Some social science links of interest
- Nature has an editorial about why investment in the social sciences must accompany investments in the sciences.
If you want science to deliver for society, through commerce, government or philanthropy, you need to support a capacity to understand that society that is as deep as your capacity to understand the science. And your policy statements need to show that you believe in that necessity.
To many in my world, this is unlikely to be a particularly surprising statement, but one need only glimpse at the comments that follow to appreciate how controversial the idea seems to some.
- The New Yorker has a long piece about the sociologist Howard Becker and his work about what it means to be a “deviant.” Certainly if you’re a sociologist, it is unlikely that you would not have encountered his work at one time or another during your training at minimum thanks to his helpful tips on how to write as a social scientist.
- The Pew Research Center has an interesting new position of “Director to lead the creation of the Pew Research Center Labs.”
- The new open-access journal Social Media + Society is now ready for submissions (submission fees waved for now).