People

@article{watts2017should,

title = {Should social science be more solution-oriented?},

author = {Duncan J Watts},

url = {https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gsJRHhwcwW1C-zf3PStz1CqlVILUIitB/view},

doi = {10.1038/s41562-016-0015},

year  = {2017},

date = {2017-01-01},

urldate = {2017-01-01},

journal = {Nature Human Behaviour},

volume = {1},

number = {1},

pages = {1--5},

publisher = {Nature Publishing Group},

abstract = {Over the past 100 years, social science has generated a tremendous number of theories on the topics of individual and collective human behaviour. However, it has been much less successful at reconciling the innumerable inconsistencies and contradictions among these competing explanations, a situation that has not been resolved by recent advances in `computational social science'. In this Perspective, I argue that this `incoherency problem' has been perpetuated by an historical emphasis in social science on the advancement of theories over the solution of practical problems. I argue that one way for social science to make progress is to adopt a more solution-oriented approach, starting first with a practical problem and then asking what theories (and methods) must be brought to bear to solve it. Finally, I conclude with a few suggestions regarding the sort of problems on which progress might be made and how we might organize ourselves to solve them.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{watts2014common,

title = {Common Sense and Sociological Explanations},

author = {Duncan Watts},

url = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/678271},

doi = {10.1086/678271},

year  = {2014},

date = {2014-09-01},

journal = {American Journal of Sociology},

volume = {120},

number = {2},

pages = {313-351},

abstract = {Sociologists have long advocated a sociological approach to explanation by contrasting it with common sense. The argument of this article, however, is that sociologists rely on common sense more than they realize. Moreover, this unacknowledged reliance causes serious problems for their explanations of social action, that is, for why people do what they do. Many such explanations, it is argued, conflate understandability with causality in ways that are not valid by the standards of scientific explanation. It follows that if sociologists want their explanations to be scientifically valid, they must evaluate them specifically on those grounds—in particular, by forcing them to make predictions. In becoming more scientific, however, it is predicted that sociologists’ explanations will also become less satisfying from an intuitive, sense-making perspective. Even as novel sources of data and improved methods open exciting new directions for sociological research, therefore, sociologists will increasingly have to choose between unsatisfying scientific explanations and satisfying but unscientific stories.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}