Igor Mandel (Telmar): Introduction to Sociosystemics: Science About the Utilizing of Social Sciences. Mathew D. McCubbins (USC) and Mark Turner (CWRU): Going Cognitive: Tools for Rebuilding the Social Sciences. From the inaugural issue of Qualitative Studies, Emily Abbey (Ramapo) and Tania Zittoun (Neuchatel): The Social Dynamics of Social Science Research: Between Poetry and the Conveyer Belt; and Niels Norgaard Kristensen (Aalborg): Perceptions of Power and Democracy: Analytical and Methodological Dilemmas of the Construction of Images. House Republicans invite scrutiny of federal funding for social and behavioral sciences — is anyone biting? Here is a series of "Grand Challenge" white papers for future research in the social, behavioral and economic sciences requested by the National Science Foundation. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has argued that there is a hostile climate for non-liberals among his colleagues (and two responses, and more and more). The social sciences deal with humanity’s most pressing problems, but there are barriers between practitioners and the public — we must restructure these disciplines from the ground up. From Public Sphere Forum, Herbert Gans on a public social science. Few debates in the social sciences are ostensibly more boring and pointless than those involving the definitions of words — but the definition of probability matters. The end is not nigh: Those in the humanities and social sciences must be less paranoid and more precise in identifying threats.
