Donald Campbell was one of the leading psychologists of the second half of the twentieth century. His was a time of optimism for planners—there was a belief that the power of technology could be brought to bear on many of the world’s ills. And indeed they were, often with positive effects. As a result of central planning, more people receive water, more places are electrified, more children educated, and more diseases eradicated. …
Search Results for: Campbell's Law
Campbell’s Law, Planned Social Change, Vietnam War Deaths, and Condom Distributions in Refugee Camps
Donald T. Campbell was a psychologist in the heyday of the 1970s. During this time, the belief emerged that society was a social engineering project that could be planned and evaluated. The general idea was that if you collected enough data, you could plan and control social change in a way that led to desired results. Economists from USAID believed this about economic development, military planners in Vietnam believed it, and Sociologists in the War on Poverty believed it. …
Human Genetics and Social Theories
It has been a lively week on this blog. “DAD” and Razib Khan have challenged our (Michael Scroggins and myself) basic competency to discuss genetics and race/intelligence/etc. We have responded with similar incredulity to their ability to critique anthropology.
In other words, we in the social sciences think they are naïve, and they think we are dunderheads.
This overall does not seem to be a very productive set of assumptions to go forward with; Razib and DAD actually appear to be relatively well-read people, though clearly we do not read the same things. …