Thu, 06 Feb 2003 18:33:26 GMT

Future perfect. In answer to aquestion posed by Mark Pilgrim, “Does your boss read your weblog?” I can say I don't know…. [Blog de Halavais]

seems like another discipline is quickly heading the way toward very real irrelevance, as has been the recent claims made against empirical political science, sociology, and economics in the face of the real world. It doesn't seem like empirical or quantitative work is the answer for most problems. In fact, it is hard to say how any empirical social science isn't history, because they tend to lack fundamentally the ability to prediction about what will happen in the case of world events. Now this might change, but I don't see it changing. This is not to say that other methods are better or more scientific, but occasionally the deep understanding found in an ethnographic account can allow a human to expect certain things, though inarguably, i suppose it depends on more things about the human than the account.