McIntyre, Lee. Dark Ages: The Case for a Science of Human Behavior

International Social Science Review, Fall-Winter, 2007 by Kent Blaser

McIntyre, Lee. Dark Ages: The Case for a Science of Human Behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. xx 144 pages. Cloth $24.95.

Dark Ages is a slender but ambitious book that tackles a number of large and complex issues. The basic argument is this: The scientific revolution of the past four centuries is the great accomplishment of human history, a "success story of unparalleled proportions" (p. 96) that gave modern humans previously unimaginable technology and mastery over the natural and physical universe. In our understanding of human behavior, however, we remain mired in a social-scientific Dark Age. While an increasing number of contemporary problems are of social origin, our understanding of and ability to ameliorate war, poverty, racism, genocide, intolerance, and crime have remained stagnant. What we need is a "social science" revolution comparable to the earlier one in natural science, which would equally dramatically expand the miracle of science for the betterment of humanity. Such a second scientific revolution, McIntyre maintains, is readily achievable.

Why has this not already happened? McIntyre rejects the idea that there are inherent features of social science that make it more difficult or problematic than traditional science. Some of the blame can be placed on society at large for being unwilling to promote and pay heed to a true science of human behavior. Just as entrenched groups and institutions that were threatened by the original scientific revolution offered strong resistance, a true social science will also encounter powerful opposition. But the primary problem lies with social scientists themselves, who have consistently allowed their religious and political ideologies to overshadow a real commitment to scientific progress. Modern social science is a "dismal failure" (p. 3), not because of the difficulty or complexity of the undertaking, but simply because most social scientists lack the courage, or even the desire, to abandon their prejudices and biases and adopt a truly scientific approach to understanding human behavior.

Dark Ages is written with the passion of a true believer, and it has important messages and reminders for social scientists. McIntyre's commitment to the use of social science in the service of humanity is obvious and impressive. A truly scientific social science, he writes, is "our best hope for salvation" (p. 100). It would be hard to find someone more dedicated to the proposition that "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free" (John 8:32).

To McIntyre's credit, he has a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of what science and the scientific method actually involve. He understands the writing about the philosophy of science of Thomas S. Kuhn and Karl R. Popper, rejects the "scientistic" idea that there is any simple "recipe" or algorithm for doing correct science, and convincingly argues that the essence of science is an attitude towards and respect for the power of evidence, and particularly falsifying evidence. In addition, many readers of ISSR will probably concur that the main targets of McIntyre's polemic, religious ideologues on the right and their "political correctness" counterparts on the left, deserve the criticism that they receive.

Unfortunately, McIntyre's passion is accompanied with a heavy dose of naivete and even arrogance. He seems constitutionally unable to admit that there could possibly be good faith or intelligence in any arguments that conflict with his own. Contemporary social science is "ridiculously unrigorous" and bungling, and the majority of social scientists are "so infected with ideology, prejudice, and wishful thinking" as to be almost unredeemable (p. 17). Skeptics of the scientific study of human behavior offer "ridiculously weak arguments" that turn out to be so patently absurd that McIntyre doubts that even their proponents actually believe them (pp. 18, 29).

Dark Ages offers a long list of issues as examples of the point that prejudice and ideology have trumped the search for empirical truth in social science, including: connections among race, gender, and IQ; the relationship among guns, the death penalty, and crime; genetic versus social factors in homosexuality; the efficacy of spanking children; the causes of child abuse; the positive and negative effects of immigrants on American society; and, the degree of biological determination in human behavior. The argument that all of these matters have straightforward empirical solutions and that we have not resolved them primarily because social scientists have been unwilling to set aside their personal prejudices to examine them objectively is highly unconvincing. It is obviously not easy to discuss matters as complex as gun control or the death penalty or immigration in a page or two, but McIntyre regularly exhibits a confidence in his own views that is not much supported by either evidence or argument. To cite one example, the idea that good social science should be able to find the cause of and then eradicate child abuse in the same way that science was able to eradicate smallpox is mind-boggling on so many levels that it is hard to know how to respond.