views of crime and its causes? Do city and small town or rural dwellers differ? What about those preferring Hip Hop, rock, or classical music; or those with advanced degrees, some college, high school grads, or early dropouts; or atheist, Christian evangelicals, Muslims?

    The idea here is not to deny the social/existential importance of “race” as a meme, while also not conflating reactions to perceived or imputed bias with the epidemiology of social problems.

  • Bob Konrad

    If there is an emerging conservative sociology in the US, it might be perhaps represented in a book of readings: Zake, Ieva, and Michael DeCesare, eds. New Directions in Sociology: Essays on Theory and Methodology in the 21st Century. McFarland, 2011. These authors give a new profile to the Austrian School (Hayek) and Karl Popper, by resurrecting their core motivation for theorizing as a reaction to “totalitarianism” in favor of an “open society” rather than emphasizing the methodological contributions, as do most reviews of theory. They critique sociological theory of the late 20th century as leaving out or minimizing agency of individuals and give some thoughtful reinterpretations of “postmodernism” not dismissing it completely. They mention people like Leo Strauss, who have been ignored by sociology, but have been influential among a certain group of conservative political figures in the US. They also profile some methodological innovations that are worth exploring including the use of introspection, comparative historical method, and auto-ethnography. .

    The effort of the chattering classes in the US to try to understand populism, Trumpism, or nationalism could benefit from examining if not explicitly adopting some of these viewpoints and tools. Clearly conventional social science has been taken by surprise by contemporary developments in the real world.

  • Romance-films

    Something i think some of these commenters should hear:
    “If you stick a knife into my back nine inches pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. You pull it all the way out- that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven’t even begun to pull the knife out, much less try and heal the wound. They won’t even admit the knife is there.” Malcolm X.

  • Anonymous

    Read Karl Popper, you cannot combine statistics and science since science is falsified if there is evidence contrary to a theory, whereas with statistics you can ignore the outlier. This is the reason almost all academics do not consider psychology a science in the proper sense, it isn’t a pseudoscience either though unless you are adamant that it is science – it is a SOCIAL science.

    • Anonymous

      Using your logic biology and chemistry are not sciences either. Karl Popper may be venerated by many naive scientists, but his views have long been discredited for not solving the problems of inference that he tried so hard to solve.

  • Mass Communication

    I was curious if you ever considered changing the structure of your website?

    Its very well written; I love what youve got to say.
    But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better.
    Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or
    two pictures. Maybe you could space it out better?

  • Ed

    Very entertaining and enlightening podcast. In times such as these, the theories which were discussed so elegantly here are as powerful and relevant as ever. In these uncertain times also, it was good to see Social Identify Theory presented as an idea with positive potential and not as a counsel for despair. We need hope and practical strategies at present, and as someone once said “There’s nothing so practical as a good theory”.

  • AM

    Hi, the links for the webinar don’t lead to the webinar recording, but to the article about the original event. Thanks!

  • Jake Willard

    “Dear Sir/Madam,

    I found one of my photos on your website with incorrect attribution. The original photo, (which I own the license to) is located here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/keoni101/7127698863

    And the incorrectly attributed instance is on this page:

    https://managementink.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/the-csr-agenda-part-5-of-5/

    I truly appreciate and I’m so happy that you chose to use my image. It’s both flattering and satisfying. Producing images that can actually be used is my main goal.

    I really hope you will continue to use my image, but the creative commons license for this image requires appropriate attribution. Please attribute the image to http://www.liveoncelivewild.com and link to: http://liveoncelivewild.com/Global-Perspective/

    Thank you in advance for taking time out of your day to help me take care of this.

  • Ronald G. Accoo

    Though it will not be possible, I am forever trying to “catch up” on the contributions of Black Americans. Achievements which were either ignored or suppressed when I was in school, not even in many cases were their names mentioned; I should seek who they were. It is a pleasure to have discovered another source which will help lead me out of the dark and towards “catching up. I have my own little history find through my genealogy research. Thanks.
    Ron Accoo

  • alfachemistry

    Thank you for sharing, although I graduated from a ordinary university which is not well known.

  • Elmer Rich

    As professional problem solvers, we need facts, data and the best evidence to guide action. Paradoxically, in the discussion of popular science, science education and the use or misuse of facts in “decision making” we have, effectively no research on our dependent variables – what ever they may be.

    Let take the simple statement: “Scientists must use all reasonable vehicles…” How is “reasonable” to be defined and measured? By whom and over what period of time?

    Another example: “There is strength in numbers, and more than 2,300 scientists have signed an open letter” OK, where are the experimental facts to support this claim? What are the dependent variables? How is “strength” measured? These kinds of unsubstantiated claims form the bulk of the conversations on pop science and policy and science ed. Handwaving at it’s worst.

    Further, we have no coherent theories and models of animal behavior, let alone human, let alone humans and technical subjects. We simply do not know how information and action work together.

    Instead we are, predictably, following cultural and ideological presumptions and assumptions about action and the external and informational stimuli and processes that are involved. Currently, the discussion of facts and science and any kind of behavior and action is “faith-based” and based on platitudes. That will just create more obstacles to problem solving.

  • Scott

    I agree that distracted driving is a big issue. I do wonder, however, if there are studies that show distracted driving because of a device and how that relates to distracted driving of having other people in the vehicle. Is a device more distracting?

    Aside from laws against using devices (and actually enforcing them) I don’t see any reasonable progress toward solving the issue.

  • Nigel

    Robert Dingwall remains the sanest voice on these matters. He deserves a prize for his tenacity. That prize should be the avid and coherent support of the social science community. By ‘coherent’ I mean that all the relevant UK professional associations should join together in supporting the relevant US professional associations in lobbying the Trump administration to treat the inclusion of social science in the IRB process as an instance of excessive and unnecessary over-regulation. If we must have Trump at least let us get one good thing from his administration.

  • ken

    Yes, depressing. Elimination of the “excluded” category was very disappointing. Filing out an “exempt” application requires just as much work as an “expedited” one.

  • Magnus

    I agree with Daniel_L – not cited doesn’t mean not read. I wish there was a way of accrediting papers for their use in undergraduate teaching that was equivalent to monitoring citations. Also in some areas 5 years is nothing – e.g. taxonomy and in others the work is out of date after even a few years.

  • Swift Minds

    This a very interesting article listing valid points from an honest aspect. Also, I found the data and stats you provided unexpectedly interesting. This is a good summary of the SAGE survey. Thank you for taking time to putting it together.

  • Gaye Frie

    Interesting that one of the most important factors is almost an aside-that the behaviors that are successful for men aren’t for women. And this factor than calls into question the title “Women’s Own Behavior Boosts Gender Disparity in Academia” and associated assumptions. If women are essentially punished for exhibiting the behaviors that lead to success for male, how can you suggest that it is the women whose behavior boosts disparity. Rather, the women are in a double bind-not experiencing a double standard. And a double bind preclude success regardless of the women’s own behavior.

  • Joy Butler

    It was interesting to learn that British dentists use a minimal amount of anesthetic, if any is used at all, when performing a dental procedure. Growing up in the US I have thought of a numb mouth after having a cavity filled as routine. I have always expected to be made to feel comfortable when visiting the dentist. I never really saw my experience at the dentist as something unique to my culture.

  • Jonathan Hoffman

    Why not this simple formula for scientific value and impact?

    Average impact point of publications X average citations X number of publications

    • Neelima Gupta

      I fully agree. The formula for calculating the RG score is not clear

  • Jane

    Is it now time for a Professor co-op? The great bypass of the powers that be? Bare bones instruction with complete academic freedom. Like an intellectual commune.

    What is stopping all of you? Do it with Skype. Do it in person with simple surroundings. Be your own brand. Start the revolution on social media. Get the millenials behind you. Be free.

  • John MacInnes

    Jonathan makes valid points about the misuse of statistics. I’d add that the problem is made worse by poor understanding of statistics, which makes it easier to twist them without fear of being caught.

    But his last sentence is utterly, utterly wrong: he has the ‘how’ and ‘why’ the wrong way round. Accept this logic and you end up leaving evidence and facts behind and live in Trump’s world. Evidence becomes pure opinion, prejudice, reputation or authority. This quickly becomes dangerous and poisonous. I can lie and cheat to my heart’s content and every time I’m caught I can insist that the stats, facts or historical record are just cooked up by whoever dislikes or disagrees with me.

    If we insist on the how, we accept that while robust stats sometimes tell us things we’d rather not hear, they also allow us to hold others to account too.

    If we insist on the why then my stats are always perfect and yours are rubbish.

  • Martha McCaughey

    Fascinating! Isn’t there a Sage webinar on this coming up soon? is it possible to add the info here? I don’t know when that is, and can’t find it on Sage’s website.

    • Sage

      Your comment on Social Science Space about the webinar came even as we were holding it. Here’s a link to the archive: A Debate on Academic Freedom.

  • Ranjan Ray

    I was shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the death of Sharit Bhowmick. I first met Sharit in Delhi in the second half of the 1980 s, when I joined the Economics Faculty at rhe Delhi School of Economics..Sharit was empolyed at the time as a Reader in the Deparetment of Sociology at Delhi School. I struck an instant friendhip with Sharit and spent many hours in his company till 1994 when Sharit left Delhi. I was very impressed with Sharit’s social awareness and his keen desire to help people with a poor quality of life. He wanted to use his writing skills to bring to peoples’ attemtion the plight of those who are exploited and endure sub himan conditioins in all walks of life. He stood out as one who placed muich less weight on his own academic aspirations and much moire on helping others enjoy a better quality of life using his scholatrly talents. Though I did not keep in touch with Sharit since our days at DSE, as I had also left Delhi, I regularly read his pieces on informal sector workers, and could see his sincere desire to focus attention on the desperate working and living conditions endured by several of them, especially those working in tea plantations.
    Scholars like Sharit are hard to find, and his loss will be deeply missed. I didn’t know his family, but can I pass on my heart felt condolence to them on this sad loss.

    Ranjan Ray
    (Monash University, Australia)

  • Edward John Allen

    The issue of the Monarchy’s role and people’s perception of it are of real importance (I say this as someone who believes that there is no real place for a Monarchy in a modern egalitarian society) so I got excited when I saw the show’s title, but it was really disappointing to learn that research was so old! Many things have shifted in society since then that make a “read thru” on this research hard to justify.

    Now, if you can find more contemporary takes on the issue, count me in!!

    thanks for your efforts, I enjoy the show (for the most part!)

  • Anonymous

    “It’s really controversial as to whether animals have emotions or not, and I think that really depends on how you define emotions. If you defined the emotion of disgust as being a system that drives you to avoid parasites and pathogens that might make you sick, then of course the same applies to animals, and C. elegans a one millimeter long nematode worm alive today, put it in a Petri dish, put it with a pathogenic organism, and what does it do, it worms its way away from the pathogen. In other words, it’s doing disgust, it’s doing disgust-­‐driven behavior.”

    I disagree. You don’t know why the nematode is moving away. It might be fear – the truth is you can’t read the nematode’s mind so you don’t know what it’s feeling (actually we can’t even do that with people). Btw, animals do experience emotions (fear, anger, etc., are the quite obvious emotions) Beyond that, they can express like or dislike of food or how we show affection for them. What is contested is whether they have the ability to rationalize or think. They obviously don’t do it like humans, but they can learn. There are horses that are great escape artists – but would they be able to connect eating too much grain to foundering? I don’t think so.

  • Matthew Dell

    I think that you can certainly get a lot of useful information from studying psychology, however, there is a major problem with it. 30 years ago it would have been thought that let’s say you have a trauma, that you need to work out your feelings, nowadays they say not to ruminate at all – so what happens 20 years from now, do we say that ruminating is actually natural, and necessary? The answers are constantly changing. With hard sciences, when we discover gravity, we don’t go back on that in 20 years. When we discover atoms, we don’t go back on that in 20 years. Psychology is the equivalent of looking at a computer screen, seeing some behavior, but rather than looking at the actual code, we are doing studies and making assertions about how it all works, and making some correlations to the hardware. We don’t know how the software of the mind arises from physiology, not the way we understand how software arises out of hardware in a computer system, but we are making all sorts of assertions about how it works nonetheless. If someone tried taking this approach to debugging a computer, it would be an absolute failure, and utterly wasteful, because they simply don’t actually know what’s going on.

