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Prediction in the Social Sciences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Oscar Kaplan
Oscar Kaplan*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Extract

The ability to predict events within its field indicates that a science has reached a high level of development, that its essential facts stand in systematic relationship to each other. It is important to note that prediction does not always culminate in control, but effective control is impossible without it. Thus, medicine can predict the course of certain fatal diseases with which it is unable to cope, and the astronomer can forsee eclipses and other cosmic events, yet remain powerless to intervene. Since events occurring at the human level are essentially the products of human effort and experience, it is reasonable to suppose that greater predictability in the social sciences will enhance man's control over his destiny as a social being.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 1940 , pp. 492 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1940

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References

1 J. Dewey. Experience and Nature.

2 See W. M. Malisoff's article, “Emergence Without Mystery,” (Philosophy of Science, January, 1939) for a good discussion of the concept of emergence.

3 A. Goldenweiser, “Nature and Tasks of the Social Sciences,” (J. Social Philosophy, November, 1936), Pp. 12-13.

4 K. Lewin. Principles of Topological Psychology.

5 See E. C. Tolman for a good discussion of the interaction between sociology and psychology, “Physiology, Psychology, and Sociology,” (Psychological Review, May, 1938).

6 See an interesting article in this connection by L. E. Truesdell, “Residual Relationships and Velocity of Change as Pitfalls in the Field of Statistical Forecasting.” (J. of the American Statistical Association, June, 1938).