74 SCIENTIST 



point is that scientists are continually aware that some de- 

 gree of error is inherent in every observation and prediction 

 they make. If they are good scientists, they make every 

 effort to calculate the probable degree of error and state 

 it for all the world to see. 



Even with all these precautions, certain estimates of great 

 importance turn out to be even more grossly wrong than 

 expected. Ten years ago the age of the universe was given 

 as 5 bilUon years.^ It has now approximately doubled.^ 

 Economists have long been able to predict the gross na- 

 tional product and a variety of other economic matters 

 with a much higher degree of accuracy than this. The pro- 

 cedures for forecasting elections worked out by the much 

 maligned pollsters are almost always able to predict the 

 outcome of national elections with an error of less than 1 

 percent. This is a far higher degree of accuracy than that 

 provided by most of the scientific tests used by doctors in 

 taking care of patients. 



If, then, the social sciences have good ways of gathering 

 and analyzing data, have developed experimental methods 

 beyond the reach of astronomers or meteorologists, and can 

 make some sorts of predictions more accurately than the 

 classical exact sciences, why are so many people reluctant 

 to accept them as sciences? 



Probably the greatest problem faced by the social scien- 

 tist is the fact that he deals with matters clearly and im- 

 mediately important to the daily life of human beings. 

 Oddly enough, the natural sciences have so far done more 

 to alter the actual conditions of human life than the social 

 sciences have. But the connection is not immediately obvi- 

 ous. When Faraday read his paper on inductive electric 

 currents, no one, not even he himself, foresaw a world run 

 by electric motors. Today biologists are happily working 

 on the biochemistry of genetics in a way that is bound to 