    • Albert

      Sorry to disagree but other scientific ‘facts’ have been proven wrong time and time again (just look at poor old Pluto). Psychology does what all other sciences do, draws conclusions given the information available at the time. Based on your description of a science, only mathematics could truly claim that title

  • Matt Ray

    Wittgenstein’s point is that you can’t readily determine the meaning of common language, because ordinary language was not built to have an obvious and simple correspondence between words and meanings.

    At the end of that passage he says, “The silent adjustments [required] to understand colloquial language are enormously complicated.” He is attacking the philosophical practice of analyzing ordinary speech as though it were a royal road to meaning when, in fact, common speech was never made to be especially clear or insightful.

    Instead, one has to work a great deal to figure out how words interact and what they mean. Ordinary persons can use a language very well without knowing precisely what each word means or how those words relate to more fundamental propositions.

    Rather than revealing the truth, ordinary speech often hides it. That doesn’t mean people sometimes choose complicated phrases. It means that ordinary speech is not so obvious as it seems especially for technical or philosophical purposes. Ordinary speech is often clear, because it feels familiar even though it is not actually precise. I.e. (if you’ll pardon a foreign phrase) it is reassuring to the audience in a way that inhibits understanding.

    When discussing delicate topics, our everyday words are often freighted with connections, references, and prejudices. For instance, does the word ‘race’ refer to (1) loosely related groups with a common ancestor in the distant past, (2) groups with hereditary moral characteristics, (3) a social construct comparable to ‘witch,’ or (4) a demographer’s convenience for sorting data?

    Wouldn’t it be helpful to have special words that do not call to mind very different associations for different people? Rather than using the regular words, we could use this technical vocabulary to speak with great precision. If we want to talk about something both delicate and obscure (race, gender, etc.) it is helpful to use special words that are designed to refer very specifically to one aspect of a problem or to one particular thought.

    Using familiar words in unfamiliar or restricted ways tends to increase confusion by creating false impressions and is thus counterproductive. One should try to be clear and precise. I agree with your central contention. But scholars sometimes avoid ordinary language, because ordinary language has inherent defects that make it less useful for technical purposes. Gibberish is honest in that you know you don’t get it. Ordinary language often lies by making you think you understand when you do not.

  • Robert C

    Is REF mean to create a market for academics? I thought it was a mechanism to distribute public money among university departments. If it is supposed to help individuals in this way then I think this should be transparent. Let’s see what individuals are actually producing. No one cares if sports stars are paid a lot and produce results.

    Moreover, if it is about allowing academics to reveal their worth, then we need to deal with a fundamental market failure around REF. Many academics have a distorted market value as they have outputs in highly/lowly ranked sources which will not be highly/lowly ranked in REF. In my area, marketing, we have 5 x 4* star journals but the last REF found 4* marketing papers in over 40 journals! In fact, 40% of 4* marketing outputs in REF 2014 came from just 3 journals – all of which are ranked at 3*! (Indeed, across business and management stats revealed that there is almost no difference between a 3* and 4* ranked journal in REF). In my situation, I am sitting on 4 single authored papers in those 3* ranked journals. I have just been turned down for promotion because I don’t have any papers in 4* journals . Am I over- or under-valued? Going by REF, probably under-valued as it is likely I have at least 2 x 4* papers. Going by the REF market, I might be over valued – my institution has a benchmark of 2 papers in 3* and 2 papers in 4* ranked journals.

    On a side note: Where sports stars are paid through public money they do not tend to attract outrageous pay and are held accountable to reviews on their performance in order to secure more funding. Sports bodies have to do this too against other sports. This seems like a more relevant analogy.

    I’m really interested to see how many academics are evaluating Stern in terms of their employment prospects. I’ve yet to hear anyone say why it would make REF a less accurate assessment of research produced by universities. What was it Upton Sinclair said: You’ll never get someone to agree with you if their salary depends on them not agreeing with you. How true.

  • Anonymous

    I like to think of psychology as philosophy once was in ancient Greece, a kind of proto-science. Philosophers were pretty much the pre-cursor to science as we know it today. It wasn’t until Aristotle that the scientific method was even invented. I imagine if we dismissed men like Plato and their ideas entirely we probably wouldn’t have progressed to science as we know it today.

    Psychology isn’t perfect, but at present it’s all we have alongside neuroscience, which can only provide so many answers by itself.

  • Rita Schepers

    An excellent article.

  • Tammy Hervey

    Thoughtful as ever and I don’t disagree. But I’m interested in the real spatiality of your proposal, given that so much of the pre-referendum debates (which continue) were conducted virtually. Why did the media pay attention to the virtual then, but won’t now?

  • 3D cell Culture

    Anthropology, quite different from other social science subjects as its much more abstract than psychology, engineering and ergonomics science. And in general social science is more abstract than applied science. As biology and chemistry focus on live and the reaction with them and they can produce an concrete results like design a drug, taking use of them to make plan and so on. But it’s the combination of all the sciences, the world can run in the way it does. More such introduction articles are welcomed. They help people in none science fields and none social science fields know more, and then may be have more choice.

  • Richard A.

    If you go onto ISI and search how many articles are never cited, have a single citation or 2 citations, the results are quite consistent. Published articles that have zero citations range from 12-20%. Those with 2 or fewer range for 16-25%. The reason in part is that ISI includes meeting abstracts that are rarely cited (about 50% of the non-cited articles). Thus, articles that are never cited is 5-10% range, which is much lower than the 65-90% discussed in other parts of this discussion (this is primarily for the physical sciences). Certainly a thought provoking discsion!

  • Clement Adelman

    The absence of any sociological voices before and after theRef dismayed me. Here in France there has been considerable socilogical but mainly demographic analysis in the media. Where are the replacement
    Stan Cohens, Stuart Halls. et al?! I agree with you entirely. Now what canbe done so late?
    Retired Prof.

  • Bryan

    Can this also be a link to the publish or perish attitude towards funding? I’ve seen people under pressure just to publish articles otherwise their funding is taken away. Maybe we do need to have a good look at ourselves and that replications should be required and taken more seriously. I know I’d trust something more if the effect could be found in more than one study, but they don’t get the funding, it’s always something new and different that needs to be the latest article. We MUST go back and give ourselves a good solid foundation to build on, replications are required. Should method sections not count in word counts and therefore allow for all the information to be given in clear detail? It will be a long hard grind, but worth it.

  • Mr Bill

    Thanks for the post. This is exactly what I was looking for. I have a 3,000 word paper about beneficial microorganisms and farming that I need to get online. Thanks for the help.

  • Drug Design

    Yes, it’s not a one-time issue, but requiring a long term devotion and attention. Hope more people can realize this and began do something within our reach.

  • Douglas Taylor

    Perhaps we should rather focus on teaching academics about business?

  • Gregory

    I am writing an article for the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering. In fact, 90 % of scientific articles are cited at least one time. The data base is Web of Science Core Collection and the time frame
    I chose is 2000 to 2005. Of the 5 million papers in the humanities, sciences, engineering and medicine only about 500 000 are uncited until now. The citation rates increase (as low as 98 %) in some fields but in the humanities they are lower but still around 70 %.

    \

  • Oisin

    Have you read the book? Do you think his claims are incorrect in some way? I feel as though there was no engagement with any of the ideas he puts forward at all, the evidence clearly points to him being correct in his assertions.

    You say he’s right-wing, yet he clearly supports government spending on preschool programs proven to drastically improve children’s personality profile later in life, resulting in higher income, higher rates of employment, and lower crime rates. That’s an example of a non-neoliberal policy which he clearly advocates in his book and in public talks about the book.

    Also, he still only has just under 500 Twitter followers. If this was a marketing ploy, it failed.

  • Ed

    My impression is that David Goldblatt is talking for 20 minutes how much meaning and interesting story is to football but I waited and waited and he never sad anything interesting.

  • Cyclo-RGDfK

    If we all recognize that antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest threats to public health that we face today, we have to do something about this. All the experts emphasise the importance of raising awareness of the problem of antibiotic resistance both in the medical community and amongst patients.

  • elyomnews

    David Edmonds: But also, I guess at the root of this is a question about what we are, I mean whether we are individuals, or whether we are best understood as part of some kind of collective.

    I think we are best understood as part of some kind of collective.

  • Chris

    Quantitative skills can create a large impact within social sciences but you do need to execute some caution. There are aspects of quantitative research that you need to be careful, such as the timing of the research you’re conducting or the volume of the study, which can affect your findings.

  • charles

    “Hard scientists” dismiss psychology because its methodology is dangerous to real science and decreases the credibly of science as a field.

  • Scott Willows

    Colleen, I do not think our customers give a damn whether the wine in their glass has been genetically modified.
    Their concerns are taste, appearance and price.
    I have always had an issue with anti-GM crusaders.
    If you live in Africa and your family has to worry about starving every year….GM products are just fine.

  • t nyamwanza

    could this be an extension of entrepreneurial culture. where are the departure points

    • Mia

      Easy an Entrepreneurial capability is when they determine the capacity to identify opportunities, run new businesses, drive innovations and learn from and adapt to changing circumstances. •Supporting and implementing high-quality entrepreneurship education in school systems, higher education and in vocational education across a broad range of subjects (including technical and scientific fields).
      •Encouraging closer links between education institutions and the private sector (e.g. involving entrepreneurs in coaching and mentoring students and giving guest lectures, or through apprenticeships in companies).
      •Providing training targeted at entrepreneurs ( – someone who thinks of an idea to sell to someone and takes the risk in hope of profit. )

  • Angel Healy

    Yes. Social Sciences is really an important aspect in a lot of things. And right now, it’s actually a good time to take advantage of these studies because Big Data and IoT are thriving, which makes the consolidation of data easier. Also, social media is a new avenue that can be incorporated in this study.

  • Angel Healy

    Both points are valid. The other one’s concerned with the cyber security while the other is all for privacy and freedom of expression. Where do we draw the line? Which side does really weigh a lot? There should be a compromise from both ends, which will satisfy each other’s rights.

  • Michael Case

    It does not matter what kind of law the goverment implement, until gun control got stricter we will not be able to control gun violence.

  • Michael Case

    The reason why Americans don’t study gun violence is because they think gun ownership is a god given right, to them and gun violence is usually out of an accident. They would rather watch a violent movie rather than a movie with a naked body which is totally natural. But the bottom line here is they do not take gun violence seriously and violence is part of the culture.

    Guns is to American what is sex is to France. It is just part of the culture.

  • Harvey

    When someone writes an post he/she keeps the plan of a user in his/her brain that how a
    user cann be aware of it. Thhus that’s why tbis post
    is perfect. Thanks!

  • Alankrita

    “Greate” “Ministry of Education Downsizing ” MEXT demands that the wording of its order has been confused, with Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura issuing an announcement in late July denying any aim to pull the fitting on HSS. In September, Kan Suzuki, his exceptional counsel on advanced education, composed an extensive foreswearing in Diamond, a business magazine, recognizing that the wording was questionable and that the approach was inadequately verbalized and did not include adequate discussion with different partners.

  • Sue Jones

    Very interesting take on this. I did see Perkins’s say something along the lines of “there’s nothing like a bit of censorship to promote a work”, and wondered myself about It being “an astute marketing ploy meant to promote the career of the book’s author and the sales of the book’s publisher.” Even more interesting was Perkins’s sudden following of Charles Murray on twitter.

    Absolutely agree that “The Welfare Trait ought to be a dire warning to British sociologists. The book and the debate it has sparked amount to a hostile takeover of discursive terrain that, for many decades, used to be covered by the sociological imagination, accounts of social citizenship, and dedicated engagement with the social production of inequalities. ” But in addition to this reductive discourse, there is also the matter of the systematic political disenfranchisement of those poorest citizens, and a refusal on the part of government to engage with those marginalised groups at all. Hence the Conservative preoccupation with a positivist approach to “social research” and a dismissal of first-hand witness accounts – qualitative evidence – as merely “anecdotal” – and a dogmatic insistence that “no causal relationship is established” between the welfare “reforms” and adverse consequences, increased mortality, increased suicide and mental distress. There is, however, a well-established correlation that requires further investigation.

    I felt that Perkins’s also served as a political kite-flying exercise – pushing steadily at the public’s moral boundaries. Allport’s ladder.

    https://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/the-importance-of-citizens-qualitative-accounts-in-democratic-inclusion-and-political-participation/

  • Craig Thomas

    In reference to;

    “in the course of later human evolution, so this number seems to have been fixed pretty much within our species as a whole”

    “OK, and here you get the other side of the constraint, namely, it costs brainpower to manage groups of this size.”

