At its core, science is a set of methods and procedures for evaluating logic and evidence. When performed in accordance with widely recognized best practices, scientific research produces findings with a distinctive and often valuable quality – the findings should be true regardless of who conducted the research. For this reason, science is a powerful engine for creating a special kind of knowledge – special because the validity of the knowledge does not depend on a person’s age, sex, race, religion, or income.

Inquiry conducted through scientific methods allows individuals and organizations to evaluate the plausibility of competing propositions. By so doing, science can help us achieve important goals more effectively and efficiently by clarifying cause-and-effect. It can help us more effectively navigate dangerous environments and help us other environments less dangerous. It can show us when something we want to believe, or have believed in the past, is inconsistent with measurable components of our physical reality. In many cases, science is our last, best defense against wishful thinking.

Social science as a type of inquiry has changed how millions of people live. Its findings make factories, offices, and farms more efficient. Social science aids in the development, implementation, and evaluation of a wide range of business, campaign, diplomatic and military strategies. Social science has transformed how social and health-related services are delivered around the world. Today, more social scientists are using more advanced methods and instruments to study more topics than ever before – and more individuals and public and private sector entities are using social science’s information and insights to improve quality of life for many diverse populations.
Given recent trends, and the current status of social science, one would think that its future as a practice of inquiry and as a generator of significant social value is very bright. However, dark clouds loom. In the last twenty years, changes in technology and society have affected the kinds of information that people value. Some of these forces have altered the kinds of content for which individuals and organizations in the private and public sectors are willing to pay. Other forces have led people to raise new questions the veracity of scientific claims. These forces are altering relationships between social science and society.

These changes have the potential to destabilize many existing scientific institutions and practices. In the United States, for example, prominent members of Congress have questioned whether the National Science Foundation should fund certain types of social scientific research – with a few proposing that the NSF substantially cut or eliminate funding to its social, behavioral, and economic science division. Others ask why the government should support a high-priced bundle of basic and applied social science research when there are increasing numbers of alternative sources of seemingly comparable information – that is, people and organizations who, through interest-group websites, blogs, various social media venues, and the comments attached to the bottom of social science-related newspaper articles, claim to have valid and useful knowledge about the topics that social scientists study. 

If scientists and scientific organizations do not react to these changes in effective ways, they will limit the ways in which social science can improve quality of life for present and future generations. I argue that these negative consequences are serious -- but they are not inevitable. This presentation lays out our challenges and then describes a plan for how to respond.