A CURRENT APPRAISAL of the Behavioral Sciences Revised Edition by ROLLO HANDY and E. C. HARWOOD First Edition by ROLLO HANDY and PAUL KURTZ BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH COUNCIL Great Barrington, Massachusetts Copyright © 1973, by Behavioral Research Council, Great Barrington, Mass. 01230 Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 73-79255 International Standard Book Number 0-913610-01-1 Manufactured in the United States of America PREFACE HE Behavioral Research Council is a private the various sections. In the preparation of the revised nonprofit research and educational institution edition, additional consultants criticized the chapters as T designed to promote and to carry on research into they appeared in the first edition. the problems of men in society. Its aim is to supplement rather than duplicate the work of existing agencies. The following individuals served as consultants for either the first or the revised edition: G. Lester Anderson, A canvass of current agencies showed that such Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, J. Leonard Bates, Samuel H. Beer, supplementing seems most needed on long-term and Frederick K. Beutel, Robert Bierstedt, Hadley Cantril, large-scale social research that requires and would develop John B. Carroll, Joseph B. Gasagrande, Alphonse the most useful interdisciplinary methods and the most Chapanis, F. Stuart Chapin, C. West Churchman, Jere W. talented researchers to direct such inquiry. The BRC Clark, Henry V. Cobb, William K. Estes, Robert E. L. therefore seeks to supplement the present agencies: (1) Faris, Ralph W. Gerard, John P. Gîllin, Bertram Gross, through gathering funds and resources on a massive scale George C. Homans, John Kirk, Samuel Krislov, Bert eventually, however modest at the start; (2) through James Loewenberg, David G. MandelL·aum, Robert D. diorough research training of talented youth who would Meade, Delbert C. Miller, Richard K. Morris, George P. be well supported for such complex inquiry; (3) through Murdock, George H. Nadel, Martin Neumeyer, Henry far-reaching research projects commensurate with man's Ladd Smith, Walter E. Spahr, George A. Theodorson, major problems, carried through to publication of Richard T. Vann, and John E. Weinrich. scientifically warranted information on the probable costs and consequences of alternative courses of action. The The Council is grateful for the work of the consultants very remoteness of these goals makes it the more urgent and acknowledges its indebtedness to them.. However, the that some supplementing agency begin work along these consultants are not responsible for the final wording of lines promptly. the reports and should not be understood as necessarily agreeing with the views expressed in them. The authors of the first edition of A Current Appraisal of the Behavioral Sciences undertook the extensive BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH COUNCIL investigations and writing involved. Their first drafts were subsequently reviewed in detail by the Behavioral Research Council. After the manuscript was thus Alfred de Grazia processed, the various sections of it were sent to leading Stuart C. Dodd scientists in all fields covered. These individuals, who are Rollo Handy listed separately as consultants, were given research grants E. C. Harwood to cover their time-consuming work involved in reviewing Paul W. Kurtz CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: MODERN SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY vii Ch. 1 PROCEDURES OF INQUIRY INTO HUMAN BEHAVIOR 1 Ch 2 PSYCHOLOGY 15 Ch 3 ANTHROPOLOGY 27 Ch 4 SOCIOLOGY . 37 Ch 5 POLITICAL SCIENCE 48 Ch 6 ECONOMICS ... 58 Ch. 7 HISTORY 71 Ch. 8 JURISPRUDENCE 79 Ch 9 LINGUISTICS 87 NOTE ON THE NEWER FIELDS 95 Ch 10 GAME AND DECISION THEORY 97 Ch. 11 INFORMATION THEORY AND CYBERNETICS 106 Ch. 12 GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY . .H6 CONCLUSION 123 APPENDIX: TRIAL NAMES 127 INDEX 137 INTRODUCTION MODERN SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY Y the mid-Twentieth Century the inquiries of men inquiry satisfactory to them have yielded ultimate truth. into problem átuations had achieved enough The procedures of inquiry suggested herein are radically B success to encourage hope for rapid progress. The different and apparently are the only ones that provide new developments are perhaps the most important for continuing development including revision as may be “breakthrough” in the long history of man's evolutionary advisable for themselves as methods as well as for the progression. When the significant features are generally findings of inquiry. understood and applied, inquirers into the problems of men in society may become as successful in developing Traditional Inquiry warranted assertions as the physical scientists and the The record of man's inquiries into problem situations physiological