Artifacts and Ideas by Trigger Bruce

Author:Trigger, Bruce
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Potential and Responsibility of the Social Sciences

So far we have documented that strongly subjective factors pervade most, if not all, aspects of the study of human behavior. For many archaeologists and other social scientists, and perhaps increasingly for the general public, such observations cast doubt on the possibility that these disciplines can have anything objective to say about the human condition. Is there any answer to such doubts? Can it be argued that the social sciences have an autonomous role to play in understanding human behavior?

In the physical sciences, hyperrelativism takes the form of arguing that science cannot be objectively distinguished from magic and other forms of popular belief. Thomas Kuhn (1962) and Barry Barnes (1974; 1977) have demonstrated that in terms of their sense of problem, use of metaphors in the construction of theory, and modes of shaping consensus, the physical sciences do not differ substantially from any other system of belief. Barnes suggests, like many populists before him, that distinguishing between science and other forms of belief is a spurious attempt by scientists to claim a monopoly of significant knowledge rather than a defensible operation. To this extent, the objectivity of the physical sciences has been subjected to the same attacks as has that of the social sciences and has proved vulnerable to many of the same criticisms.

Yet the most important criterion that distinguishes the physical sciences (including all forms of technological knowledge) from other (religious, aesthetic) types of understanding natural phenomena is found in their application. This application is very different from that of social science theory to political conflict and real-world economic behavior. The physical sciences are able to predict transformations of matter and energy in a precise, quantified manner and have been able to construct increasingly elaborate theoretical structures that have the capacity to transform humanity’s relations to the natural world to a substantial degree. The crucial features of the physical sciences are their quantifiability and their capacity to produce predictable and replicable results. Magic and other supernatural schemes may claim to produce similar results but they cannot do so (Childe 1950). At best, they provide vital psychological assurance to individuals or societies in situations with which existing technology cannot cope. At worst, they distract attention from the search for technological or political solutions to problems. Prayer or invoking the thoughts of Chairman Mao cannot make water run uphill, as the careful avoidance of such claims by charlatans and fanatics clearly acknowledges. While optimism may help to stimulate an individual’s immunological system, the history of population growth demonstrates that inoculation and effective garbage disposal are more effective than prayers and sacrifice. Although it is impossible for a society to distinguish clearly between its own technological knowledge and other forms of belief, it is the former that has transformed humanity’s relations with the natural world and, by doing so, the nature of human society and values (Childe 1949; 1956a).

In the social sciences, as we have already observed, the criterion of practical application provides far less convincing evidence of the objectivity of theoretical formulations.

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