A Pebble on the Beach. Answering the Critique

August 21st, 2007 Posted in Method, Social Science?

If the critique of scientific sociology were a tidal wave, the answer would be a pebble still lying on the beach.

I think of sociology as a useful craft. It is an established way to sort information into sensible patterns and so approach a satisfying and independent understanding. Like Mount Everest it is there and we climb it with the tools and equipment that are convenient and available.

But the “emperor has no clothes” critique that closed down the hard scientific sociology for its sensible practitioners has slowed the project and the question of method has become insistent.

The way of scientific objectivity in its strict sense is impossible. The biases, the flies at the picnic, always the persistent biases. They are anchored in consensus and morality. To give them up would mean a retreat from the culture bearing species that we have become.

The question: If not science, what? Hard science gives the measure of truth. If it is defective we feel we have been pushed back toward a limbo of the undecided. The preferred method gone and with it the purpose. The aspiration for a universal knowledge (the facts beyond consensus) for the socio-cultural experience is thwarted. We are in a serious crisis. The promise, the key, that opened the doors of the academies, that generated the funds and support for the work, was exactly this expectation.

The answer falls in the vicinity of two seeming contradictory alternatives: Either patch or dispatch. Fix it or replace it.

The patch presumes that the scientific way can be rescued. If there is a bias, adjust for it. If there is an error, correct it. If there is an hiatus, extrapolate over and around it. Act to mitigate all distortions, push to match the requirements of the scientific way as closely as possible. It is a search for the approximate. The saving actions are like tools in a carpenter’s box. Skillfully used they give us the comfort of the roughly right.

This shoring has been in action, I suspect, since the beginning of modern sociology. The means used are familiar.

…Anticipation and avoidance. Become expert in the pitfalls and the bumps in the road. (1) Recuse all persons of known bias or with conflicting interests; (2) Use double blind research techniques where neither data gatherers or analysts know the precise design of the research; (3) Train apprentice sociologists in the cultural ideals of objectivity personified by judges, umpires, referees. (4) Lean over backward. Distort in the opposite direction. Not perfect, but an attempt to get closer to the ideal scientific truth.

… Apply finesse. Render error less contrary to scientific purpose. For example: Bring in as research participants all factions, inclinations, interests present in the field. A voice for all interests and points of view.

…Recognize that errors may have limited consequences. The trivial mistake can be ignored. But even more significant distortions might be close enough (like a dark and fuzzy photo) to the the real to carry a useful analysis. Not a bull’s eye but within the target’s outer ring. Even half-right might be sufficient.

…Catch and correct errors that slip through the safety screens in place. (1) Use replication by independent practitioners as a test of the test. (2) Use cross-cultural and cross-case comparisons to escape the limits of the purely local. (3) With critique, subject practitioner’s methods and results to close independent scrutiny. (4) Call in outside experts to check and review and to observe directly. A direct test of the match of concept and reality.

…Alert fellow practitioners and the general public to dangers. The location of possible errors, biases, distortions may be known, like bumps in the road. Offer, if in doubt, the several interpretations possible. The practitioner brings himself and his audience closer to the complexity.

The need for the unbiased observer, the test for error, and the search for mitigations is society-wide. Everyone understands and appreciates this striving for truth because it is essential for technically correct practice and because when used with sets of known rules it assures fairness.

Still the experimental test of fact for the socio-cultural experience remains out of reach. The moral limit can not be totally circumvented, and the presence of the unique and active person is a block within the social field. The match of the experimental and control groups can not be guaranteed because of the possibility of voluntary action.

Replacement is the other approach. Here the the short-fall of the sociology and science connect is granted and the issue of finding the substitute is considered.

Other tests for truth exist. The scientific test in the material world, remember, replaced the previously dominant medieval test of faith. So the claim to be scientific can be thought of as a simple statement of commitment to this change. That it is not hard science is merely an aside. The claim to scientific status is an identification with the modern way.

