Processes are those events that occur in nature, practices are the creations of people

From Conscientious Objections by Neil Postman. Page 5.

A pervasive and lively energy, especially in our great universities, is being directed toward the expansion of categories, models, and theories, toward the development of new subjects. Among the most prominent of these is the subject known variously as "Communication," or "Media Studies," or (as we call it at my university) "Media Ecology." This takes as its domain the study of the cultural consequences of media change: how media affect our forms of social organization, our cognitive habits, and our political ideas. As a young subject, media ecology must address such fundamental questions as how to define "media," where to look for cultural change, and how to link changes in our media environment with changes in our ways of behaving and feeling. But such questions rest on another, larger question which is as yet unanswered— namely, what kind of subject is this to be? Is it a science? Is it a branch of philosophy? Is it a form of social criticism? Where, in short, do we place it in the catalogue?

The usual, indeed the only, answer is that the subject must be a social science. Therefore, in this essay I will address two fundamental questions: What are legitimate forms of research in the social sciences? And, what are the purposes of conducting such research?

I must say at the start that I reject the implications of the phrase "social science." I do not believe psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, or media ecologists do science, and Michael Oakeshott's distinction between processes and practices is definitive in explaining why. Oakeshott means by processes those events that occur in nature, such as the orbiting of planets or the melting of ice or the production of chlorophyll in a leaf. Such processes have nothing to do with human intelligence, are governed by immutable laws, and are, so to say, determined by the structure of nature. If one were so inclined, one might even say that processes are the creation of God. By practices, on the other hand, Oakeshott means the creations of people—those events that result from human decisions and actions, such as this essay or the formation of a new government or our conversations at dinner or falling in love. These events are a function of human intelligence interacting with environment, and although, to be sure, there is a measure of regularity in human affairs, such affairs are not determined by immutable laws. Now, I have been told by friendly colleagues that this last statement, namely, that human actions are not determined by immutable and universal laws, cannot be proved, and that to assert it is in the nature of a metaphysical speculation. Fair enough. You may consider it, then, to be part of my metaphysics that I believe in free will and in choice; that human beings are fundamentally different from orbiting planets and melting ice; and that while we are profoundly influenced by our environment, our ideas and behavior are not irrevocably determined by natural laws, immutable or otherwise. In other words, I believe with Oakeshott that there is an irrevocable difference between a blink and a wink. A blink can be classified as a process, meaning it has physiological causes which can be understood and explained within the context of established postulates and theories; but a wink must be classified as a practice, filled with personal and to some extent unknowable meanings and, in any case, quite impossible to explain or predict in terms of causal relations.

As I understand it, science is the quest to find the immutable and universal laws that govern processes, and does so on the assumption that there are cause-and-effect relations among these processes. In this definition, I place myself, even if only beside their feet, with Newton and the last of the great Newtonians, Albert Einstein. It follows that I believe the quest to understand human behavior and feeling can in no sense except the most trivial be called science. The trivial-minded point, of course, to the fact that students of natural law and human behavior both often quantify their observations, and on this common ground may be classified together. A fair analogy would be to argue that since a house painter and an artist both use paint, they are engaged in the same enterprise, and to the same end.

The scientist uses mathematics to assist in uncovering and describing the structure of nature. At best, the sociologist (to take one example) uses quantification merely to give some precision to his ideas. But there is nothing especially scientific in that. All sorts of people count things in order to achieve precision without claiming that they are scientists. Detectives and bail bondsmen count the number of murders committed in their city; judges count the number of divorce actions in their jurisdictions; business executives count the amount of money spent in their stores; and young children like to count their toes and fingers in order not to be vague about how many they have. Information of this kind may sometimes be valuable in helping a person get an idea, or, even more so, in providing support for an idea. Numbers may even be useful in browbeating people into accepting an idea that otherwise has no merit. I have, myself, harbored several such worthless ideas, one of which has recently been supplied with some impressive numbers that not only will permit me to continue to believe this nonsense, but may help me to persuade others to believe it. I refer to my theory that living in California, Florida, and other warm climates tends to shrivel the brain and makes people dumber than those living in colder climates, such as New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Iowa. Since there is no idea so bad that a social scientist will not find support for it, I was not surprised to come across a study by two doctoral students at Texas Technical University who found that the ten states with the highest average SAT scores all had cold winters. Indeed, every state with an average of 510 or higher on both the verbal and quantitative parts of the SAT had an average high temperature in January of less than 42 degrees Fahrenheit. At the other end, five of the ten states with the lowest SAT scores were warm-weather states. Moreover, temperature had a significant relationship to SAT scores even when the researchers took into account such factors as per-pupil expenditures on schooling. So there!

Just as counting things does not a scientist make, neither does observing things, though it is sometimes said that if one is empirical, one is scientific. To be empirical means to look at things before drawing conclusions. Everyone, therefore, is an empiricist, with the possible exception of paranoid schizophrenics. To be empirical also means to offer evidence that others can see as clearly as you. You may, for example, conclude that I like to write essays, offering as evidence that I have written this one and that there are several others contained in this book. You may also offer as evidence a tape recording, which I will gladly supply, on which I tell you that I like to write essays. Such evidence may be said to be empirical, and your conclusion empirically based. But you are not therefore acting as a scientist. You are acting as a rational person, to which condition many people who are not scientists may make a just claim.

Some time ago, I had a conversation with a young communications professor from a midwestern university who repeatedly claimed to be a member of the community of social scientists. The basis of her claim was that she had conducted what is called a correlational study of television viewing and aggressive behavior in children, the conclusion of which was that some children in the state capital who watch lots of violent programs are also apt to act more aggressively than some of the children who watch fewer violent programs. She could not say — and had no hope of saying — whether they were aggressive because they watched television violence, or watched television violence because they were aggressive. She could also not say — and had no aspiration to say — why it was that some children who watched many violent programs did not act aggressively, or why some of those who didn't watch violent programs did act aggressively. Moreover, she told me that within the past five years there have been more than 2,500 such studies conducted in American universities, with the result that there is no agreement on very much except that watching violent television programs may be a contributing factor in making some children act aggressively, but that in any case it is not entirely clear what constitutes aggressive behavior. In other words, after 2,500 studies, we have a statement that is somewhat less meaningful than my saying that Ronald Reagan's telegenic charm may have been a contributing factor to his being elected President.

Confronted by such a desiccated view of science, I naturally asked what her definition of science was. She replied that it required one to be empirical, to measure things, to make one's methods and conclusions public, and to test one's assertions. Because this definition would not distinguish the act of science from the normal working of a sane mind engaged in problem-solving, it did not take me long to get her to acknowledge that such actions, while necessary in science, were hardly sufficient, and I was able to reduce her to saying, "Well, what difference does it make what you call it?" Now, this is not normally the way one ought to treat a young professor, but I did so because I believe it is important to distinguish science from non-science.