People Ain’t Molecules

Abstract

This chapter continues the argument that research on people, by people, can use a much wider range of methods than those available for physical science research. Indeed, people research has more methods available to it. However, people research also has a lot more problems. For example, what were traditionally (pre quantum theory) insignificant observational problems become significant when people study people. Furthermore, people’s attributes are much more complex than those of physical objects such as molecules; not least of which is that molecules cannot talk. Thus, the history of the philosophy of science is not full of debate about how to talk to embarrassed people, rather it is full of such things as how best to design accurate measuring instruments. Popper recognised this when he emphasised that his falsification ideas only applied to the physical sciences not sodal studies [1968]. Lakatos agreed [1978].

For want of a nail a shoe was lost; for want of a horse a rider was lost; for want of a rider a battalion was lost; for want of a battalion a battle was lost; for want of a victory a kingdom was lost — all for the loss of a nail.

To know why the kingdom was lost it is not enough to know that a battle was fought, that a battalion and a rider fared badly, that a horseshoe-nail was missing. It is also necessary to be familiar with the frictional properties of nails imbedded in cartilaginous substances, to know why horses are happier when shod, why dispatch riders require horses, how helpless an isolated battalion can be, how much an army’s fortunes can depend on one battalion, and the ways in which the security of kingdoms can depend on military success [Hanson, 1958].