Thursday, December 25, 2014

Social Science: An academic paradox

In ancient Sanskrit Literature, all the great writers like Kalidasa, Bharavi, etc. have written their epics with popular Gods as their protagonists, not because of their religious faith, but because they wanted to leverage the popularity of gods like Krishna, Shiva, etc. That's pretty typical, isn't it? Your titles and headlines should be catchy, right? Anyone from Media would know for sure.

Now that's very similar to our modern day Social Scientists. They used the word "Science" as suffix not because they have a strong unshattering faith in principles of Science, but because they want to exploit the potential of the word "Science". Science must not be reduced to study of natural facts, its an attitude of looking at our environment, an attitude which shook the foundation of Catholic & Protestant Church, and ushered in a new age called Modern age. Copernicus and Kepler weren't just some astronomy guys, they affected social institutions and social facts more than Jesus Christ or Neo-Jesus Mr. Marx! This attitude is now famous as "Rationality".

But our Social Scientists don't have this attitude at their core. They rather just chose to piggyback on the charisma and acceptance of Science. Very often we'd see people questioning the notion of "generalization". Now anyone who has even iota of faith in Scientific methods, would know that Science is essentially about seeking a pattern in things and finding a reason of that pattern and then making prediction.