{"id":23,"date":"2010-08-10T13:39:08","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T18:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/?p=23"},"modified":"2010-08-10T16:08:27","modified_gmt":"2010-08-10T21:08:27","slug":"its-complicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/2010\/08\/10\/its-complicated\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Complicated"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook users\u00a0only have\u00a0seven options\u00a0to characterize\u00a0their relationship status: single,\u00a0 in a relationship, in an open relationship, engaged, married, widowed, <\/em>or it’s complicated<\/em>. Nobody would\u00a0view these categories\u00a0as exhaustive or mutually exclusive (whose marriage isn’t complicated?), but they convey information\u00a0about\u00a0exclusivity and commitment, which tells\u00a0readers something useful about the state of a relationship.<\/p>\n

When people like us write for blogs<\/a> or public outreach publications like Contexts<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0a big part of the job is characterizing a different sort of status — how much we really know about a particular issue or question. The best writers bring an authoritative voice and perspective to an issue, but they\u00a0also\u00a0try to offer a “fair read” of the field.\u00a0We like to think The Community Pages<\/a> at The Society Pages are both provocative and responsible — provocative in engaging social questions, but responsible in characterizing what we know and don’t know about the answers.<\/p>\n

When\u00a0academics think\u00a0we’ve mischaracterized the state of knowledge,\u00a0they\u00a0can weigh in with counter-evidence and strong commentary. In forums like this, non-academics\u00a0can also sniff out potential biases and\u00a0join the debate; though they\u00a0are generally at a disadvantage\u00a0in judging a scholar’s\u00a0reading of the social-scientific literature, other commenters may also have broad perspective,\u00a0 opinions, and ideas to share. So it is all the more important to support and recruit bloggers\u00a0who write\u00a0with a clear and informed vision of the social science research in their area.<\/p>\n

In principle, we could\u00a0imagine Facebook-style drop-down menus to help categorize\u00a0the state of knowledge\u00a0on particular questions. These might offer status indicators and updates, such as<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. the\u00a0question is settled <\/em>after extensive study;<\/li>\n
  2. a preponderance of evidence<\/em> supports a particular answer;<\/li>\n
  3. it’s complicated<\/em> but we’ve got some good leads; or,<\/li>\n
  4. we’ve got\u00a0nothing<\/em> yet that would help answer the question.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Unfortunately, when reporters ask social scientists a concrete question about the social world, our default knee-jerk\u00a0answer is\u00a0to say that\u00a0“it’s complicated” and leave it at that.\u00a0In fact,\u00a0we might go on to say, the answer is so spine-crushingly complicated\u00a0that\u00a0any anwer we might provide would only confuse and bewilder a general audience.<\/p>\n

    But some social scientists, in these pages, the blogosphere, and the popular press, effectively employ their training and experience to offer compelling and useful insights.\u00a0They know their areas,\u00a0address provocative questions, and\u00a0engage them with informed commentary.\u00a0And they don’t rely on a lazy positivism or simple tally of studies to guide them in characterizing a field. The best among them offer a fifth status alternative —\u00a0we need to think about this differently<\/em>\u00a0— that breaks out of the fixed-choice status box.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    In reframing the world’s questions and events,\u00a0the\u00a0finest blogs and commentary\u00a0offer synthesis and interpretation that conveys how we think<\/em> as social scientists, as well as what we know.\u00a0Such work is more subtle and demanding than checking a box,\u00a0but it\u00a0can yield\u00a0a different and profoundly useful way to see a problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Facebook users\u00a0only have\u00a0seven options\u00a0to characterize\u00a0their relationship status: single,\u00a0 in a relationship, in an open relationship, engaged, married, widowed, or it’s complicated. Nobody would\u00a0view these categories\u00a0as exhaustive or mutually exclusive (whose marriage isn’t complicated?), but they convey information\u00a0about\u00a0exclusivity and commitment, which tells\u00a0readers something useful about the state of a relationship. When people like us write for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}