    An interesting podcast! But it has brought some questions to mind. Over a course of the last hundred thousand years human cogitative ability and intelligence (assuming that is what you are referring to with brain power) has changed a significant amount. My question is if “brain power” is effectively expanded and the constraint of the group management spectrum is this brain power why has the 150 (or 100-200) not evolved accordingly with in the last hundred thousand? If its constraint has broaden why is the number still fixed? Could there be another explanation for the constraint?

  • Prof P.K.Pattnaik

    Dear Sarah-Louise Quinnell..
    Greetings. In India there are 5 types of Individuals who opt for Ph. D Research 1. A teacher who needs promotion in his/her career 2. An Academically good student who is jobless and needs scholarship for survival 3. An Intellectual Idiot/ Public servant who is in habit of acquiring academic degrees just to prove his intellectual brilliancy and 4 A person who’s job is to do research 5. A person having special passion for research.
    Now the next question is who cares about our research? Most Governments seldom care about these. If state wants to find out some thing it would constitute a Commission or Committee.. If it is a private company it would hire a research organization. Therefore, as such individual researcher has no importance. He /she has to work for an organization.
    To my understanding, state must invest education for social transformation and development. Education and research not only enhances the logic of life but also competency. But the million dollar question is “Do state need such people”? The reality answer is NO. We want bionic persons who will work as we direct them to but will not ask any question. To day, new areas of research has emerged i.e How to con consumers and investors. How to evade taxes lawfully. How to swindle public resources in the pretext of entrepreneurship . How to evade Government Standards in legitimate way, How to blackmail a helpless patient in the name of modern diagnostics and how to buy human labour at throw away price with out the threat of Strike and How to start a war in the pretext of Human rights, democracy and religion and terminate millions of human life in most effective manner.
    Gone are those days when researchers worked for humanity. To day we are more involved with NEGATIVE research.

  • Dallas Simpson

    Just stumbled upon Doreen Massey’s work through a short facebook posting.

    “Whereas space is material: it is the land out there. But there’s a dimension of space that is equally abstract and just a dimension, so that’s the way in which I want to think about it.”
    Exactly!

    The dimensional reality of ‘Space’, or ‘Spaces’ (realms of quality) is profound. (And also I am not simply referring to the space component of ‘spacetime’ or Euclidean 3-space). From the principles of dimension theory, expressions of potentiality in spaces transforms the nature of those spaces, whether physical, or mind spaces, or other abstract and real spaces. The expression of positive potentialities are the fundamental cause of positive transformation through ‘positive re-attributisation of the space’, causing a cascade of positive evolution and emergence. Equally the expression of negative potentialities can give rise to pollution, and decay. More importantly the expression of negative potentialities in spaces can actively ‘close up and lock’ their potentiality (negative re-attributisation) for positive evolution by fundamentally changing the quality of those spaces. Principles of justice are embedded in this model.

  • Alankrita

    MEXT demands that the wording of its mandate has been misjudged, with Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura issuing an announcement in late July denying any aim to pull the fitting on HSS. In September, Kan Suzuki, his exceptional counsel on advanced education, composed a long refusal in Diamond, a business magazine, recognizing that the wording was vague and that the arrangement was inadequately explained and did not include adequate interview with different partners. Suzuki says the aim is to inspire colleges to concentrate on what they improve get ready understudies for the employment market as a survival system to help hailing enlistments.

  • silky sharma

    MEXT demands that the wording of its order has been misjudged, with Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura issuing an announcement in late July denying any goal to pull the fitting on HSS. In September, Kan Suzuki, his unique guide on advanced education, composed an extensive disavowal in Diamond, a business magazine, recognizing that the wording was questionable and that the strategy was ineffectively enunciated and did not include adequate discussion with different partners. Suzuki says the aim is to motivate colleges to concentrate on what they improve get ready understudies for the occupation market as a survival methodology to support hailing enlistments.

  • mahfuz

    Another reason not to encourage any funder to specify a set of impact metrics at a particular point in time is the growth

  • mahfuz

    who in turn also receive their funding from the government?

  • chuck

    Nice photo — except that your bishops and knights are reversed (on the wrong squares).

  • Jon

    Thanks for reposting this here! 🙂

  • mahfuz

    The film’s moral ambiguity on the issue of violence is distinctive. Both Mulligan and Gleeson are reluctant users of violence, compared with others of their part

  • Behrouz Behnam

    Might be irrelevant to what you mentioned here; but Researchgate website does not work properly recently. They might be interested to know that there is no clear and easy way to contact when there is a problem with their website,

    • Simon

      agreed, Researchgate website does not seem to be working properly recently. Is there a clear and easy way to contact when there is a problem with their website and the RG score?

      • Simon

        Hi Research gate answered me within 1 day and arranged the problem… I take my comment back and give them 5 stars

  • Lady Light

    I have confidence that Twitter datum research could be utilized as a brilliant solution to assemble datum concerning varies public health solutions to address people around the world. It is also a easy way to get the much needed datum to the public health officials regarding attitudes and beliefs and benefits about the vaccinations (2009-2010) H1N1 (Swine Flu) pandemic that will help families make more informed choices as to what their best options are to treating & protecting their children. Thereby, supplying policy makers and public health officials with quality data to make proactive decisions that generate sound result that really services the people.

  • Nico

    Thanks for posting this!

    Do you think there is a desire within the scholarly community for an improved reading experience of journal articles on e-readers?

  • khamsat

    Some genuinely great posts on this site, thankyou for contribution.

  • Ramsay

    Thanks for the insight. I have been toying with the idea of an e-reader as I am not keen on reading large volumes of work on my laptop. But I’m also faced with not wanting to print a lot of materials and kill a bunch of trees.

    I still may get one, but with all the academic reading ahead of me, it is good to get points of view from people who are already using e-readers

  • Peter

    Well, I go to university in America so I don’t know of the differences. Anyway, the way I see it is, the idea of going to college is instilled in all high schoolers. And the vast majority of them are only following what’s expected of them, they don’t know what college they want to go to. Half my school went to Penn State just because a lot of their friends went so it sounded like a good party school.
    That means there’s a huge market for universities to tap into, the high school students that don’t know where they want to go, they only know they need to pick somewhere. And the marketing is the easiest way to get them. In my opinion, of course.

    Also, I think there may be a typo in the last sentence of the first paragraph.
    “Scholars likewise need to be market(ing)”

  • Debby Andrews

    Cynthia,

    For some reason, I’m unable to access the full review through this message (although I can do so through my library connection). ‘thought I should let you know in case there’s some kind of systemic problem. It may just be me!

    We missed you in Seattle. I do enjoy your blog—lots of good references for my current research.

    Happy new year!

    Debby Andrews

  • jeremy

    I’m so glad you posted this. You hit the nail on the head. Also, if you’re doing a review, for say Common Ground Publishing 😉 you can’t really annotate and mark up the text. I mean, you can, but ultimately, it’s just so much harder than say, highlighting, pen scribbling and throwing the completed text in a scanner when it’s complete.

    It seems to me that these issues would be really really easy to fix, maybe the scientific market is too particularized to make it worthwhile. You should post an update when/if you find the perfect reader.

    I’ve been using a Kobo, but I use calibre to put all of my texts on it, and unless you’re doing them in bulk, it can be a time consuming process.

  • Issac McDew Opehema

    Marc
    I am facisnated by my surroundings and I always asking question which field should study for my future career and I have this burning interest about studying psychology apart from Political Science. Could you tell me psychology is the way forward for interpreting future events seems the world is moving into most advance and complex society?

  • tylert

    do you know why his articles werent published in any peer-reviewed journals? Take a guess.

    After you are done taking a guess read about survivorship bias:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

    want a simplification? Ok, you notice things that come in the form X->Y because Y is louder than Z, so it might be that X->Z many many times more often you still notice X->Y more. Why is this important? Because it ruins his whole methodology.

    The wealthy leave more proof of their existence on earth, not fair perhaps but the truth. So, if you study history you should see wealthy people more than poor people. X->Y rarely but it is loud when it happens. Put it another way: upper class white american gets killed and everyone hears about, 40 people get killed by some warlord in africa and it doesnt even make the indepth coverage section of the BBC.

    Let us pretend a Man is a lawyer and had 5 children. Because he is a lawyer he leaves a paper-trail. He was admitted to the bar, he argued in court, he joined lawyer clubs etc. 4 of his sons are poor and 1 becomes a lawyer. The one that becomes a lawyer produces a related paper-trail. According to this professor’s methodology that is two generations of wealth transference. Despite the fact that 80% of the children were not successful the wealth transference was 100% successful.

    Now, imagine this process goes on for 300 years. This original lawyer has 9,765,625 decedents in 10 generations. Of them only 10 were financially successful or 1 out of 976562.5 or 0.0000001024% however wealth transference is still 100%

    Now if you will excuse me the black president of the US is speaking on the news and I want to catch it.

  • Fredrick Welfare

    Leading up to the Great Recession, there was a decided pressure on all homeowners to sell and upgrade their house. Many people sold and bought ‘more house.’ To claim that the housing bubble was not described or predicted is an incredulous statement. Even today, there are few total descriptions of the global economic totality and most indicators of change are abstract. That economists are unable or unwilling to determine a state of homeostasis which is affected by variations in human decisions or environmental impacts is a sign of naivete or secrecy.

    Humans do make evaluations of others on the basis of what they like or do not like, and they attribute to others the same decision-making basis. Liking or not liking others determines evaluations of them. This perspective is not entirely distinct from an evaluation of one’s own course of action in terms of self-interest. The implication is that economists are not admitting to what they like or dislike and non-economists are not making decisions that are in their self interests. The latter is more likely due to public ignorance and the economists should be more forthcoming.

    Giddens described processes like structuration, reflexivity and the double hermeneutic. These concepts refers to the notion that change occurs as one incorporates new policies, rules or interpretations of others behavior and intentions. Therefore, statis is unlikely and dynamic spontaneity more likely. A self fulfilling prophecy is based on a false assumption; a false definition of the situation is just as bad as a definition of the situation which is disliked. It is convenient to claim that there are so many factors that we cannot adequately describe the causes of the problem and another to understand that the causes of the problem are highly organized.

  • Bob

    For a subject field to be a Science, its theories Must Be Falsifiable.
    There are no “ifs” or “buts”. Theories must be falsifiable.
    Theories of Psychology are not falsifiable, there for, Psychology is not a Science.
    Psychology is a Pseudo-Science.
    Neuroscience is a Science.

    • Anonymous

      Psychological theories are falsifiable. No “ifs” or “buts.” Thete has not been much effort in the Psychological community to do so, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.

  • annette

    where can i buy this?

  • Naeem

    No doubt the Emmanuel response is worth while and leads us in long way. The history of management, changing paradigm of work and organization made us learn that organizations are working not only for economic achievement only. The stakeholder are many and organization satisfy these stakeholder in many different ways. Resource based point of view of organization also confirm these stances, Moreover, conversion of resource theory also agreed to the similar point of view. In nutshell, the organization performance viewed in economic lens would be a limited one. We have to use multidimensional lens to grasps the organizational performance.

  • Emmanuel Osafo

    For me, limiting organizational performance to economic outcomes is deficient because, other behavioral outcomes contribute to the overall wellbeing of the organization. Thus, the organization comprises of both the physical structures, strategy, processes, and of course the humans who run the organization, among other things. Many organizations have collapsed not because they were not doing well economically but, because of character failure of some members of the organization. I will prefer the holistic approach in defining organizational performance rather than just economic performance.

  • Anaya

    Education has many problems, but the desire to solve those problems is not one. But because we can not cover many problems in one story, we will focus just problems, now we need the solution, Quick Dissertation Help provide good solution for easily learning.

  • Scott

    Interesting article. I looked at the photo first and then I read the caption. Never once did I think of them as anything other than a hard working family.

  • Anonymous

    Japanese ministry denies this rumour.
    There are some misunderstandings among the public concerning the notice issued by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology that: “MEXT thinks that academic disciplines related to the humanities and social sciences are not needed for national universities.” This is in fact untrue. The thoughts behind what were issued as a notice by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology are as follows.

  • Isobel Munro

    Fascinating. How do you keep young people at school long enough? What is the proportion of PhD’s who have come from poor families? Are there worthwhile jobs for young adults when they have completed their education? I obtained a master’s degree aged 68 and am belatedly completing a PhD at 82 despite compromised health, it probably keeps me going. My research is on old women and I have found that education is one of the factors contributing to their their longevity, others include social connectivity and genetics.

  • Dylan

    Devil’s advocate…

    You are an academic at a university in the developing world. Your research is original for that country but not necessarily ground breaking internationally. Say the country is a small Caribbean island of just over a million people. No international university press is interested in publishing the work as it would not appeal to a large audience. Do you simply not publish the work in monograph form and head in the journal direction or is another option to use a vanity press in order to make sure some copies get out locally? Yes its not a publication for your tenure track application but it is valuable to the small nation you are in…

  • Earl H. Kinmonth

    This would be a much better story if it was based on fact. Unfortunately, it is not. I have looked at the original Japanese language text of the Ministry of Education directive to Japanese national universities. There is no call for the abolition of departments or programs.

    Even if there was such a call and even if it was implemented, it would not mean much. The prestigious Japanese national universities have been since their 19th century inception been focused on engineering, science, and medicine and in some cases agriculture. For example, at the most prestigious institution, the University of Tokyo, there are more 13,000 undergraduates but only 219 in the humanities and less than half that number in education.

    Japanese private universities can easily fill the demand for humanities and education graduates.

  • Will Stewart

    This is exactly what the Kishi government proposed in 1960. You will remember that Kishi was the former Class A war criminal, released by the Occupation and then rehabilitated, who had previously been the minister of armaments in the Tojo govt, and prior to that had been head of ‘pacification’ of Manchuria -since Vietnam, we know what that means! Kishi also happens to be the grand father of Abe, and for many yrs Abe lived with Kishi. ,
    The directive that the AbeAso govt is now imposing on Jpn universities is a carbon copy of what the fascist Tojo govt imposed on universities during the war…

    • Earl H. Kinmonth

      Kishi was NOT a class a war criminal. He was detained but not charged let alone convicted.

  • Socrates Johnson

    lol the japanese are too smart to fall for “progressive” education like stupid and communist americans put into place here in the last century creating the dumbest and most useless generation of americans of all time.

  • Wm Holden

    Aristocrats like Abe do not expect the average citizen to understand or participate in governance (an interesting take on the meaning of “democracy”) nor to have the ability or temerity to express their own personal views and support them with evidence. They are instead expected to unquestioningly follow the dictates of their betters, who are in turn expected to follow the example of tradition. Those who are educated to think and who criticize the existing social and economic order foment disharmony and upset the all-important “wa” – a “wa” that serves the interests of the plutocracy.

  • Tracy Lightcap

    Minister Shimomura and Prime Minister Abe can’t see the noses on the front of their faces.

    All they have to do to see the relevance of the social sciences is turn on their computers and look at the ads on websites they frequent. Those ads are the direct result of political scientists and sociologists who wanted to find a way to manage increasingly large datasets and analyze their contents. The applications – Hadoop is a good example as is R – they developed allow companies that collect data – website scraping is also the result of social science research – to put it into databases that allow Big Data analytic techniques to generate the data that targets advertising, And that’s only part of the story. Did they think that doctors, of all people, came up with the new diagnostic data analysis that’s transforming health care? Or that advances in causal analysis – advances of immense significance – were thought up by businesses? Come on. No business is interested in basic research.

    But let’s be frank: Japan, like China, has always been a laggard in basic research. In both countries the post-secondary educational institutions don’t seem either interested in doing it or capable of pulling it off. Believe me, this is ok with the rest of the world. It keep both places behind the waves of new technologies coming up now.

    • Anna

      I studied political science research methods in school and am currently learning R and SQL and hopefully someday soon, Hadoop. Currently I work in marketing, analyzing large datasets and tweaking overall marketing strategy for Fortune 500 companies every day. I believe my education has allowed me to not only think broadly, but uniquely position me for a career in big data. Outside of the humanities where else can you learn multivariate regression, significance testing, types of error and biases, game theory, and other concepts that allow you to look a data and understand it? Therefore I agree 100% with what you are saying, because your example is pretty much my life.

  • Thomas F. Pettigrew

    I recall Reagan at a press conference, answering a question about
    Federal funding of the social sciences, blurting out in anger,
    “Why fund the enemy?”

    Do you recall this? And if so, do you know the date of this
    Thanks,

    Tom Pettigrew, Research Professor of Social Psychology
    University of California, Santa Cruz

  • Nancy

    I completely agree with Ana! Everyone is in danger of being his ideas stolen, especially scientists and people, who are working on the web (designers, freelance writers) . But sometimes plagiarism could be unwitting. Fortunately, everyone is able to check himself and avoid at least word-for-word plagiarism (as it was mentioned in the article) due to development of IT. Some are really helpful

  • Dr.Uma Sreedhar

    It’s a wonderful article and a very apt in the current scenario. This is very useful for faculty teaching Wage and salary administration and also for those who handle Sales and Distribution paper.
    Dr.Uma Sreedhar

  • Harvinder Singh

    Objective of Education is cultural upbringing of the younger generation and not employment generation only. Employment is only one component of it. There is difference between skill development and education.

  • Ian Patterson

    Interesting and worthwhile contribution to this important and topical matter. One area, that maybe ‘we’ should all ‘do something about’, concerns that captured the observation in the penultimate paragraph, viz: “politicians’ claims that there exists a battle between ideologies”, and the further comment that these are “so dangerous”. I heartlily agree with this, and the remark that this “feeds the belief in an in-group and out-group”. Many people are quite vulnerable to this sort of thing, especially when they see/hear it reported ‘on the News’, eg when a senior politicians rhetoric is reported thus. Then, a person’s perspective afterwards may contain remarks along the lines that, ‘It must be [true] – I heard it on the News!”. This is dangerous; it does nothing to reduce the risk of ‘radicalisation’; and indeed, following principles of ‘suggestibility’, it may do a lot more to promote domestic terrorism that almost anything else our politicians may do. The challenge is, of course, ‘How do we tackle ths?’

  • forhad

    1. Thank’s a lot for assistance…

  • Latoya Barker

    Very interesting article! People don’t always know how to reduce energy use, indeed. There is some information but obviously it is not enough. I am trying to explain to my kids that we should take care of our planet. Reminding people about the importance of preserving the planet is one of the most important things nowadays. Best regards!

  • Gihan

    That is very true. Unfortunately, some of us graduates never find the mentorship to learn these rules and get socialized.

  • Yohann

    Thanks for sharing
    @Clara you can buy this book on Amazon

  • Robert Dingwall

    This article nicely highlights a problem that has been too lightly dismissed by OA enthusiasts, namely that this tends to shift search and verification costs from journals to readers. The injunctions in Virginia Barbour’s last paragraph may simply be the application of common sense – but when you have to perform them for every single paper you read, they are time-consuming and costly. Traditional peer-review and quality marking by journals streamlined this process from the beginning, which is why it came to establish market dominance over exchanges of correspondence or oral presentations of papers to learned societies. It is a very Hayekian solution to the problem of the unattainability of perfect knowledge. Predatory and light-touch review OA journals may lower costs to authors but they pose serious problems for readers.

  • james

    It does’nt matter what country or what political party is involved, All politicians eventually consider only one thing…re-election. It does’nt matter what their original motivation was, re-election will become their “God”…all else is secondary.

    james

  • Adam Jacobs

    “Unfortunately, we now know that around half of all clinical trials, on the treatments we use today, are withheld from doctors, researchers, and patients”

    No, we don’t know that at all. That’s a nice soundbite, but I’m afraid it’s not remotely evidence based.

    It’s possible that back in the bad old days in the last century only about half of trials were published. But that’s changed very much in recent years, and recent estimates tend to show about 80-90% of trials are disclosed.

    What’s the figure for the overall %, including old trials and more recent ones? No idea. No-one has ever calculated it.

  • Robert Matthews

    Really appreciated this debunking effort. Always fascinating to see how a myth gets started, and to have someone dig out the references. Thanks !

  • james

    Politics means self interest. Period.

    james

  • Andy Rhodes

    I’m a huge fan of this book.

    I’ve been in a weekly book group for six years and after one year of my salesmanship and heartfelt convincing they agreed to read Pinker’s exploration of the decline of violence. I’ve debated the contents for the past three years in person and online with liberals and conservatives. They have knee-jerk criticisms that they tend to maintain no matter how much data one puts forward. Of course, Pinker writes about a lot more than the data in his book. He has many theories and analyses that one can challenge. Many academically oriented people in my group did. My point is try and make sure lots more people are exposed to the overall fact that violence has declined. Then, we can listen to Pinker and others who may help us understand or formulate our own theories as to why this happened and what might be done to continue and even improve the trend.

    I’ve included a few dozen nice color charts related to the text here:

    https://persuademepolitics.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/now-most-peaceful-time-in-world-history/

    More can be found through an image search for “steven pinker better angels charts”.

    Through my many discussions on “Better Angels”, I’ve developed and revised multiple times an overview statement for the book along with attaching or copying many charts that Pinker put together. Here is my latest version:

    ——————————————————————–

    Much of the information below comes from Steven Pinker’s book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”. This remarkable text evaluates and combines the work of dozens of historians to show that, contrary to popular opinion on the left and right, the planet has become far more peaceful than in any other time in history. Terrible things like warfare, rape, murder, legal and illegal slavery, bullying, lynchings, racism, sexism and animal abuse are all in radical decline. This process started when societies began to organize away from hunter-gatherer communities between 7,000-10,000 years ago into structured civilizations, but shifted to an accelerated level of reform during the 18th century’s Age of Enlightenment and afterward. By absolute numbers and percentage of population, the trend is downward in violent behavior.

    Whether intentionally or not, the media often makes the global situation look like everything is getting worse or at least not significantly improving. That’s just not the case when it comes to acts of violence. There still is plenty of harm being done by humans to one another, but thankfully it’s far less prevalent overall than in 1965 or 1805 or 1585. Through a very large range of historical narratives, archaeology and statistics, the human condition generally reveals itself as more barbarous the further backward one looks. On a recent note, the U.S. crime rate now is half of what it was in the early 1990s. This includes places known to be more dangerous like Baltimore, Washington D.C, New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia. Between 1973 and 2008, rape decreased by 80% and murder became 40% less common. According to the FBI, from 2001-2010, the crime rates went down in categories of violent crime (20%), forcible rape (13.8%), robbery (19.7%), aggravated assault (20.8%) and motor vehicle theft (44.5%).

    When using percentage of population as a guide to study the scale of war related deaths, the worst atrocities of the 20th century don’t top the historical list. Just 4 horrific events of the 1900s make it into the top 20. Only 1 makes the top 10, as WWII ranks 9th. Archaeological evidence from almost 40 pre-state societies of eras as far back as 14,000 years ago and up to those active today show an average of a 15% violent death rate because of trauma evidence in the skeletal remains. The Middle Ages hovered under 10% and gradually lessened. The 20th century, even with all of its devastation and human suffering, had a rate of a much smaller 3%. The 21st century is astronomically low in comparison, 0.03%. That’s 500 times less than typical pre-state levels of brutality. Contrast modern levels of carnage to that of the American Wild West, where the percentages ranged up to 30% or higher in each town. England, for another example, now has a murder rate that is 35 times less than in the Middle Ages.

    The Wikipedia page about this book summarizes the proposed causes for the decline in violence:
    ——————————————–

    Pinker identifies five “historical forces” that have favored “our peaceable motives” and “have driven the multiple declines in violence.” They are:

    The Leviathan – The rise of the modern nation-state and judiciary “with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force,” which “can defuse the [individual] temptation of exploitative attack, inhibit the impulse for revenge, and circumvent…self-serving biases.”

    Commerce – The rise of “technological progress [allowing] the exchange of goods and services over longer distances and larger groups of trading partners,” so that “other people become more valuable alive than dead” and “are less likely to become targets of demonization and dehumanization”;

    Feminization – Increasing respect for “the interests and values of women.”

    Cosmopolitanism – the rise of forces such as literacy, mobility, and mass media, which“can prompt people to take the perspectives of people unlike themselves and to expand their circle of sympathy to embrace them”;

    The Escalator of Reason – an “intensifying application of knowledge and rationality to human affairs,” which “can force people to recognize the futility of cycles of violence, to ramp down the privileging of their own interests over others’s, and to reframe violence as a problem to be solved rather than a contest to be won.”

