…we don't have any experience being ants or atoms, so if I tell you something about them that you didn't know, it sounds exotic and non-obvious. It sounds like science. But everyone has experience being human, and so the vast majority of findings in social science coincide with something that we have either experienced or can imagine experiencing. The result is that social science all too often seems like common sense.
As social scientists have long pointed out, however, common sense can easily support opposite conclusions — which is why politicians on both ends of the political spectrum invoke it in support of their arguments, even as they disagree bitterly.
All of this puts social science in an awkward position with respect to public perception: Answering even the simplest social science questions is painstaking work; yet the answers tend to seem obvious. Worse, when results from social science do not conform to our intuitions, our reaction is not to be surprised and impressed, but rather to dismiss them.
How can we better appreciate the limits of our intuition, and hence the need to support the scientific investigation of human affairs? One interesting possibility is raised by the arrival of "big data," increasingly derived from digital communications, social media, mobile apps, and e-commerce sites. The potential for all these data to yield insight into human behavior is tantalizing; yet, the insights are often at odds with our intuition. Clearly a more rigorous, scientific approach is needed.
As social scientists have long pointed out, however, common sense can easily support opposite conclusions — which is why politicians on both ends of the political spectrum invoke it in support of their arguments, even as they disagree bitterly.
All of this puts social science in an awkward position with respect to public perception: Answering even the simplest social science questions is painstaking work; yet the answers tend to seem obvious. Worse, when results from social science do not conform to our intuitions, our reaction is not to be surprised and impressed, but rather to dismiss them.
How can we better appreciate the limits of our intuition, and hence the need to support the scientific investigation of human affairs? One interesting possibility is raised by the arrival of "big data," increasingly derived from digital communications, social media, mobile apps, and e-commerce sites. The potential for all these data to yield insight into human behavior is tantalizing; yet, the insights are often at odds with our intuition. Clearly a more rigorous, scientific approach is needed.
- From a HBR blog by Duncan Watts, Network Sociologist
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