The Practical Use of Sociological Knowledge
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2301591 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hans L Zetterberg (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1964 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 57-72 |
| Publication date | 1964-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Acta Sociologica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0001-6993 • E-ISSN: 1502-3869 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/000169936400700201 |
| OpenAlex | W1981473218 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 2 |
A great effort must be made to distinguish the roles of the sociologist on one hand and the tole of the decision maker on the other. It is essential to realize that use of social science in the shaping of policy decision an idea which we advocate it not at all the same thing as use of the social scientist as a policy and decision maker an idea that I must admit leaves me uncomfortable. A scientist can aid a decision maker by providing one of the several ingredients out of which decisions are made: knowledge. He is competent by his training to provide this. But he is not particularly competent to make the decision itself; nothing in a sociologists's training has qualified him in any special way for such a task. Of course, one makes many decisions in the course of scientific work decisions about methods, data, inferences, condusions, and so forth. The interesting fact about these decisions is that they involve only modest risks and that these risks are bome by the scientist alone. If a wrong decision is made and a scientific mistake is published, the worst that can happen is that someone points out the error in a subsequent publication and the erring scientist stands corrected. This may be embarrassing and hurt one's professional reputation a little, but usually the scientist still has his job and his community standing; it may sometimes even be an asset to him to have received the attention brought about by his mistake. In short, mistaken decisions have little consequence in the world of science; in
Asset (computer security · Decision maker · Economics · Epistemology · Management · Mistake · Nothing · Operations research · Political science · Public relations · Reputation · Social science · Sociology · Task (project management · Work (physics · Computer Science · Evaluation and Performance Assessment · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,03 |
| Citation span | 1966 - 1969 (4) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |