What Kind of Science?
How Scientific are Different Social Sciences?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session James Clark
Grouping of academic disciplines reveals a hard/soft dimension that orders disciplines (Biglan, 1973): natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Subsequent research has confirmed that this dimension reflects how scientific or empirical disciplines are, one indicator being the prevalence of graphs in journal articles. The scientific status of disciplines also varies within the broad categories, although the ordering is inconsistent across studies and recent decades have witnessed strong challenges to empiricism in some social sciences. The present study examines the prevalence of data graphs and tables in introductory textbooks from four social sciences: psychology, sociology, politics, and anthropology. Graphs were much more common in psychology and sociology than in politics and anthropology, suggesting that initial exposure to the empirical status of the social sciences varies markedly. Moreover, students have different opportunities to develop competencies in the interpretation of graphs, a major communication tool in science. The prevalence of tables was much lower with a different pattern of results. The findings support other research on variation among social science disciplines in their commitment to an empirical or scientific approach, with implications for epistemology, teaching, and interdisciplinary studies.
Evolutionary Thought and Transdisciplinary Practices
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chessa Adsit Morris
"I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them" (Charles Darwin c.1896). My paper discusses a research project aimed at establishing transdisciplinary research tools and methods to creatively explore existing systems of meaning-making (social, cultural, political and aesthetic), critically analyzing normative conceptions of evolution founded upon human exceptionalism and competitive individualism, in order to restructure our collective imaginations. Darwin’s conception of evolution introduced a mode of thinking that transformed the logic of knowledge, influencing theoretical, conceptual and processual understandings in fields as broad as linguistics, education, psychology, art history and engineering. Drawing on current research in Ecological Evolutionary Developmental biology (which is calling for a “post-modern synthesis”), my research focuses on bringing together scientists, philosophers, artists, activists, and cultural practitioners in order to create new conceptual, theoretical, methodological, practical and translational understandings of evolution. This is an attempt to counteract the normative and conservative modes of thought and practice that have proliferated over the last 150 years, and denaturalize the logics of endless growth and exploitation proliferating under advanced capitalism, both of which have led to environmental degradation and catastrophe. The ultimate goal is to utilize these new understandings to reimagine forms and processes of governance, education, and economics in innovative ways.