    From – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature
    ——————————————–

    For an interesting video presentation/summary of the contents of this book, see this link:

    A great web site that can be used as a reference to double-check this data is necrometrics.com, where typically a half dozen or more historians contribute their estimate on the death toll for each significant historical event. As far as I have been able to study, Pinker many (if not most) times chose one of the conservative numbers in the ranges.

  • Anonymous

    While the swift change in HE as described by the author is true, it is still true that there is something fundamentally wrong at Essex, beyond the general problems present at HE. Let’s start with the basics: Essex University – on several occasions – have breached the Employment Law with an astonishing level of arrogance and ignorance. This is evidenced by Employment Tribunal cases lost recently by the University of Essex. Unfortunately, it also seems that at least partially, these breaches of the Law were encouraged by the senior management of the University. Besides, as I experienced while working at Essex University, totally uncivilized forms of behavior and bullying by line managers are rife and tolerated. If you dare to raise your voice against any of these, you are risking losing your job, intimidation of staff is common. Decisions about promotion and dismissal are often motivated by personal reasons rather than professional ones. The British Employment Law is frequently breached. A group of employees: Part-time Teachers are treated as outside of any legal protection and their rights are often ignored.

  • Anne Murcott

    Interesting blog. But, haivng ‘left with a second prescription for a couple of days’ worth of a powerful narcotic/analgesic combination’ which gave you a severe headchae you understandably stopped taking them. Byt then you ‘threw them away’??? Where did you throw them – in the bin? into the sewer system? Should you not have returned them to the pharmacy for controlled disposal?!

    • Robert Dingwall

      Actually I disposed of them into the sewer system because the pharmacy was closed and I was leaving town. Seemed safer than adding them to the tip for the maid. Not as bad as using this route for antibiotics

  • sbk

    Psychologists typically do not provide conceptually coherent and theoretically grounded definitions for their key “constructs”. I will not debate “happiness” (a mark on a Likert scale representing what?).

    Let’s take the subject of over 7,000 published academic papers since 1970 — the self?

    I defy anyone to provide a consensually sanctioned, theoretically justifiable definition of this presumed causally potent psychological entity. You cannot. Indeed, psychologists cannot determine– within the clan- if the self refers to an experienced reality, a mechanistic outcome or sheer illusion.

    Wittgenstein saw this conceptual vacuity clearly more than 70 years ago. Alas, since then little has changed — save for the now accepted practice of populating the formerly verboten black box with stipulated mental mechanisms.

  • Vinnie

    They are not available for free. Disappointing.

  • Dr.Sandhya

    Hi,

    This is sandhya post doc fellow in economics, I find people how are having same feelings like me, today i have same problem that what next after my research. Though how good we are at our research they are no opportunities. I feel that I am over qualified. I feel it as a failure, I get weird thoughts in my mind. I Love teaching and Research . I get up set thinking what next ??????

  • Benjamin Geer

    It’s odd that this article doesn’t mention the causes of ostracism. Many people are ostracized because they’re from the wrong social class, or have the wrong skin colour, the wrong facial features, the wrong religion, etc. Ostracism is perhaps merely a symptom of widespread social inequalities and forms of discrimination. Schools are one of the places where inequalities and prejudices get reproduced, so perhaps the focus should be on that.

    The idea of a ‘designated friend’ chosen by adults sounds horribly humiliating for the ostracised child.

  • Cartel Circuit

    The link at the top of the page doesn’t relate to the content of the page, it looks like the anchor text is incorrect. Would love to know what book you were referring to.

    • Sage

      The link has been updated to refer to the book, The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth.

  • Robinson Onyango

    am an undergraduate at university of Eldoret, I that all of you for your motivation on how Quantitative skills has help u prosper in your lives. am taking it as a common course for my studies falling within the eight unit am doing. Currently am a first year undergraduate hoping to graduate in 2018 and i hope i will be like you. Thanks you all for your motivation.

  • Burcu Uzer

    I was just able to listen to this podcast and agree on the comment above. The title suggests that the podcast is about protest movements but the last ten minutes is only about the assessment of social science methodology. I would suggest a revision of the description of the podcast on the web site.
    Thank you.

  • Zomby Poet

    The real issue is violence against women.

    Ask your representatives:

    What are their views on Sharia Law?

    What do they think about the following statements:

    The West Will Tolerate Itself To Death.

    Why Do We Tolerate Violence Against Women?

    What are their plans to halt violence against women around world including:

    1) Female genital mutilation
    2) Punishing rape victims
    3) Honor killing
    4) Strapping bombs to children
    5) Sexually enslaving women
    6) Murdering homosexuals
    7) Child marriage
    8) Domestic Violence
    9) Disciplining or Punishing Wives

  • Steffen Schmidt

    Wonderful. Here is the problem. The time it would take to implement this is prohibitive for most professors. Research, papers at conferences, grants, and refereed publications are the ONLY way to get tenure and promotion.
    So what we need is gaming apps for political science that professors can download and use. Plug-and-play.

    Imagine what the world would be like if every person had to create their own custom version of Facebook or Twitter. This whole ramification needs to be “commercialized” and the sooner the better.

  • Michael Pyshnov

    The provenance of corruption in science.
    It’s simple: over several decades, scientists were removed from the administration of science, and the officials, who have nothing to do with science replaced them.
    The officials have policies and politically correct politics, they cover up the corrupton, and this is their main occupation. That’s not just in social science.

    Please, see http://www.universitytorontofraud.com
    This story and the 50 documents are prohibited for reporting in the media.
    If you like to help me, please, make an effort to publish it.
    Michael Pyshnov
    (My email is probably hacked, so, please, answer on your site.)

  • marie algeria

    As a muslim myself, i find the movie very interesting and clever. i adore chris morris’ use of humor in ”four lions” . I agree with the fact that this movie could be of great use as a base of a debate, as it could spark different opinions and reactions. Personally, I hold to the idea that Chris Moriss’s intentions are harmless and traditionally created as an eye opener. So, well done Chris and Mr. Farrar !

    PS. KashimJ you are making absolutely no sense whatsoever, and if I may pick a quote to sum up your illogical view of Islam, it would be ”Dogs contradict Islam” by Barry.

  • Ira Allen

    This is interesting to see–thanks for sharing this research!

    In such discussion, I think it’s important to recall how very different are the reading practices back behind citational practices.

    So, in much of the humanities, people primarily cite articles that they’ve read reasonably carefully and–most importantly–are engaging with in some way. Sure, you get a little drive-by citing (I’ve been guilty of it myself, as a friend recently reminded me regarding a reference I made to a book of his), but it’s not the absolute norm. Because most humanities fields don’t see knowledge as a positive accumulation of justifiable true assertions, people primarily just cite texts with which they’re engaging in making their current argument.

    By contrast, in the social sciences and still more the physical sciences, the drive-by citation (preferably multiple in one go) is de rigeur. It would be easy for a shortsighted humanist to mock that as reflecting scientists’ non-engagement with what they read, just as it would be easy for scientists to be shocked, shocked at the awful amount of humanities scholarship that simply goes unread.

    Both positions are wrong. If you are making positive knowledge, or reasonably believe yourself to be soon so, for the most part, it really *is* sufficient to scan the intro and results/discussion of papers that you pile up as evidence of knowledge about x in the world. In this case, your citational practice reflects your reading practice. And both are intimately linked with your epistemology. So, too, the humanist. The literature book that goes uncited has not necessarily gone unread. It hasn’t necessarily even been without influence. It just hasn’t played a key role in anyone’s argument yet, where arguments are a matter not of the accumulation of positive knowledge but rather of the timely and the plausible.

    I’m sincerely unsure how much scholarship–in any discipline–gets carefully read. Probably not much at all, by percentage? But I’m also not persuaded that less humanities scholarship is skimmed in a cursory fashion than is skimmed in the sciences/medicine or the social sciences. It’s just that what one does with that skimmed reading varies on the basis of varying senses of what it means to make knowledge.

    So, I wouldn’t go giving all too many points to academia’s detractors just yet. The results aren’t really in.

  • John Holmwood

    Like James Wilsdon, Robert Dingwall argues that my criticism of the narrow and one-sided report produced by the Campaign for the Social Sciences is made from a different, one-sided position, that of a Marxist-inflected commitment to public sociology. He suggests that the recent Report produced Campaign for Social Sciences “implicitly acknowledges the other criteria relevant to policy or programme evaluation: equity and humanity.” Neither of his claims is correct. There is no implicit acknowledgement of the public value of social sciences in the report other than a thoroughgoing instrumentalism; and there is no repudiation of utilitarian aims for social science or quantitative social science on my part (for example, I was an active supporter of Q-Step). My argument is quite specifically that a campaign for social science should be a campaign for a plural social science. It is Robert Dingwall and James Wilsdon who do not support plurality. And, of course, it is the public, not politicians, who, in the last analysis, fund social science.

    It doesn’t serve Robert Dingwall’s argument for “detailed empirical study” and “equal respect” for all positions that he is prepared to characterize my argument without reading it. He calls me “one of the UK’s most prominent public sociologists” and comments further that, “Reinventing a classic Marxist position, public sociologists appoint themselves to speak for those whose consciousness is false or are disengaged from the channels of influence in a society.” Perhaps I can quote from the conclusion of an article on the topic.

    “My conclusion, then, is that precisely because sociology is a contested field all sociologies—professional, no less than public—are in a critical relation with each other. The critical role cannot be assigned to one kind of sociology. However, because our field is contested, we have problems in carrying our knowledge into the public arena and having its claims accepted or its legitimacy unquestioned. I shall suggest that this does make sociology “dialogic” but it is a dialogue in which we should expect a public contestation of our claims, just as we contest the claims of each other. This does not undermine sociology as a professional practice. In contrast, I shall suggest that it constrains us to be rigorous in our practices, modest in our claims, and open to the surprise and pleasure of learning from others, including those we might construct as adversaries. We share spaces as sociologists, but we do not need to share assumptions. This suggests a revised understanding of professional “ethics.” We are members of broadly based professional associations in which we can mutually benefit from our differences. Yet, how we conduct ourselves may well have consequences for others seeking to make their different contribution to the dialogues in which sociologists are engaged. Political neutrality is central to the corporate organization of sociology, not because it secures objectivity, nor because social inquiry can, or should be, value-neutral. It is central because it creates the space for dialogue and is the condition for any sociology to have a voice.”
    <>

  • Dylan Crane

    In most of the occasion we are really worried about our career growth. Without any career goal we can’t predict any kind of success in life; therefore we need better career growth with motivation and challenges. So it is quite better to be more conscious about our career through the help of proper dedication and determination. I hope most of the people are also taking the help of different career coaching service in order to deal with their low profile career growth.

  • Mike

    “…the harder sciences engage in downward social comparison with psychology–Hard sciences seek to maintain their elevated position in the science hierarchy, and sometimes they accomplish this by disparaging the softer sciences.”

    The above unsupported opinion is not exactly productive toward lending more credibility to psychology. Most ‘hard’ scientists would read this sentence and then rightly discount this article as an example of the fuzzy thinking with which they do not care to ‘share a table’.

    The reality is that we do not yet possess the requisite understanding of the human mind and resultant personality nor the measurement instruments that will be needed for psychology to yet rise to a better status within the science community. That day may come, but rushing it only makes psychologists appear to be non-scientists, in a practical sense, who value self-interest over objective perspective. Again, this does not ingratiate them to the science community at large. A good scientist can and will always do an accurate-enough assessment of his or her field of interest. A bad scientist will rationalize.

  • Lydia Walter

    thanks Howard. I will print this so I can remember what we saw, heard and did on the trip. Very well done.
    Time to come visit with Marilyn. 703 850 6661.

  • Marc

    In my studies of sociology and psychology and some hard sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.), I’ve found an interesting distinction that I think, though the ship has sailed, would have made I think an enormous distinction as to how psychology is perceived by the public. This relates to how we perceive two groups of historically influential peoples in the history of psychology.

    The first group I will call the “Proto-psychiatrists”. The beginning student is briefly exposed to thousands of years of non-scientific explanations of behavioral abnormality, including humors, demonic possession, and the like, and then usually with Freud are told “here is where psychology begins”. I think this was the first mistake. Freud’s historical impact on and value to psychology are undeniable by anyone willing to be honest with themselves, but the problem is found in every responsible text book: no psychoanalytic theory in whole is falsifiable. Yet in modern classes, where we stress the scientific method and proper research practices, More than half of the historical “greats” in psychology–who are essentially those known (to some degree) by the public, are no more scientific than those imagining humor imbalance. Jung’s collective unconscious is no more falsifiable than Plato’s Ideas/Forms. And contemporary social influence combining with a total lack of objectivity (truly, almost complete subjectivity) without utilizing the scientific method as a framework made absurdities, such as “penis envy” possible. (And no, Horney is not an example of the science of psychoanalysis correcting itself–it was just another person who happened to have very different personal experience subjectively asserting alternative argument”.) In short, I’m going to suggest that everything I have encountered that preceded Skinner has FAR more to do with philosophy than it does the science of the human animal.

