Word: andreski
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...your story about Sociologist Andreski's charges [Sept. 25] that sociologists write more and more about less and less: I wish I'd said that-in print. I have said it often in class. It is to the credit of my professors that I was not booted out as a heretic...
...Stanislav Andreski's new book is another in a series of distinguished but quixotic attempts to shift social science closer to social reality. Such works are heretical because they call for a general demystification of their field, which runs counter to the vested interests of social science's most honored professionals...
...certainly is true that Stanislav Andreski's grandmother knew many things that social scientists are now "discovering." I, however, would like Andreski to analyze more of the social science principles his grandmother "knew." For example, my grandparents "knew" that "opposites attract" and that "birds of a feather flock together." In addition, they "knew" that "out of sight, out of mind" and that "absence makes the heart grow fonder...
...Andreski is convinced that "much of what passes as scientific study of human behaviour boils down to sorcery," and suggests that the lay reader learn to differentiate between the mumbo jumbo and the occasional work that is valuable. How? By testing his brainpower on a few hard books like Bertrand Russell's Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy and J.H. Woodger's Biological Principles. If these volumes are comprehensible but the work of a particular social scientist seems obscure, "then you can justifiably suspect that it might all be nonsense...
...Andreski's prime example of the "nebulous verbosity" of social scientists is his fellow sociologist Talcott Parsons. For example, instead of saying simply that a developed brain, acquired skills and knowledge are needed for attaining human goals, Parsons writes...