Professor Mark Solovey Interviewed for UofToronto News Article

April 8, 2022 by Adriana Leviston

Mark Solovey, historian of the social and psychological sciences, was interviewed for a UofT news article about his recent book Social Science for What? Battles over Public Funding for the "Other Sciences" at the National Science Foundation (MIT Press)  https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/social-science-what  The resulting article draws attention to three key points.  First, since the mid-20th century, NSF has played a crucial role in providing funding for the social sciences in a way that places them within a larger scientific enterprise led by the natural sciences; second, rooted in this "scientistic" outlook, NSF's  strategy for promoting the social sciences developed, at least in part, as a defensive measure to ward off criticisms that this branch of scholarship was less than scientific, perhaps more akin to ideology or politics than to objective, rigorous inquiry; third, in order to establish a more robust approach to social science funding, Solovey recommends the establishment of a new scientific agency within the U.S. government, a National Social Science Foundation.   

https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/news/new-book-examines-history-american-social-science-and-argues-better-governmental-support

https://www.utoronto.ca/news/hampered-scientism-u-t-researcher-examines-history-american-social-sciencescience