Diana Hicks (Georgia Tech): The Four Literatures of Social Sciences. From the SSRC's Public Sphere Forum, Craig Calhoun on Social Science for Public Knowledge; and Herbert Gans on A Sociology for Public Sociology. A review of The Bounds of Reason: Game Theory and the Unification of the Behavioral Sciences by Herbert Gintis (and more at Gintis' website). "Scientific fundamentalist" Satoshi Kanazawa on how the social sciences are branches of biology (and part 2). In search of singular insight: Social sciences have advanced little because inquiry and discovery are stifled by "theory" and "the search for order" in the academy. A review of There is No Such Thing as a Social Science by Phil Hutchinson, Rupert Read and Wes Sharrock. A review of The Predictioneer's Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. Social science on trial in Tehran: Max Weber, political subversive — or so he's labeled in Iran, along with plenty of other social theorists. From THES, searching for the resting places of two greats of human sciences, Yiannis Gabriel unlocks the door to Freud and keeps left for Marx; Matthew Reisz meets reluctant Facebook darling Andy Field, the Harry Potter of the social sciences. An interview with Eszter Hargittai, editor of Research Confidential: Solutions to Problems Most Social Scientists Pretend They Never Have (and more). From New Statesman, Vernon Bogdanor on the battlefield of ideas: Paradoxically, if the universities wish to become more influential in government, they must first become more independent of it. UIC's Barbara Risman on bringing social science to the White House. Quote of the day: "Thou shalt not commit a Social Science".