    The second group that I will mention I will call “the famous criminals”. In the article above, the author states “…even famous psychologists like Stanley Milgram are guilty [of burying data to support their hypothesis].” There are a number of studies and psychologists who are ubiquitously taught in Psychology classes around the country–Milgram, Zimbardo, and Skinner are the three most common in my experience. Their work is a collective expression in cruelty that could never be sanctioned by any ethical review board. I have frequently asked my professors “if their methods were so harmful as to necessitate the creation of these review boards, why do we continue to raise up these people as frontier heroes, instead of briefly acknowledging their work as it relates to ethics, and then use responsible, peer-reviewed research for teaching the actual psychological lesson?” The best answer (and perhaps most honest answer) I’ve received was that you can’t get as compelling results with mice, so that level or work can’t be achieved under the current ethical rules. If that’s so, it’s sad.

    I will bring my argument together and say that the psychological community had and has the opportunity as to how it wants to portray the proto-psychologists and the famous criminals. In Psych 101 terms, if instead of being the crucial founders, they had been categorized in a grouping as the conceptual precursors to what we today call modern scientific psychology, I think people who criticize psychology for not being especially consistent in its scientific rigor would have far less ammunition, and the public at large would has far few anecdotes about “legitimate” psychology which we must accept are accurate, and yet embarrassingly lacking in all of the methodological standards we cherish today.

    • Chris

      Thank you so much for this Mark! Very well written.

  • prickle

    “Is Higher Education Losing Its Progressive Potential?” Hopefully. Hopefully the terrible legacy of the New Left is finally fading. And if you are believe that higher education is a platform for your parochial political biases, then I hope you will be leaving the academy as well. Then we can get back to work.

  • Susan

    The link to the free article does not work, unfortunately.

  • Marika Rose

    There’s much of value in this description of the distortions that the REF produces, but to suggest that the solution to systemic and structural issues is individuals changing their attitudes is not only naive but potentially damaging. Academic staff under increasing pressure from institutions. We are increasingly precariously employed, increasingly anxious under the ever-growing demands from universities and departments. Individuals who fail to do what is demanded of them, however much this arises from a desire to “pursue scholarship beyond the tyranny of excellence” are punished by their departments and their universities. We’re not totally powerless, but if things are to change we have to find ways to work together in solidarity, not blame one another for capitulating to a system that is holding a gun to our heads.

  • connie stahlman

    To Dave Cantor

    You may be interested in a memoir written by a cop who was undercover for 10 years straight in Boston.

    The Passage by Phillip M Vitti- a memoir of an undercover cop in Boston in the 60s
    his email is philthepassage@yahoo.com

  • Ana MC de la Barca

    “Plagiarism of ideas may occur when an author presents someone else’s ideas…”. An idea per se is not protected by a copyright and it can be proposed by more than a person (sometimes at the same time). Therefore, it is not plagiarism until the idea is published and someone different to the author uses it without cite to the original work.

  • PRice

    At the risk of wading into a quagmire, it’s hard to take this study’s findings seriously, that there are new and significant hardwired differences in human male and female brains in additional to what we already knew, because the authors do not explain all the factors involved in why they found what they did.

    For example, can we raise kids in our culture along typical gender roles and biases, then at ages 12-14, say that the differences in their brains are solely due to their genders?

    To do so would be to ignore what is known about epigenetic and environmental influences in shaping the brain.

    http://surfaceyourrealself.com/2015/02/15/problematic-research-on-hardwired-differences-in-human-male-and-female-brains-surfaceyourrealself/

  • prickle

    This is one of the most idiotic things I have read in awhile. As a scientists, I am embarrassed that you call yourself a colleague.

  • Louwrens Pretorius

    To read:

    Matthew Crawford, The Case for Working with Your Hands
    Richard Sennett, The Craftsman

  • David Walker

    OK, here’s an argument (copiously citing journalism). Where’s the social science? What are the dimensions (or analytic basis) for ‘national tapestry’. Can the asserted contributions of overseas students be quantified or demonstrated in a rigorous way? Where’s the counterfactual against which the argument can be clarified.
    It’s good that social scientists should take part in public debate but isn’t it important that they bring authority, based on data and analysis?

  • amanda r

    Congrats to Beverly Diamond on an amazing achievement! I have a great deal of respect for her, for working so hard to promote cultural diversity in the musical field.

  • Jeff

    I agree Phillip. I think SPOCs have a future whereas MOOCs have run their race, mostly – the boosterism and rhetoric is dying off rapidly and woe those universities which invested a squillion setting them up. In fact I am going to try and turn a current subject delivered as flipped learning into a SPOC as a test. Regards, Jeff

  • Bita Shakoory

    It is an interesting view; though not a healthy approach, especially on part of women authors. I am a woman in academia, and have fought (and continue to fight) this battle first hand. My critique is that psychosocial differences between genders is very inherent to “gender”. You cannot expect women to become like men in order to be treated similarly. Just because women do not negotiate does not mean they should not be promoted. The issue is that women are penalized for the same attributes that are applauded in men. Naturally this negative response is psychologically prohibitive. So, while women’s behavior enhances the gender disparities, it is not an independent predictor of gender disparity and may well be created by the very causes of gender disparity.

    The fact is that academia (at least in medical fields) is both hierarchal and chauvinistic, and personal-favor-driven. The policy changes can help, but a good approach would be having an impartial panel of “equity committee” in each academic center to serve as a resource for people who feel discriminated against.

  • Cathriona Kearns

    I agree that WHO and indeed all multinational agencies involved in health response need to collaborate with social scientists and have representative on decision making teams. cultural indifference is something that has no doubt contributed to the spread of Ebola and is something that WHO really needs to address, not only for Ebola but for any epidemic/pandemic. Community understanding is paramount to engagement and where cultures differ on how they view the disease as is allegedly happening in guinea then alternative ways of reaching an understanding in my opinion are required. This will not only reduce risk to the communities of those affected but also reduce risk to those medical and aid workers working on the ground.

  • Jennifer Bazeley

    A more detailed article on our use of FLCs and scholarly communication was published in the open access journal “Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication”, volume 2, no. 3, and is available at http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol2/iss3/8/.

  • John

    Companies that have been part of the Malcomb Bladrige Award have been doing this since 1988. At Xerox (1989 and 1997winner) we engaged customers and suppliers in problem solving to maximize the effectiveness and build lasting relationships.

    John

  • Anonymous

    Actually, his whiteness is a massive hindrance, even if the parentage clause did not exist.
    The information contained under the heading ‘Onwards’ exemplifies ignorance of the happenings in the Zambian political sphere. Guy Scott was tolerated by the Zambians as Vice President out of respect for President Sata; also the ceremonial role of his position.
    The protests, riots and placards individuals are holding in certain areas demonstrates this.
    Zambia is not ready for a white president.

  • Elizabeth Meehan

    As a person who was active in attending meetings and seminars in the two years leading up to the referendum – and enjoying the whole experience, I pretty well agree with Robert Dingwall’s analysis. However, his use of the phrase ‘national identity’ carries risks. That is the ‘moniker’ nearly always unleashes the kind of response exemplified in some of the previous comments. For all my life, it has been regarded as a ‘fact of life’ that all Scots are nationalists, some of them seeing the national interest as best pursued through union with England, Wales and, – since 1922 – more ambiguously perhaps, Ireland/Northern Ireland – while others see the repeal of the Treaty of Union as the best way forward. This makes nationalism and unionism in Scotland different from that in Northern Ireland; i.e., as points on a spectrum rather than as zero-sum opposites. What was at issue in the referendum was, not visceral identity, but governance. Amidst a general feeling outside London and the South-East that the governance of the UK has become dysfunctional, people in Scotland, including those of other nationalities on the electoral register, were lucky enough to have a readily identifiable territorial unit as a peg on which, if they so chose, to try do do something different and better. One of the leading historians who has included in his works reference to the existence of something like the nationalist/unionist spectrum since the 18th century is Tom Devine. When he told a BBC Newsnight ‘anchor woman’ that he was a reluctant ‘yes voter’ and that it was about governance, not national identity, she wouldn’t even let him finish before turning to her other guests to try to get them to say something about the nastiness of national identity and nationalism.

  • Kitty Smith

    Add my Representative, John Sarbanes (D-MD), to the list of champions.

  • Robert Dingwall

    This really is very misleading because it assumes that the Gold model of OA is the only future. With the exception of a few biomedical funders and the UK Research Councils, Green OA looks a much more likely future and is not really a problem for those of us who do not have grant funding to pay for it – although, personally, I intend to retain my intellectual property rights rather than have my work repurposed and exploited by anyone who feels like it. One of the virtues of being independent.

  • Robert Dingwall

    Surprised to see no mention of the most relevant recent source: R. Dingwall, L.M. Hoffman, K. Staniland (eds) Pandemics and Emerging Infectious Diseases: The Sociological Agenda, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2013.

    Does nobody do proper literature searches any more?

  • KashimJ

    Muslims must protest “Four Lions,” it is insulting Muslim fighters and trying to turn people away from Islam!!!

    This film makes fun of people who dedicated there lives to the cause of Jihad and the struggle against the west & Israel.

  • Toby Rosenbloom

    As a property specialist, it is always pleasing to see the number of reported property-related crimes falling. This gives househunters looking to move to a new area confidence, while sellers can gain an uplift in value if their property is in a safe area.

  • Mathieu Deflem

    Please note that Bill’s paper on vagrancy laws was *not* influenced by Marx, because Bill had not read Marx yet at that time. It is a strange case of independent discovery of sorts. Once published, however, the paper did lead Bill to read Marx because others had begun to identify him as a Marxist. Bill discuses this strange influence after-the-facts in an speech he gave at the ASA sociology of law section. It is online via youtube.

    • George

      I agree with you here mate

  • Virgo Kyri

    The problem with both unionists and separatists is a failure to objectively analyze the philosophy behind national and ethnic identities. They are ideological constructs. One isn’t born something. One learns and chooses their national identity. They are what modern anthropologists sometimes reference as “imagined communities”. One imagines a distinct special relationship between themselves and large groups of other people based on some ad-hoc criteria. Nationalists personify themselves as if they are part of a singular organism.

    There is no Scottish values. No Scottish genes. And certainly not British ones either.

    There are genetic differences between individuals in different regions but national identity isn’t a synonym for race or breed. Humans don’t typically procreate by the rules of dog breeders. There is genetic variation between individuals of any given national identity. As a general rule of thumb, the larger the nation, the bigger the variation between individuals. This is because the probability of two humans mating weakens proportionately with distance. Our genes know nothing about national ideologies. All they keep track of is whom we have loved.

    Without a principled approach to nationalism it’s mostly incoherent gibberish and/or chest beating to argue someone is this or that. Part of the blame for this is the the inconsistent use of analogy. In the mind of a unionist… differences are trivial. In the mind of separatist they are large. They are emoting themselves to their identities by amplifying properties that appeal to them and muting properties that don’t.

    The inherent dishonesty of nationalism can be quickly uncovered by asking precise questions.How many similar genes, and which specific ones, must two individuals have in common for their ethnic identity to be “real”? Which particular values must the person hold to qualify? Which ones exclude them? Asking even the most extreme nationalists these questions will result in different answers and/or vagueness.

    Sadly nationalist myth spreading its not limited to extreme nationalists. Even mainstream press encourage nationalist myths. Irresponsible populist politicians are perhaps the worse. Every time I hear Cameron speak about the “British people” or “God” I cringe. We need more truthful language than this from our alleged leaders.

    We humans are more advanced than our ancient ancestors but there is clearly room from growth.