There are other tests: (1) The aesthetic–the test of elegance and beauty. It is associated with art and sometimes accompanied by a test of originality, the new emerging from within the self. (2) The pragmatic test–the truth of usefulness. It is validated by a practice that appears to work. (3) Intuition–the test of feeling, experienced as a resonance of self and event. (4) Imagination–the test of the heuristic–a tracking of the as-if and its consequences, sometimes thought of as the mental experiment. These alternate tests have been in play all along, under the scientific brouhaha, often either hiding behind or confused with the scientific overlord.

I think they might be most obvious in the act of analysis which is a test in action similar in function to the experiment. The biases are still in the concepts and in the understanding but they fit the requirements of the social order in place or they fit the ideologies of some segments of the people. They have a usefulness for the moment (that can last for centuries). If and when they do not fit they become unused curiosities. Ozymandias, I suspect, had his own social theory.

Biases, errors and distortions might be blind spots within the consensus and morality shared by an observer and his group or society. The common sense, the consensus, can provide another test for truth. It may fit local experience, fall within a zone of comfort–thought of as a local truth. It might not be science but all the satisfied customers will act as though it were.

Certain conceptual and observational work either emerges from an on-going cultural consensus or successfully constructs one. The process is self-fulfilling. Culture and science become intermixed.

My own resolution of the scientific deficit includes a commitment to objectivity and to the discipline it demands. It might not be perfect but without it the sociological project becomes absurd. Observations are always to be of the empirical–that is the material objects and events available to detection by the human senses.

That error is our constant companion does not excuse known bias and fraud. Once a mistake, a false perception, an incorrect presumption, a lie, a prevarication is identified we, with our now modest pseudo-scientific pretensions, must like cowboys encountering a maverick steer, wrestle it to the ground and move it to an isolation pen, to be kept off the range of civilized discourse. Take the identified biased moments out of the game. The error could be in the identification of the error instead. We might be corralling the wrong cow.

I would weld to this the suite of alternate empirical tests of truth. They are actually at work now and have a practical usefulness. We all appreciate their limits and we must continue to harbor doubt but not let it stymie us. A tentative conclusion is a start.

Sociology is then a combo, a mestizo way, a science in attitude and a craft and an art in practice.

Altogether we have what we might call the way of reconstruction. Seek a closer approximation to logical consistency. Search out the balance between useful and doubtful. Attend all seemingly valid critiques. Use the heuristic speculation with confidence. Continue inquisitive but cultivate the ability to live with the unknown. Struggle against the fear of being out beyond the consensus.

There are other ways that vie with the scientific that tempt and attract us. They also are in play. (1) The way of power. The validity of the fact is decided and imposed by authority. My way or the highway. The sociology of the fist. (2) The way of meaninglessness. To sense the arbitrary nature of the schemes and understandings of man and to wallow in this emptiness or to establish a ritual acceptance of the current convention while reserving in one’s own consciousness its negation. It is only a game, play on. Elitist. Permits the old system to continue and leaves the vast majority of uninitiated people drenched in the old excessively error prone forms. A limp wrist sociology. (3) Carry on as before as though the critique has not occurred. Humpty Dumpty splattered on the ground is still claimed to be atop the wall. The Ostrich response. The loss of the hard science banner feels like a demotion. Confuses statistics and white lab coats with the real thing. The critique and similar palaver seem surreal. The stand pat sociology.

But these are diversions tangential to the desire to understand the plural.

Our conclusion: Sociology is not a hard science but it still mimics science with some useful, even if limited, results. It is there and is active in the common sense world. Think of it as a proximate science. A striving for objectivity in observation and concept. An awareness of the alternate tests for truth and clarity about when they are to be used and the shape of their limits. A commitment to the risks of analysis, the anti-experimental test in action. A modesty in grappling with the mystery in and around us.

Yi vaquero. Don’t fall off the bucking horse.