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Social Science Quotes

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Social Science Quotes

“I always believed that social science was a progressive profession because it was the powerful who had the most to hide about how the world actually worked and if you could show how the world actually worked it would always have a de-masking and a subversive effect on the powerful. I don't think that's quite true, but it seems to me it's not bad as a point of departure anyway.”

IfsThinkingWorldShowsSeemsSocialPowerfulEffectsProfessionProgressiveAlways BelieveDepartureSubversiveSocial Science
Author:James C. Scott
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“Science fiction - and the correct shortcut is 'sf' - uses actual scientific facts or theories for the source ideas or framework of the story. It has some scientific content, however speculative. If it breaks a law of physics, it knows it's doing so and follows up the consequences. If it invents a society of aliens, it does so with some respect for and knowledge of the social sciences and what you might call social probabilities. And some of it is literarily self-aware enough to treat its metaphors as metaphors.”

IfsKnowsDoeIdeasSelfEnoughFactsStoriesUseMightLawSocialFictionBreakTheorySourceConsequenceTreatsScience FictionMetaphorPhysicsAliensProbabilityFrameworkShortcutsSocial ScienceLaws Of PhysicsScientific FactsFollow Up
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“If any student of social science comes to appreciate the case of the Forgotten Man, he will become an unflinching advocate of strict scientific thinking in sociology, and a hard-hearted skeptic as regards any scheme of social amelioration. He will always want to know, Who and where is the Forgotten Man in this case, who will have to pay for it all?”

IfsThinkingKnowsMenWantHardSocialPayCasesStudentsAppreciateRegardForgottenSchemesStrictSociologyHeartedSkepticSocial Science
Book:What Social Classes Owe to Each Other
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“The Pseudo-liberals monopolize the teaching jobs at many universities. Only men who agree with them are appointed as teachers and instructors of the social sciences, and only textbooks supporting their ideas are used.”

MenIdeasJobsUsedSocialTeacherTeachingAgreeUniversityTextbooksSocial SciencePseudoInstructors
Book:Planning for Freedom: Let the Market System Work : a Collection of Essays and Addresses
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“The social sciences, like much of biology but unlike most fields of the physical sciences, have to deal with structures of essential complexity, i.e. with structures whose characteristic properties can be exhibited only by models made up of relatively large numbers of variables.”

MadeSocialDealsNumbersFieldsEssentialsModelsStructurePropertyCharacteristicsComplexityBiologyLarge NumbersVariablesSocial SciencePhysical Science
Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
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“Many of our students want to do what they have done and that has made them successful thus far in their lives: play by the rules, and do what is expected. But as much social science research and writing by Malcolm Gladwell, among others, make clear, the rules are mostly created by those already in power so obtaining power often entails standing out and breaking rules and social conventions.”

WantWritingMadeDonePlaySocialSuccessfulClearStudentsResearchStandingExpectedConventionsStanding OutObtainingSocial ScienceBreaking RulesScience ResearchResearch And Writing
Author:Jeffrey Pfeffer
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“Leaders are not modest, and more importantly, the extensive social science research on narcissism, self-promotion, and similar constructs shows that these qualities and behaviors are useful for getting hired, achieving promotions, keeping one's job, and obtaining a higher salary.”

SelfShowsJobsSocialQualityLeaderAchieveHigherBehaviorResearchNarcissismModestConstructsPromotionSalaryObtainingSocial ScienceSelf PromotionScience Research
Author:Jeffrey Pfeffer
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“I think of myself as a social scientist. In order to get hired and to get promoted, we're forced to declare a disciplinary and sub-disciplinary specialty, so I am a psychologist and I am a social psychologist within that. But I think the exciting thing is to think about the social sciences in general and the nature of society. It's one of the hardest things to think about, because our brains aren't designed to think about these emergent entities. We're not good at it.”

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Author:Jonathan Haidt
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“I wasn't looking to be an Indian brass band, but to be a band that reflected my complete identity as an American. The America I was born and raised in intersected with people of all ethnicities and beliefs and that, coupled with my parents' instilling of good values, made me the individual I am now. Within Red Baraat, there are varied musical backgrounds and personalities and that lends itself to many great thoughts and ideas; it's what makes social science, or more precisely, social interaction so interesting to me.”

PeopleValuesIndividualBeliefInterestingIdentityPersonalityMusicalSocial ScienceSocial Interaction
Author:Sunny Jain
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“I ate them like salad, books were my sandwich for lunch, my tiffin and dinner and midnight munch. I tore out the pages, ate them with salt, doused them with relish, gnawed on the bindings, turned the chapters with my tongue! Books by the dozen, the score and the billion. I carried so many home I was hunchbacked for years. Philosophy, art history, politics, social science, the poem, the essay, the grandiose play, you name 'em, I ate 'em.”

YearsArtBookPhilosophyPlayHomeNamesSocialPagesDinnerTongueBillionsScoreEmsLunchDozenSaltChaptersMidnightEssaysSandwichesSaladRelishBindingSocial ScienceArt HistoryGrandioseMany Homes
Author:Ray Bradbury
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“Human behaviour reveals uniformities which constitute natural laws. If these uniformities did not exist, then there would be neither social science nor political economy, and even the study of history would largely be useless. In effect, if the future actions of men having nothing in common with their past actions, our knowledge of them, although possibly satisfying our curiosity by way of an interesting story, would be entirely useless to us as a guide in life.”