  • David Walker

    In their different ways, aren’t RD and SS raising the same question. Do universities in ‘our’ kind of society have a national vocation or have they floated as free of nation state identification (some might wish jurisdicton) as the big private companies. During the Referendum campaign the universities conspicuously withdrew from civic identity, both by their corporate silence and their cultivation of the view that Scottish independence ‘didn’t matter’ to their vocation. It’s a risible position. Institutions as large as the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh would bulk even larger in an independent Scotland where, unless observer behaviour during 2,000 years were suddenly to cease, their size would provoke the (nationalist) political leadership of Scotland.
    I’d love to see data on the voting of university staff in sub-elite institutions in Scotland. Anecdote says of social scientists in elite Scottish universities they were, across most disciplines, uninvolved and indifferent – getting on with preparing journal articles for elite (global = US) academic publications.
    Commentators have hailed the Referendum campaign as an explosion of public interest in politics. It doesn’t look like it provoked much soul-searching or existential inspection on the part of institutions that once (the career of Adam Smith is embelematic) embodied Scottish identity.

  • Stephen Senn

    I’m a Swiss who has an English wife and mother (neither of which entitle me to British nationality, which I don’t have), British children (born in Scotland) and a Scottish son-in-law and English daughter-in-law. I lived for many years in England and also twice in Scotland for a total of 17 years. I have also taught and studied at English and Scottish Universities.

    One particular point that the Scots and (often) the English don’t like to recognise is how much they have in common. In fact from an outside-of-Britain perspective they are almost indistinguishable: fish and chips, beer, football, betting, good sense of humour, not very knowledgeable about the rest of the world but generally very helpful to foreigners etc etc. Even the supposed difference in accents is less than claimed or at least does not follow national boundaries. A Scot from Inverness will more easily understand an Englishman from Devon and vice versa than either will understand a Geordie or an Aberdonian. (And any Glaswegian who claims to understand the Doric is a liar.) The single most important difference I have observed is that when the Scots play football the English will cheer for them unless they are playing Scotland and when the English play football the Scots will cheer for the opposition, whoever they are.

    In fact, the national differences are largely constructed and artificial. I would say that in many aspects they are analogous to the differences between football tribes. You can argue that Liverpool supporters are fundamentally different to Evertonians but the most important difference is that they have decided to be one or the other.

    Those who assert an affection for their Scottish identity do so for a particular construct, itself a reflection of many confusing accidents. For example, the language Scots was never spoken by the ethnic people the Scots who settled Argyll from the 5th century onwards but is that of the northern English and in fact was referred to as such prior to about 1500. Furthermore, many of the classics of Welsh literature come from Southern Scotland and the Viking influence was maintained in the north and west for centuries with Orkney and Shetland only being acquired by Scotland from Norway at the end of the 15th century. In fact Scots nationalists take it as being beyond discussion that Scotland is and should be what it was in the 16th and 17th centuries (with Orkney and Shetland but without Berwick) rather than what it was before or what it has become since.

    As someone who has taught in two Scottish universities and one English one I simply don’t recognise the differences to which Robert refers. Yes, there is some difference at the very beginning of study but it is much less than he claims and both offer specialised education in honours. For example, no Scottish University nor English one as far as I am aware makes any attempt to instill a knowledge of foreign languages in any science student. A Scottish university scientist will graduate from this or her university just as much a monoglot as his or her English counterpart.

    None of this constitutes an argument against Scottish independence but most of the arguments I have seen in favour simply assume the conclusion as a premise. “Scotland is a naturally independent entity, therefore it should be.” Fair enough, but if nationalists were honest about this they would recognise that there is no reason it should stop there. Simply replace ‘Scotland’ with ‘Shetland’ in any argument you use and it works just as well.

    So what it comes down to is this: 45% of the population voted for independence. I think that this is a great shame but agree it has to be dealt with. However, again, honesty is called for. If 55% is not considered an endorsement of the Union, what percentage in favour would Robert consider was an endorsement for independence and why, when almost any constitution you can think of, including that of the SNP, requires more than a simple majority to change it, was the bar set so low?

  • Engrami

    Hi! I am the founder of Engrami. We are building a product along the lines suggested in your article. We believe socialization can solve both motivation issues as well as address another fundamental motive for learning i.e. what can I do with this learning. We will be launching a closed beta soon and can be found on twitter @EngramiApp.

    Thanks
    Sandeep

  • Yaron Rosenstein

    Sorry, but all I see are declarative statesments.
    You claim social science generates empirical results, where is the evidence ?
    Social science can not be considered science unless it adopts the null hypothesis.
    Until then it is just quackery.

  • Clare Leon

    Dr. Gracia’s insights into the problems associated with the introduction of new legislation to deal with domestic violence are very pertinent. The issue lies, not in increasing the range of legal mechanisms available to victims, but in increasing effective practical long-term supports for victims who want to free themselves and their children from an abusive relationship.

  • Izzy

    Great article, I strongly agree that technology improved universities, to be honest I can not imagine universities without technology today.

  • MIKE e. OGBEIDE

    Good article this is the reason history is very critical in our lives.

  • Joanne Gaudet

    Your post hits on some of the core issues when studying journal peer review as a scientific object of study. The relational dynamics in post-publication open review with public participation are most likely to foster rational decision-making with non-anonymous referees (maximal accountability) and open access to all editorial judgements (transparency in judgement). Full access to the original manuscript also leads to greater author-manuscript accountability… Following are a few preprints I propose:

    Socio-historical:
    http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31319 – Gaudet, J. 2014. Investigating journal peer review as scientific object of study: unabridged version – Part I. uO Research. Pp. 1-24.

    http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31320 – Gaudet, J. 2014. Investigating journal peer review as scientific object of study: unabridged version – Part II. uO Research. Pp. 1-20.

    an abridged version http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31161 – Gaudet, J. 2014. Journal peer review as scientific object of study. uO Research. Pp. 1-11.

    Contemporary shaping:
    http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31238 – Gaudet, J. 2014. All that glitters is not gold: The shaping of contemporary journal peer review at scientific and medical journals. uO Research. Pp. 1-23.

    http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31415 – Gaudet, J. 2014. An end to ‘God-like’ scientific knowledge? How non-anonymous referees and open review alter meanings for scientific knowledge. uO Research. Pp. 1-12.

    Empirically investigating purported resistance to new ideas at journal peer review:
    http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31198 – Gaudet, J. 2014. How pre- publication journal peer review (re)produces ignorance at scientific and medical journals: a case study. uO Research. Pp. 1-67.

  • Stevan Harnad

    DOE: The Importance of Requiring Institutional Repository Deposit Immediately Upon Acceptance for Publication

    A peer-reviewed journal article is either accessible to all its potential users or it is not accessible to all its potential users — only to those at subscribing institutions.

    Open Access (OA) is intended to make articles accessible (online) to all their potential users, not just to subscribers.

    OA comes in two forms:

    Gratis OA means an article is accessible to all its potential users.

    Libre OA means an article is accessible to all its potential users and all users have certain re-use rights, such as text-mining by machine, and re-publication.

    For individual researchers and for the general public the most important and urgent form of OA is Gratis OA.

    The reason Gratis OA is so important is that otherwise the research is inaccessible except to subscribers: OA maximizes research uptake, usage, applications, impact and progress.

    The reason Gratis OA is so urgent is that lost research access means lost research impact and progress. The downloads and citations of papers made OA later never catch up with those of papers made OA immediately: Gentil-Beccot, A., Mele, S., & Brooks, T. C. (2010). Citing and reading behaviours in high-energy physics: Scientometrics, 84(2), 345-355.

    The moment when a peer-reviewed paper is ready to be made OA is the moment when the final, peer-reviewed draft is accepted for pubication.

    Sometimes there can be delays of months before the pubisher’s version of record (VOR) is published.

    And some (a minority) of publishers have imposed embargoes of up to 12 months on authors making their articles OA.

    The delay from acceptance to publication, and the delay from publication till the end of any OA embargo all mean lost research access, uptake, usage and progress.

    DOE and OSTI have been mandated to adopt a policy that ensures that OA is provided to federally funded research — by 12 months after the date of publication at the very latest.

    This is not a mandate to adopt a policy that ensures that OA is provided at the very latest possible date.

    Yet that is what DOE has done — no doubt under the influence of publishers.

    The interests of research and hence of the public that funds it are that research should be made OA as soon as possible.

    The interests of (some of) the publishing industry are that it should be made OA as late as possible.

    The DOA has adopted a policy that serves the interests of the publishing industry rather than those of research, researchers and the tax-paying public.

    What I am saying is _not_ that the permissible OA embargo needs to be reduced (though that would be very welcome and beneficial too!).

    What I am saying is that even within the constraints of a permissible OA embargo of 12 months at the very latest, there is a simple way to make the DOE policy much more powerful and effective, guaranteeing much more and earlier access.

    All that has to be done is to make immediate deposit of the author’s final, peer-reviewed draft, in the author’s institutional repository, mandatory immediately upon acceptance.

    Not just the metadata: the full final draft.

    If the author wishes to comply with a publisher OA embargo, the deposit need not be made OA immediately.

    Institutional repositories have an automated copy-request Button with which a user can request a single copy for research purposes, and the author can comply with the request, with just one click each.

    This is not OA, but it is almost-OA, and it is all that is needed to maximize research access, usage and progress during any permissible OA embargo.

    And besides maximizing access during any permissible OA embargo, requiring immediate institutional deposit also mobilizes institutions to monitor and ensure timely compliance with the funding agency’s requirement.

    The metadata for the deposit can be exported to the PAGES portal immediately, and then the portal, too (like google and google scholar), can immediately begin referring users back to the Button at the institution so the author can provide almost-OA with a single click until the end of any embargo.

    There is no need twhatsoever to wait either for the publisher’s VOR, nor for the end of the publisher’s embargo, nor for Libre OA re-use rights: those can come when they come.

    But immediate institutional deposit needs to be mandated immediately.

    Otherwise the DOE is needlessly squandering months and months of potential research uptake, usage and progress for federally funded research.

    Please harmonize the DOE OA policy with the corresponding EU OA policy, as well as the HEFCE OA policy in the UK, the FRS OA policy in Belgium, and a growing number of institutional OA policies the world over.

    Stevan Harnad

  • Huf, Stefan Prof. Dr.

    Dear sirs,

    free access to the article is not possible

    Best regards
    Stefan Huf

  • Professor Low

    Dear sir,

    When have you seen capital heavy and politically vested institutions react to long-term change catalysts in mere two years? Your argument reminds me of how horse-buggies were written about a few years after cars saw mass production. I hope you remember to come back to this article in ten years to verify your claims.

  • Donna

    I am looking for other Mental Health settings that have incorporated Cialdini’s Principles.

  • tiffany267

    Reblogged this on Tiffany's Non-Blog and commented:
    Capitalism is the only means to a more sustainable world. “The issue of currently unregulated, but potentially hazardous, chemicals in consumer products is not well understood by the general public, but a number of proactive consumer product companies have voluntarily adopted strategies to minimize use of such chemicals. These companies are exceeding regulatory requirements by restricting from their products chemicals that could harm human or environmental health, despite the fact that these actions are costly.”

  • Joanne Abbey

    The link is not allowing access to the full text article. Is that by design or in error? I would like to read the article please

    joanne abbey

    M +61 412 537 939 | T +61 2 9745 5583 W corporatewellbeing.com.au A po box 201 haberfield australia 2045

  • Dick Heupel

    An economic developer for more than 30 years – and a proponent of small central government – I can see the argument from both sides.
    Who would argue against federal seed funding for cancer research, birth defects, volcanic activity aka “hard sciences?” Perhaps those that forget the Department of Defense and space programs circa 1960 that fueled a tech boom in the 1980s and 90s that facilitated the gadgets we can’t live without today.
    At the same time, our modern communication devices contribute to a continued shrinkage of the globe, nearly day-by-day.
    Base-lined with widely disparate cultures, religions, and customs, count me in for a share of social science research along this lightly-trodden path.

  • shelley gilbert

    Don’t include females when you talk about violence and “humanity.” When
    it comes to violence, you’re only talking about males. Boys and men are
    violent. They are the humanity you are talking about. Girls and women
    are not violent. We like to get along. We create, not destroy.

    • John Doe

      Preach it, sister! Women can do no wrong whatsoever! They’re all perfect, saintly goddesses! Women have never done anything violent ever!

  • Jim Vaughan

    Very interesting “bite”, especially in combination with Valerie Curtis on sources of contamination. I want to propose another hypothesis, which would be that wearing Fred West’s clothing is repugnant not because something supernatural is transferred, but because we start to identify with West. Touching money he had handled wouldn’t repulse us to the same extent (yet we are as likely to get contaminated).

    Owning an original painting similarly more closely identifies us as having a special connection with the artist. It is not ectoplasm but relational closeness that is gained.

