Futures 35 (2003) 633–650

www.elsevier.com/locate/futures

The future in the social sciences夽

W.S. Bainbridge ∗
Division of Information and Intelligent Systems, Suite 1115, National Science Foundation,
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22230, USA

Abstract

How the social sciences conceptualize the future depends in varying measure upon intellec-
tual developments within these sciences, upon competition versus cooperation between them,
and upon changes in the surrounding society that alter the role of social science. This article
notes that social science has matured into a set of somewhat static disciplines that do not
expect to grow rapidly as they did decades ago, and this fact may give them a relatively
conservative view of the future. However, it is possible to identify trends and factors that
might inspire social science to think very differently. The article presents these ideas through
nine scenarios: a surprise-free projection, increased reliance of post-industrial society on social
science, the clash of civilizations, a possible renaissance in cultural anthropology, the drive
toward hegemony by economics, the potential impact of biological advances, a hypothetical
resurgence of personality psychology, the emergence of new information-oriented social
sciences, and the need for thinking outside the terrestrial box.
Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.

Although I have published books on the future of religion and the space program,
I write this not as a futurist or futurologist, but as someone who has been involved
for nine years in American government social science funding [1]. Quite separately
from the transdisciplinary cultural movement of futures studies, each of the social
sciences occasionally attempts to foresee the results of current trends, including the
progressive changes that are occurring within these disciplines themselves. Today,
the social sciences find themselves under a number of pressures with various direc-

夽
The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily represent the views of the National Science
Foundation or the United States.
∗
Tel.: + 1-703-292-7470.
E-mail address: wbainbri@nsf.gov (W.S. Bainbridge).

0016-3287/03/$ - see front matter Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.

doi:10.1016/S0016-3287(02)00104-0
634 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650

tions they might innovate, so their future and how they will view the future are very
open questions.
The social sciences are generally considered to include economics, political
science, sociology, cultural or social anthropology, social psychology, and social
geography. A number of other disciplines or interdisciplinary fields are also often
included, such as criminal justice or socio-legal studies, aspects of archaeology,
social linguistics, decision sciences, certain styles of historical research, social wel-
fare, communications, and branches of philosophy such as ethics. There is some
tendency today to distinguish social science from behavioral science, the latter being
more closely tied to biological sciences, and economics often sets itself apart as a
rigorous analytic discipline remote from the supposedly less rigorous sociology and
political science. This essay will consider the separate futures of this collection of
largely independent fields, as well as their possibilities for integration, in order to
understand their changing approaches to futures studies.
For present purposes, it is useful to counterpoise two alternative conceptions of
the social sciences. The first perspective classifies such fields as economics, political
science, anthropology and sociology among the hard sciences, alongside biology,
physics, chemistry and other disciplines sometimes called either life sciences or natu-
ral sciences. It assumes that natural regularities exist at the group and societal level,
and that rigorous methodologies have been developed that are capable of identifying
these regularities. To the extent that the social laws of nature have been identified
and good data are available about the current state of the world, it should be possible
to predict the near future with some degree of accuracy. If definite natural laws of
large-scale social behavior do not in fact exist, then this may be a vain and delusion-
ridden effort.
The second perspective conceptualizes the social sciences as more-or-less radical
reform movements that have cloaked themselves in methodological rigor in order to
exploit the pro-science bias of the very society they seek to change. From this view-
point, social sciences may be snared in a tragic contradiction between their aims and
their means, as methodological rigor and value commitments pull them in opposite
directions [2]. Predictions will be normative, rather than descriptive, advocating the
future that ought to exist rather than deducing the one that necessarily will exist.
Probably, the current character of the social sciences lies somewhere between
these extremes. Objective laws of social behavior may exist, but there is much room
for debate what they are and whether the ones that are currently known provide much
basis for making predictions. As society changes, often in unforeseen directions, the
social sciences find it difficult to keep pace, let alone get ahead of the curve. Lacking
clear scientific paradigms for the most part—outside economics—they are largely
defined by the historical circumstances under which they were created, and this fact
hinders their evolution. Other inhibiting factors include the rigidity of university
bureaucracies and the processes by which personnel are recruited to the social
sciences. More than a century after most of these disciplines came into being, they
are now called upon to reinvent themselves, lest they lose the capacity to imagine
and shape the future [3].
 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650 635

