Social Research: Science or Story?

Peter Edman

In preparing for our new curriculum on technology, I’ve been reading Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by the late Neil Postman. Am particularly struck by his (hopefully famous by now) discussion of “scientism” in chapter 9, which talks about the way current Western societies tend toward the presumption that the only legitimate knowledge is scientific knowledge. 

The effect of this presumption is to deny the possibility of meaningful knowledge resulting from such human activities as literature, religion, and myth— “scientific hubris” is the term he uses. Postman particularly notes this effect in the rise of the “social sciences”, which he suggests are less science than storytelling. They never produce falsifiable findings. At best their studies rediscover “facts” that were obvious to traditional human wisdom (James Taranto, please call your office). Worse, their stories are packaged in a manner that is frequently boring and generally self-deceptive. 

It’s hard to find just one quote, but perhaps this one will do:

Why do such social researchers tell their stories? Essentially for didactic and moralistic purposes. These men and women tell their stories for the same reason the Buddha, Confucius, Hillel, and Jesus told their stories (and for the same reason D. H. Lawrence told his). It is true, of course, that social researchers rarely base their claims to knowledge on the indisputability of sacred texts, and even less so on revelation. But we must not be dazzled or deluded by differences in method between preachers and scholars. Without meaning to be blasphemous, I would say that Jesus was as keen a sociologist as Veblen. Indeed, Jesus’ remark about rich men, camels, and the eye of a needle is as good a summary of [Thorstein] Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class as it is possible to make. As social researchers, Jesus and Veblen differed in that Veblen was more garrulous.

Postman’s discussion of why social researchers pull the mantle of science over themselves—and why we encourage them to do so—is worth the price of the book. He suggests among other things that the false label “science” obscures the good that social research does.

His comment on Jesus also brings to mind a saying of Dallas Willard (paraphrased): when we think about Jesus, we often do not remember that he is actually smart; this recognition should have some impact on the way we live our lives. 

Fodder, Faiths and Worldviews, Society, Science and Technology, Fri 27 May 2005