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Volume CXXXII, Number 1 |
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Defending the social sciences
To the Editors:
In his convocation address, President Mills exhorted faculty as well as students to seek out knowledge in disciplines other than their own. The need for such interaction was unintentionally, but vividly, displayed in the speech given by physics professor Madeline Msall.
In her speech, Professor Msall claimed that differences in human behavior, in part because they are multidetermined and cannot lead to concrete "laws," are inappropriate for scientific study. What Professor Msall failed to acknowledge is that it is exactly this complexity that motivates social and behavioral scientists. By insinuating that social and behavioral scientists do not adhere to the model of building theoretical hypotheses and generating strong tests of their predictions, Professor Msall indicated a lack of understanding of our fields. At best, these comments were careless. At worst, they constituted a severe criticism of the work conducted by a quarter of her colleagues at Bowdoin.
It is true that an individual's decision regarding how to act in a given situation is determined by a multitude of forces. Genetic, chemical, and physiological factors play roles, as do characteristics of the situation, cognitive processes, and the developmental history of the person. In their classes, the developmental psychologists in our department encourage students to move beyond the false dichotomy of nature versus nurture implicated in Professor Msall's argument, to appreciate the interdependent and reciprocal ways in which biological and environmental processes act together to determine behavior. Such an approach, involving collaboration between the natural, social, and behavioral sciences, lends strong insight into the human experience.
Professor Msall's comments regarding the social and behavioral
sciences were especially surprising, since she noted early in her speech
that following the scientific method holds promise for conquering problems
such as racism and poverty. Through the use of scientific methodology,
economics professors at Bowdoin predict the responses of consumers, government
professors at Bowdoin enhance our legislature's ability to evaluate policy
to alleviate social ills, and sociology professors at Bowdoin study processes
critical in the design of programs to combat racism and sexism.
Because a primary purpose of her speech was to encourage female undergraduates
to consider careers in science, it is particularly troubling that she
chose to dismiss fields in which the numbers and prominence of women equal
or surpass men. By suggesting that scientists are defined by whether or
not they wear white coats, Professor Msall did a disservice to the legions
of psychologists, sociologists, economists, political scientists, and
anthropologists who happen to be women. If her goal was simply to encourage
young women to study the natural sciences, then it seems to us that the
social and behavioral sciences need not have been mentioned by her at
all, or at least not discussed in a pejorative way.
Paradoxically, Professor Msall asserted that social forces have played a strong role in discouraging young women who show promise in science from fulfilling this potential. Presumably, Professor Msall arrived at this belief through her (perhaps limited and selective) exposure to social science. It is equally ironic that she used the science of cognitive psychology to put forth her claims about the nature of everyday problem solving with all the conviction that this science warrants. Thus, Professor Msall appears to dismiss, or at best diminish, behavioral science while at the same time using findings from this science to support her thesis.
It would have been helpful if Professor Msall had, at the outset of her talk, put forth her formal and explicit definition of science itself. If, as she suggested, her criteria of scientific inquiry include the ability to generate universal causal laws and to predict with one hundred percent certainty the outcome of any individual case, then we are left to wonder whether many areas of inquiry in biology, chemistry, and even physics meet her criteria.
Professor Barbara Held,
Professor Suzanne Lovett,
Professor Sam Putnam,
Professor Louisa Slowiaczek,
Psychology
Professor Seth Ramus,
Professor Rick Thompson,
Professor Jennifer Yates,
Psychology/Neuroscience
To the Editors:
Consider medical diagnostic tests. Though few are 100 percent accurate,
they still help us find hidden medical problems.
Sensitivity measures how often such tests give correct warnings. A test
with 80% sensitivity correctly identifies 80 of every 100 people who have
the medical problem. But we also hope to avoid falsely "diagnosing"
people who are problem-free. Specificity measures how often tests produce
negative results, among problem-free people. Clearly, useful tests are
both sensitive and specific.
Here's a puzzle. Suppose a symptom-free virus appears among 10 percent
of adults; the corresponding test has 80 percent sensitivity and 80 percent
specificity. When someone receives a positive test result, what is her
true probability of having the virus: 30 percent? 57 percent? 80 percent?
This puzzle relates to work done by several groups of scientists. Medical
researchers who develop diagnostic tests qualify, as do epidemiologists
who track pathogens across populations. Physicians using diagnostic tests
in clinical practice function, in some ways, as scientists.
Social and behavioral scientists also qualify. In studying how people
interpret test results, they pursue the same fundamental scientific goal
Professor Msall described in her Convocation address: finding general
laws that explain observed regularities of events.
Social and behavioral scientists also use the same intellectual tools
any scientist uses: logic, open procedure, observation and measurement,
controlled experimentation, specialized language, and mathematics. To
be sure, we go about our tasks in distinctive ways. Few observers would
mistake basic economics for basic psychology, either field for physics,
nor any of these fields for epidemiology or medicine. But beyond particularities,
our fields embrace in common the methodology of science, and for the same
reason: because it works.
Psychologists recently presented the virus puzzle to several samples.
77 percent of undergraduates answered incorrectly. So did 50 percent of
senior scientists at the National Institutes of Health. So did 68 percent
of practicing physicians.
Disturbing findings such as these lead social scientists to work hard
- really hard - studying human reasoning, and through theory formulation
and hypothesis testing, finding its origins. In fact, social and behavioral
sciences study all domains of human affairs. Why? Because behavior has
important consequences: who wants to hear she has an 80 percent chance
of carrying a virus, when the true probability is 30 percent? But we also
are inspired by the abundance of fascinating, accessible questions about
the human condition. Slowly but surely, through research guided by the
principles of science, we find answers. You are welcome to join us.
Sincerely,
Paul Schaffner
Psychology Department