Rejoinder to Gary Guttings Doubts about the Behavioral Sciences

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Gary Gutting, Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame, published an opinion piece on the New York Times Opinionator pages. In it he spoke of the “severely limited reliability of social scientific results” and asserted that “While the physical sciences produce many detailed and precise predictions, the social sciences do not.”

If Dr. Gutting’s assessment of the behavioral sciences were accurate, it would mean that there is little hope for society. If it is impossible, as he speculates, to rigorously investigate the factors that influence human behavior, we shall never evolve a society that has less conflict, crime, academic failure, depression, suicide, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, marital conflict, or obesity. Physical and biological science will continue to produce a steady stream of findings and technologies, but we will continue to cope with these evolving and sometimes harmful developments with no greater capacity to influence behavioral and cultural developments than was true three hundred years ago.

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