The Importance of Social Scientists

Clarke and Primo present a valid argument in their article “Overcoming ‘Psychics Envy.’” Clarke and Primo argue that social scientists strive to achieve “hypothetico-deductivism” in their experiments and observations about social phenomena. However, these two authors advocate that achieving this type of scientific method is not always necessary to do in the social sciences.  If social scientists always expect to use “hypothetico-deductivism” in their studies, Clarke and Primo argue that they might overlook important details that cannot be tested with this method. Clarke and Primo give a perfect example of this statement by discussing the voting system and its effects on political candidates. 

In accordance with Clarke and Primo, I believe it is necessary for social scientists to let go of their insecurities about being identified as “real” scientists in order to effectively study human nature and its social processes.  It is illogical for social scientists to use identical methods as “real” scientists, especially when one of the goals of social scientists is to critically-think about social phenomena.  This type of critical-thinking is not always present in "hypothetico-deductivism," so it is foolish for social scientists to strive for a method that is not always applicable to their field of work.  More importantly, instead of social scientists feeling inferior to those “real” scientists, social scientists should embrace their investigations about human nature as a unique and equally important contribution to understanding the world around them.