IfsMenWayHumansStoriesWould BeActionPastLawSciencePoliticalSocialNaturalInterestingCommonExistenceKnowledgeHistoryEconomyStudyEffectsCuriosityGuidesUselessSatisfyingBehaviourNatural LawUniformitySocial SciencePolitical EconomyHuman BehaviourInteresting Stories
Author:Vilfredo Pareto
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“Social Science, is not a 'gay science' but rueful, which finds the secret of this universe in 'supply and demand' and reduces the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone. Not a 'gay science', no, a dreary, desolate, and indeed quite abject and distressing one; what we might call, the dismal science”

MenHumansMightUniverseSocialSecretIgnoranceDutyGayDemandEconomicsGovernorsDrearySocial ScienceDesolateDistressingSupply And Demand
Book:The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle
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“The next decade will perhaps raise us a step above despair to a cleaner, clearer wisdom and biology cannot fail to help in this. As we become increasingly aware of the ethical problems raised by science and technology, the frontiers between the biological and social sciences are clearly of critical importance-in population density and problems of hunger, psychological stress, pollution of the air and water and exhaustion of irreplaceable resources.”

HelpingProblemScienceNextSocialWaterStepsTechnologyPsychologyEnvironmentFailingAirDespairResourcesImportanceStressRaisesRaisedEnvironmentalHungerPopulationCriticalDecadesPsychologicalBiologyEthicalPollutionFrontiersExhaustionCleanersScience And TechnologySocial ScienceIrreplaceableDensityAir And WaterPopulation Density
Author:H. Bentley Glass
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“The second reason why we haven't observed the growing gap is that our historical and social science analyses have concentrated on what has been happening within the 'middle classes' - that is, to that ten to fifteen percent of the population of the world-economy who consumed more surplus than they themselves produced. Within this sector there really has been a relatively dramatic flattening of the curve between the very top (less than one percent of the total population) and the truly 'middle' segments, or cadres (the rest of the ten to fifteen percent).”

WorldHas BeensReasonSocialClassEconomyGrowingMiddleHavensTenHappeningsPercentCapitalismHistoricalPopulationReason WhyAnalysisDramaticMiddle ClassGapsFifteenCurvesConsumedSurplusSocial ScienceWorld EconomyCadre
Author:Immanuel Wallerstein
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“Mathematical economics is old enough to be respectable, but not all economists respect it. It has powerful supporters and impressive testimonials, yet many capable economists deny that mathematics, except as a shorthand or expository device, can be applied to economic reasoning. There have even been rumors that mathematics is used in economics (and in other social sciences) either for the deliberate purpose of mystification or to confer dignity upon common places as French was once used in diplomatic communications.”

EnoughUsedPurposeSocialPowerfulCommonEconomicCommunicationCapableRespectEconomicsDignityMathematicsDenyMathMathematicalReasoningDevicesSupporterEconomistDeliberateImpressiveRumorRespectableDiplomaticSocial ScienceShorthandTestimonial
Author:James R Newman
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“There is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the other. It's a first approximation, but one that is real. In the former, the factors of integrity tend to dominate more over the factors of ideology. It's not that scientists are more honest people. It's just that nature is a harsh taskmaster. You can lie or distort the story of the French Revolution as long as you like, and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in chemistry, and it'll be refuted tomorrow.”

PeopleFirstsLongRealStoriesHandsHappensLyingHumanitySocialDifferencesHonestTheoryRevolutionTomorrowIntegrityScientistMathematicsFactorsIdeologyFormerChemistryHarshProposeSocial ScienceFrench RevolutionApproximationHonest People
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“When man faces man the one attempts to put the other to sleep and the other continuously wants to maintain his uprightness. But this is, to speak in the Goethean sense, the archetypal phenomenon of social science. This sleeping-into we may call the social principle, the social impulse of the new era: we have to live over into the other; we have to dissolve with our soul into the other.”

MenWantMaySoulFacesSpeakSocialSleepPrinciplesEmpathyErasImpulsePhenomenonSocial ScienceNew EraUprightness
Author:Rudolf Steiner
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“The notion that every well educated person would have a mastery of at least the basic elements of the humanities, sciences, and social sciences is a far cry from the specialized education that most students today receive, particularly in the research universities.”

WellsPersonsTodayHumanitySocialEducationCryStudentsElementsResearchNotionUniversityEducatedMasterySocial ScienceWell EducatedEducated PersonArts And HumanitiesStudents Today
Author:Joseph Stiglitz
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“Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale. Medicine, as a social science, as the science of human beings, has the obligation to point out problems and to attempt their theoretical solution: the politician, the practical anthropologist, must find the means for their actual solution. The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and social problems fall to a large extent within their jurisdiction.”

HumansMeanProblemScienceFallSocialNaturalHuman BeingsPoorPoliticianSolutionsMedicineScalesPracticalsObligationHealthcarePhysiciansTheoreticalAttorneySocial ScienceProblems And SolutionsLarge ScaleSocial ProblemsAnthropologistsJurisdiction
Author:Rudolf Virchow
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“A historical perspective can also help free us from the ever-present danger -- especially at danger in the social sciences -- of absolutizing a theory or method which is actually relative to the fact that we live at a given moment in time in the development of our particular culture.”

MomentsFactsHelpingCultureGivenSocialDangerParticularTheoryPerspectiveDevelopmentMethodHistoricalRelativeExistentialMoments In TimeSocial ScienceHistorical Perspective
Author:Rollo May
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“The Spirit of Cities presents a new approach to the study of cities in which the focus is placed on a city's defining ethos or values. The style of the book is attractively conversational and even autobiographical, and far from current social science positivism. For a lover of cities--and perhaps even for one who is not--The Spirit of Cities is consistently good reading.”

BookSpiritValuesReadingSocialCitiesStudyFocusStyleLoversApproachCurrentsConsistentlyDefiningSocial ScienceEthosNew ApproachPositivismGood Reading
Author:Nathan Glazer
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