The Lively Science

Take human social sciences out of the lab and into the world!

Frustrated that “the numbers” don’t solve the problem? Wondering why policies and programs don’t work on the ground? Shaking your head at who they told you to call and the help you didn’t get?

People, organizations, countries--they rely on information about real human social lives. Usually they don’t have it. There’s no excuse for this. A different kind of human social science was proposed in the 19th century. It requires research to begin and end in the real worlds of the humans that it claims to be about.

The Lively Science, written as a conversation with a general reader, revisits the historical roots, blends in new intellectual tools, and argues that it’s time to get on with a more productive human social science that changes objects into subjects and learns who they are and what they’re trying to do before conclusions are drawn and action is taken.