轉載Global problems need social science(全球問題需要社會科學)WORLD VIEW15 January 2020Correction 24 January 2020Global problems need social scienceWithout human insights錛 data and the hard sciences will not meet the challenges of the next decade錛 says Hetan Shah.Hetan ShahiAt the beginning of the year錛 Dominic Cummings錛 a senior adviser to the UK government錛 posted an unusual advert on his blog錛 calling for data scientists錛 mathematicians and physicists to join him at the heart of government. As outgoing director of the Royal Statistical Society in London and soon-to-be chief executive of the British Academy錛 I support the sentiment behind the call: data do have huge power to inform government policy.But I worry about the fact that the call prioritized science and technology over the humanities and social sciences. Governments must make sure they also tap into that expertise錛 or they will fail to tackle the challenges of this decade.For example錛 we cannot improve global health if we take only a narrow medical view. Epidemics are social as well as biological phenomena. Anthropologists such as Melissa Leach at the Institute of Development Studies in Brighton錛 UK錛 played an important part in curbing the West African Ebola epidemic with proposals to substitute risky burial rituals with safer ones錛 rather than trying to eliminate such rituals altogether.Treatments for mental health have made insufficient progress. Advances will depend錛 in part錛 on a better understanding of how social context influences whether treatment succeeds. Similar arguments apply to the problem of antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic overuse.Environmental issues are not just technical challenges that can be solved with a new invention. To tackle climate change we will need insight from psychology and sociology. Scientific and technological innovations are necessary錛 but enabling them to make an impact requires an understanding of how people adapt and change their behaviour. That will probably require new narratives ─ the purview of rhetoric錛 literature錛 philosophy and even theology.Poverty and inequality call even more obviously for expertise beyond science and maths. The UK Economic and Social Research Council has recognized that poor productivity in the country is a big problem錛 and is investing up to £32.4 million (US$42 million) in a new Productivity Institute in an effort understand the causes and potential remedies.Policy that touches on national and geographical identity also needs scholarly input. What is the rise of ‘Englishness’? How do we live together in a community of diverse races and religions? How is migration understood and experienced? These intangibles have real-world consequences錛 as demonstrated by the Brexit vote and ongoing discussions about whether the United Kingdom has a future as a united kingdom. It will take the work of historians錛 social psychologists and political scientists to help shed light on these questions. I could go on: fighting against misinformation; devising ethical frameworks for artificial intelligence. These are issues that cannot be tackled with better science alone.Consider how life-enhancing ─ and even life-saving ─ technologies have failed to be taken up. ‘Vaccine hesitancy’ is more a social phenomenon than a technical one錛 and the main cause of measles resurgence. Solutions depend not on medical breakthroughs錛 but on insight from anthropologists such as Heidi Larson at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine錛 who have done much to understand people’s decisions about whether to vaccinate themselves and their children.In diverse cases錛 social factors ─ cultural norms錛 educational understanding錛 kin and social networks錛 power dynamics錛 or simply the layout of a building ─ must be accounted for before policy can succeed. Blind faith in data science without an understanding of what data are missing錛 or how algorithms can exacerbate existing biases錛 can lead to policy failure.A good example of the incorporation of appropriate expertise is the UK government’s Behavioural Insights Team錛 which has run more than 750 projects around the world錛 in particular randomized control trials of policy interventions. Work on the treatment of tuberculosis in Moldova brought the rate of adherence to daily medical regimes up from 44% to 84%.Downing Street is right to look for data scientists錛 but must not overlook the benefits brought by the humanities and social science. This expertise is embedded in existing staff and structures and should not be overlooked. There are many successes錛 from the creation of the ‘nudge units’ to the use of social-science expert panels. Detailed policy histories ─ compiled by agencies such as the British Academy and the UK Institute for Government ─ can provide surprising and valuable insights.More could be done to connect the policy community with external social science and humanities expertise. Chile’s innovation-focused Government Laboratory錛 the Bridging the Gap programme in Washington DC錛 and the Centre for Science and Policy in Cambridge錛 UK錛 have all used a variety of mechanisms ─ among them workshops錛 funding schemes and policy fellowships ─ to bring expert voices into the policymaking process.In a democracy錛 expert advice must be balanced with considerations such as public opinion錛 financial costs and political demands. Still錛 without the humanities and social sciences錛 hard science and technology can do little to resolve complex societal challenges. Wise governments will find ways to incorporate that insight.Nature 577錛 295 (2020)doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00064-x跟蹤COVID-19的新進展,發現Nature上有個文章有點意思。題目是:COVID-19 recovery: science isn’t enough to save us(COVID-19 恢復:科學不足以拯救我們)副標題是:政策制定者需要人文和社會科學的洞察力來應對這一流行病。核心內容是科學、技術、工程和數學 (STEM) 領域的人要與SHAPE領域的人(社會科學、人文和藝術為人類和經濟)結合,人類的洞察力會更加強大。文章來自Nature,2021 年 3 月 23 日原文鏈接:COVID-19 recovery: science isn’t enough to save us,https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00731-7 下面是通過網頁翻譯工具翻譯的中文內容。────────政策制定者有時會談論科學,