abril de 2004 - CCHLA - Universidade Federal da ParaÃba

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Generated by Foxit PDF Creator © Foxit Softwarehttp://www.foxitsoftware.com For evaluation only.copy the statistical part of Durkheim’s study of suicide,attempting to explain complex human conduct by usingonly social variables. But the upshot is that only a tinyproportion of the variance is accounted for.The 1967 study may be the high water mark in thisregard, since class of origin accounts for 16% of thevariance, about twice as much as in the Durkheim study,and replications. Still, the findings do not account for themajor forces at work in shaping income. As far as I know,there have been no studies of the role of luck, pluck,obsession, and so on, in addition to social class, in thebuilding of fortunes.The way in which human science imitates methodsof the founders recalls an episode that occurred during mydays as a physicist. Our lab in Berkeley was built around a60-inch cyclotron, at the time the biggest in the world.When a group of Japanese scientists decided to build theirown, they copied the cyclotron mechanically, including ahole in the magnet, an abysmal error. Like this group ofscientists, most human science copies the errors of thefounders, as well as their advances.The French philosopher Emile Chartier observedthat "Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’sthe only one you have" (circa 1910). He may not havehad the disciplines and sub-disciplines in mind, but hisobservation fits exactly. Specializing in a single aspect ofknowledge is usually a good idea at the time it isundertaken, but ultimately comes also to be animpediment to advance in knowledge. The original goodidea is often used as a shield against other, equally goodideas.Perhaps at this point the only way to generateresults that might explain the major causes of a socialphenomena would be to utilize variables from all therelevant disciplines. If economic, psychological, and socialvariables each contributed some 12% of the variance, andthe interaction between the three, say 15%, one wouldhave accounted for more than half of the variance. In thiscircumstance, it would be unlikely that an importantcausal factor had been omitted.I have been unable to find a study involving threedisciplines in this way. But recent studies of health levels114
Generated by Foxit PDF Creator © Foxit Softwarehttp://www.foxitsoftware.com For evaluation only.of welfare recipients in Sweden combine economic andpsychological variables (Starrin, et al 1997, 2000, 2001and additional publications in Swedish). Their basicfinding, that shame and financial stress together predictpoor health far better than either variable alone, has beenreplicated in different populations.In addition to the integration of human sciencedisciplines, a second task may be still be conceptual, andtherefore, pre-scientific. The scientific approach isorganized in terms of theory, method and data. But thesetools are weak until concepts have been clearly defined,because scientists, like everyone else, live in theassumptive world of our own culture. The ocean ofassumptions that each culture reflects and generates arevirtually invisible. Unless these assumptions are identifiedand discussed, the tools of science may merely uphold thecultural/social status quo, rather than breaking newground. In Mannheim’s sense, they are ideological, ratherthan utopian.The way that cultural assumptions impede sciencehas been nicely caught by the philosopher Quine:The neatly worked inner stretches of science are anopen space in the tropical jungle, created by clearingtropes [metaphors] away" (1979, p. 160).That is to say, it usually happens that beforescientific procedures are applicable, a ruling trope has tobe overthrown. Quine’s formulation captures the radicallyintuitive element necessary for scientific advance. Tropesare linguistic/mental routines that both reflect and hidecultural assumption.Perhaps Erving Goffman’s work is a model in thisregard, since it has de-routinization as its main goal(Scheff 2003). Each study can be seen as deconstructinglay and social sciences tropes, rather than establishingtheory, method or data. His favorite trope was theWestern individualized idea of the self. The self or person,he proposed in many different contexts, can just as easilybe seen as a social arrangement. He also attackedestablished social institutions, such as sex roles andmental illness. This goal would explain why he seemed tostart afresh with each work. "Look," he could have said,"We need to construct alternative universes. That’s why I115
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abril de 2004 - CCHLA - Universidade Federal da ParaÃba