    Likewise, I would argue with West’s clothing or to a lesser extent, Hitlers cookbook. It brings us closer to them, like an actor assuming a role, for which costume and props are all important. Much less powerfully, because less uniquely, we can dress like them, or wear a similar moustache, but sharing an object intimate to them is to share a part of their identity.

  • Tony Lock

    Where has this phrase “hard evidence” come from? Is it being borrowed as a form of informal vernacular from the legal system? In my, admittedly limited, time participating in social science discourse (as a psychology major), I haven’t come across any official use of the terminology and have not seen where the legitimate use of “hard evidence” is employed.

    Can anyone shed light on this ponderance? Thanks.

  • disqus_5az3dpKpwk

    It’s the other way around: Galeano is a Nacional–not Peñarol–supporter.

  • Center for Services Leadership

    Reblogged this on Center for Services Leadership Blog and commented:
    Great to see new research that’s happening on the intersection of multiple disciplines. With large amounts of data that companies are accumulating through various communication channels finding new methods and metrics for timely and accurate analysis is becoming more and more critical. This research tested a new framework that allows to automate the analysis of customer feedback through a text mining model. The article is currently available free on Journal of Service Research website.

  • Matthew Hoffman

    I’m very glad that you have written this commentary. While none of my
    own research has involved subjects engaged in illegal activity, every
    time I go through the IRB process I am moved to reflect on what it means
    for social sciences. The examples highlighted in your commentary
    represent the experience of researchers who are sympathetic to subjects
    whose activities are illegal. Another important branch of research
    involves subjects whose activities the researcher might be strongly
    opposed to, e.g. mafia activities or insider trading, which means that the
    intended application of the research is purposely contrary to the
    interests of the subjects. In this case, although the research may be
    of great importance to society, the researcher is likely to find herself
    on the wrong side of both the law (if the research involves “deep
    hanging out”) and the IRB committee.

  • John MacInnes

    There is no such ‘clique’.
    Q-Step is about repairing the almost complete inattention to any QM in sociology degrees. Its not only employers who say this, it is graduates too, who discover that basic skills in ‘counting’ are fundamental to getting a good job.
    No ‘quants’ person who is any good overlooks the manifold dimensions of measurement error and its implications. However they also think about the implications of the only alternative: non-measurement error.

    In the natural sciences year one students spend a lot of time in the lab. They do this not to pick up vital technical skills for use in later life, but to learn that the basis of any science, social or natural, is empirical evidence, and that the latter does not grow on trees waiting either to be picked or interrogated by a would-be philosopher. Observation and measurement, how to go about it, and what can and cant be done with the results is fundamental.

    Year one of too many sociology courses: a smorgasbord of theory, largely unconstrained by anything as profane as empirical evidence (except by way of ‘illustration’) and useful mostly for penning opinion pieces in the broadsheet press.

    ‘Skepticism’ about quantification appears radical, until a little bit of thought is given to the implications. If good measurement isn´t possible, then anything, literally, goes. Climate change? Increases in income or wealth inequality? Discrimination? Evolution? All in the eye of the sufficiently skeptical beholder. This is ‘sociology’ of shock jocks, Tea Party and the Daily Mail.

  • Peter Davis

    I think there is the danger of a “straw man” argument here. I am quantitatively inclined, but I hope I am not so blinkered as to fail to see the limitations of the approach. I teach research methods, and my main goal is to try to ensure that well-rounded social science graduates are “ambidextrous” between quant and qual (at least before any later methods specialisation). What I find is that over 95% of sociology and political science graduates are essentially innumerate (unless trained in North America or certain parts of Europe). Almost all PhDs adopt a qualitative methodology. My first degree was in history, so I have nothing against qualitative approaches. The problem I have is if some core social science disciplines give up almost completely on a particular analytical skill set and thus rule themselves out of whole swathes of public and policy relevance. This is not the same thing as wishing for quantophrenia. It is just trying to retain analytical versatility and relevance in social science.

  • plant27

    The idea that quantitatively illiterate British sociologists’ “skepticism about quantification is a positive contribution to societies and organizations” is risible. Why should any sensible person take seriously criticism of quantitative social science by a professional group characterised by people who by and large cannot even read a crosstab? It is like listening to Nigel Lawson on climate change.

    I’m frankly embarrased to be part of an academic community that wears its ignorance like a badge of honour. Unfortunately this learned helplessness communicates itself to undergraduate and graduate students, and the cycle continues, with British sociology becoming ever more marginalised in how much it can influence public policy, or, let’s be honest, say anything interesting at all.

  • presidency college

    Students are studying well in India when we compare to other countries. From the school days, the students are giving more important for the studies. So when they use to join college they had already prepared well for the college life. Many colleges like presidency in India are providing best courses like mba, mca, msc, etc. Nowadays the parents no need to select the college for their childrens. Because they are more active childrens, selecting by their own.Students are selecting top colleges in various cities in India like chennai, bangalore, kolkata and mumbai.

  • stefanie Boyer

    Thank you for reblogging this, rbstat.

  • Kip Jones

    This commentary is a reworking of the script for a seminar at
    Bournemouth University, October 2010, which was the foundation for a
    Chapter in Popularizing Research (P. Vannini, Ed., Peter Lang
    Publishing).
    A Princess in a tiara and gown greeted audience members at
    the seminar; they then each received a bag of popcorn.

  • Thomas Arildsen

    For the perhaps more coding-oriented, I would add that writing in LaTeX or perhaps Markdown or reStructuredText and synchronising via Git (GitHub or Bitbucket) works extremely well.

  • Malory Nye

    Thanks, this is a very thoughtful piece that raises a lot of useful issues. Academic publishing is changing, and perhaps the comparison with newspapers is very useful. In an era of 24 hours, the online paper is continuous, and also updatable when required. The open-ness of newspapers to guest and regular bloggers and non-journalist voices is also made possible by thinking beyond the confines of what can be fitted into the print space. As also is the blurring of the distinction between newspaper and TV news.
    The framework of the academic journal does serve a particular purpose, and will continue to do so even as it evolves (or is transformed) within the context of new technologies and new cultures of academic (and information) consumption. At the heart of this are matters such as prestige/distinction and the harsh practicalities of tenure, promotion, appointment, and external (and internal) departmental scrutiny (what we have come to know as REF in the UK, the national ‘Research Excellence Framework’).
    So the development of any new journal exercise needs to be structured around 3 central questions:
    1. What is a journal for? (Why is the journal publishing papers, about what, and who for?)
    2. What is the academic threshold? This is the one that comes closest to the issue of prestige and status. But scholarship is extremely multifaceted, and goes far beyond the written word – new technologies mean that the ‘gap’ between writing and other visual and audible academic forms has become meaningless. Basically a journal can be a collection of papers, blogs, books (or semi-books), videos, podcasts, photo montages, and much more beyond that – so long as there is a sense of the academic purpose (and threshold) that unites and confirms the content.
    3. How to ‘print’? And here the question is not really about print v web, but rather web 1.0 v web 2.0 (and beyond). Can we envisage a journal becoming as interactive as Facebook or some other social networking site (which is not far from what Academia.edu is becoming)?
    The rest is, as they might say, merely economics (who collects the money) and politics (who decides what is prestigious or not).
    Thanks again for stimulating these thoughts about the future of journals. I am a journal editor (Culture and Religion, with Routledge), so I have a lot at stake here – as do all academics.

  • etseq

    Ugh…William Saletan? Might as well cite Charles Murray

  • Daniel_L

    The research is very nice to have, and this is certainly a conversation worth having. I wonder, though, whether a 100% citation rate–even in medical journals–is really a desirable goal? For two reasons: 1. Articles can have influence without ever being cited, at least in theory – they could be taught in undergraduate courses, or shape someone’s thinking in a way that’s not really cite-able in a literature review. Probably most that have that level of influence would also get cited, though. But reason 2: maybe no one’s citing those articles because no one’s doing research building on them in any way. That could be because the article is just not that interesting/worthwhile/important, but I sure wouldn’t argue that means those articles shouldn’t be published. Or it could be because that area isn’t a hot research area at the moment.

    Put another way–it’s only a problem if articles don’t get cited if we think the *reasons* they’re not getting cited indicate a problem with academia. As I understand the humanities, it’s their job to think deeply and carefully about texts/arty stuff (and teach students how to do the same). I don’t think they’re failing at that if most of their work isn’t mentioned by anyone else in some later work. The more sciencey-disciplines are supposed to be advancing our understandings of various things, so presumably most work on topic X should cite much previous work on Topic X, but not necessarily ALL previous work on Topic X. So some papers on Topic X might get read but not cited because some other papers are more important/more clear/more timely etc.

    tl;dr: I can think of lots of reasons for less-than-100% citation rates that don’t indicate any intrinsic problems with academia.

  • Art Konstantino

    This Jonathan is cool! I will turn 60 at the end of the year 2014. I recently met a very educated and intelligent woman from India. She was running for a School Board position. I complained about schools being run from Washington versus by local and state standards. She agreed. I mentioned that people have been trained to have blind faith in what they are taught and to give homage to their leaders. She agreed. Then I told her that I blamed the religions for this problem of blind faith. I explained that in normal Trinitarian doctrine, we have God the Father who watches over us and keeps and eye on things. Then we have God in the form an “only begotten of God” Son who found it necessary to be put to death because God, the Father messed up and someone had to pay for all that the children of God did wrong. Thirdly of course, there is the unseen “Holy Spirit” which God created to follow His children around and guide them because they were just not capable enough to lead their own lives. Man will always carry the burden of original sin and stupidity because of the first thinking male and female on the planet. Finally, there is Satan. He is NOT a part of the Holy Trinity but He is the smart one. He knows exactly how to mess things up. He knows how to make good people immoral. He knows how to pervert Politicians and other good men. He knows why it is OK for people to live strange and sorted lives and he capitalized on that. Satan knows our weaknesses. Enter, once again, God. God created Satan to really mess up His created children just to prove a point. “If you love me, you will keep my hundreds of commandments. If you disobey me and do not repent, I will surely destroy you in a burning lake of fire once you face Me at the White Throne Judgment!” God no longer cares whether or not you are His child. This sounds like the modern prison system, doesn’t it?
    There are four different and active characters in the brains of Trinitarians. Remember, the books say that God created Satan as well. It almost sounds like a deliberate ploy to create schizophrenic people. I know men with that problem. I understand how they became that way after interviewing them. Many of these poor guys are on so many medications. They all smoke cigarettes as their coping mechanism.
    Think about all the opinions and teachings written in books and what is written here on the internet. It is almost like Google has become God, “He who is the Source of ALL KNOWLEDGE!” Ouch, what power hath we here?
    So, all this mumbo jumbo of mine to say “I have learned what is morally correct for myself through my own journey in life. I have learned most things the hard way, which I do not regret. I am happy with myself. I am finally mentally stable. (At least I think so!)” I would like to see the world become morally stable. It will take a lot of retraining of human minds. It is worth it however as I have seen amazing transformations of peoples lives. I believe we all have a switch of a sort in our brain. We can turn it on or off at will. I recall the young boy in Boston recently that sliced up 20 schoolmates and referred to them as Plebians. He wanted to see them suffer. He wrote the note, I think, 3 days before. He had built up such a level of hatred over a period of time that he finally had enough and “threw the switch of mass destruction.”
    Finally, Jonathan, I encourage you to write a handbook. Let the handbook be simple enough for 5th grade readers to learn from. I know you are well learned. Sometimes, your language can keep you from reaching the audience that needs you most. Thank you for all your work. Don’t stop. Don’t let the Establishment dissuade you from your personal sense of intuition! Art K

  • Harald

    “Particularly within the social sciences, given the nature of the
    research, scholarship, and activism that many of us work on, to practice
    race and gender discrimination is to spit on our own Hippocratic oath.
    Our students and our peers deserve better.” Agreed.

  • Harald

    An interesting article with a misleading headline. I’ve seen the table
    from the research paper – it showed a small measured preference in
    responses to white men over white women (small, to the point that I
    could not tell whether it was statistically significant – the table
    quoted only the total sample size, not the total from each population)
    and a much larger measured preference in responses to (for instance)
    women with Spanish names over men with Spanish names (though, again, if
    this subset of the sample was small, this *might* again fail to be
    statistically significant). “If you want an academic mentor, and you are
    not, by some definition, a white Anglosaxon, there is a study that
    suggests you might be better off being a woman” would be a more accurate (and
    more puzzling) title.