The Production of Knowledge Enhancing Progress in Social Science
Part of Strategies for Social Inquiry
EDITORS:
Colin Elman, Syracuse University, New York
John Gerring, University of Texas, Austin
James Mahoney, Northwestern University, Illinois
DATE PUBLISHED: March 2020
AVAILABILITY: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
FORMAT: Adobe eBook Reader
ISBN: 9781108807555
Whilst a great deal of progress has been made in recent decades, concerns persist about the course of the social sciences. Progress in these disciplines is hard to assess and core scientific goals such as discovery, transparency, reproducibility, and cumulation remain frustratingly out of reach. Despite having technical acumen and an array tools at their disposal, today's social scientists may be only slightly better equipped to vanquish error and construct an edifice of truth than their forbears – who conducted analyses with slide rules and wrote up results with typewriters. This volume considers the challenges facing the social sciences, as well as possible solutions. In doing so, we adopt a systemic view of the subject matter. What are the rules and norms governing behavior in the social sciences? What kinds of research, and which sorts of researcher, succeed and fail under the current system? In what ways does this incentive structure serve, or subvert, the goal of scientific progress?
Social science is simultaneously more successful and more troubled than ever before. This welcome collection of essays, on different aspects of the social structure of social science, is helpful for understanding what's gone wrong and how we can do better. Andrew Gelman, Professor of Statistics and Political Science, Columbia University
DATE PUBLISHED: March 2020
FORMAT: Adobe eBook Reader
ISBN: 9781108807555
CONTAINS: 11 b/w illus. 20 tables
AVAILABILITY: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