scientists have been in recent centuries. extends back only a few thousand years. Of course, such A highly important aspect of the new developments in inquiries had been developing for uncounted centuries inquiry is reorientation to a different goal. Apparently, since the beginning of man's existence; but the details of from the beginning of men's inquiries into problem earlier inquiries we can only infer from the artifacts that situations, the accepted objective was TRUTH or absolute have been discovered. By the time written records were certainty. By the time written records were kept, that consistently kept in a form available for future goal was unquestioned. Moreover, the quest for certainty generations, the early Greek philosophers had developed was the accepted goal even of the relatively modern their ideas as to the proper objective of inquiry. scientists during recent centuries. The different goal now To those early philosophers, the situation seemed clear. accepted by those who have pioneered in the latest The natural things they encountered were always advances in inquiry is simply a description of what changing, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly. Ob- happens under specified circumstances. viously, the early philosophers concluded, knowledge of Ascertaining what happens is part of the scientific what always is in the process of becoming something inquirer's job, but his task is not completed until he has different cannot be eternal, absolute, and certain. Real provided a scientifically useful description of his findings. knowledge, they assumed, must be about Being, an Scientifically useful” designates a description that can be imagined realm, eternal and unchanging, that men can used by others as well as the inquirer concerned for seek to know with absolute certainty. rechecking the inquiry, or for further inquiry, or for In short, the early Greek philosophers accepted as the modifying either external events or internal adjustive proper objective of serious inquiry what Dewey some two behavior. thousand years later referred to as the “quest for The objective of scientific inquiry here suggested does certainty.” That certainty was attainable, that absolute not include achievement of “knowledge” in any absolute TRUTH could be found, seemed to be assured by the then or final form. The reports of scientific inquiry are new development of mathematics with its apparently invariably provisional, always subject to revision if and error-free modes of proceeding from the supposedly when better means of observation and measurement or known to the formerly unknown. What followed has been other improvements in procedures of inquiry make well described by Dr. Joseph Ratner.* possible more useful descriptions of what happens under specified circumstances. “Now the Greek theory of eternal and immutable A second important characteristic of the suggested Being and its antiphonal spectator theory of mind entered procedures of inquiry is that they are self-corrective; that into the bloodstream of modern thought at its very is, included among them are the procedures for correcting inception. They entered not only by way of philosophy them. Men have used various methods of inquiry and religion, in which fields they had luxuriantly including those of common sense, of revealed religion, of flourished under the fervid care of medieval logicians and secular revelations, of seeking the aid of spooks and theologians; more importantly, they entered by way of fairies, of consulting the oracles, of Aristotelian logic, of science—more importantly because totally unsuspected the philosophers' quest for certainty, and of Newtonian and unacknowledged there. mechanics, to name a few. By one or more of these or ***** other means men have claimed to find certainty, and have “The founders of modern science made a great show earnestly offered verbiage to embalm their findings in a of being pure and uncontaminated philosophically. With copper-riveted, indestructible, and forever established one accord they attacked philosophy which meant, for form, never to require amendment, updating, or recon- them, medievalized Aristotelian logic and its stifling sideration. progeny. ... In their march against the powers of Some men have been so sure that the methods of darkness they were guided by the lamp of Euclid which inquiry satisfactory to them had yielded absolute certainty that they have tied skeptics among their fellow *"Introduction to John Dewey's Philosophy,” in Joseph Ratner, ed., Intelligence in the Modern World, New York, Modern Library, men to stakes and burned them; and, although these are 1939. Ratner's Introduction is reprinted inB.ollo Handy andE< C. glaring examples, they may well be among the less Harwood, Useful Procedures of Inquiry, Great Barrington, harmful actions, all things considered, that men have done Behavioral Research Council, 1973;