1. Social science projections

The social sciences have a long history of attempts to foresee the future, often in
politically sensitive areas where it was difficult to separate rational analysis from
ideological posturing. For example, the 1840 United States Census provided ammu-
nition for Southern intellectuals who wanted to demonstrate that abolition of slavery
would have dire consequences [4]. The Southern Literary Messenger, a highly influ-
ential Virginia periodical, argued that emancipation of slaves would cause a great
increase in the social problems of insanity and what was then called “idiocy” (mental
retardation) [5]. Its evidence was data from the census showing much higher rates
of insanity and idiocy among free African–Americans in the North than among the
white population, and lower rates among Southern slaves. John C. Calhoun, then US
Secretary of State, used such apparently scientific findings to claim that emancipation
would be bad for African–Americans themselves, as well as for the nation as a whole
[6]. This is a classic example in which quantitative social scientific research pur-
ported to predict the consequences of a major new public policy, namely abolition
of slavery.
However, sociologist Edward Jarvis was able to show that the census data were
in error. The apparently high rates among free African–Americans were the result
of faulty tabulation of the numbers, for example the erroneous coding of all 133
inmates of the asylum in Worcester, Massachusetts, as “colored” when in fact they
were all white [7]. Jarvis was tireless in refuting the unfounded prediction that eman-
cipation would cause mass insanity, and it is noteworthy that the prime pro-slavery
propaganda volume, Cotton is King [8], contained an essay claiming that emanci-
pation would cause a crime wave but said nothing about insanity. Near the end of
his career, Jarvis similarly debunked some apparently social–scientific predictions
that America would soon be dominated by recent immigrants [9].
A more recent example concerns the apparent failure of the social sciences to
anticipate the breakup of the Soviet Union. After this momentous event, the Amer-
ican Sociological Association devoted special panels of two annual meetings to the
question of whether such major historical events can be predicted [10]. At one
extreme stood Randall Collins, who contended he had predicted the breakup on the
basis of a general theory (without saying exactly when it would happen), and at the
other extreme stood Charles Tilly, who denied that the unique characteristics of every
revolution can be subsumed under an invariant model [11]. Economist Timur Kuran
suggested that a prime source of unpredictability in politicized areas of life is prefer-
ence falsification: the fact that people often conceal their true preferences, for
example being unwilling to express their opposition to oppressive regimes [12].
Unavailability of correct information about people’s preferences makes it difficult
for social scientists to measure public opinion, but it also gives great uncertainty to
the political actors in the society itself. A situation of pluralistic ignorance may arise,
in which each person is unaware of the true feelings of everybody else. Essentially
random events may unexpectedly reveal to some of these actors how weak support
for the regime actually is, and a revolutionary bandwagon effect may sweep it away
to everyone’s surprise.
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For the social sciences to predict themselves is like operating a high powered
telescope within a hall of mirrors, where our view of the world is obscured by
magnified distortions of our own image [13]. Yet even a mirage can provoke interest-
ing discussions. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected that future
needs for non-academic social science in the US will grow more slowly than other
occupational categories [14]. In 1998, using somewhat broad definitions, the BLS
estimated that 321 000 people were employed as social or behavioral scientists in
the United States. About half of this total, 166 000, were psychologists; 70 000 were
economists, and 53 000 were urban or regional planners. This meant that professional
anthropologists, political scientists, geographers, historians and sociologists were
lumped together in the “other” category with about 50 000 members. The BLS pro-
jected an increase in the entire US workforce needs of 14.4 percent over the decade
1998–2008, just slightly higher than the projected increase in the need for social
scientists of 13.8 percent. Anticipated growth needs were above average in econom-
ics (18.4 percent) and in urban and regional planning (17.4 percent), but below aver-
age in psychology (11.4 percent) and in the “other” category (12.7 percent). These
figures contrast with much higher anticipated growth needs of 22.6 percent in college
and university faculty, 26.2 percent in the life sciences, and 103.4 percent in com-
puter engineers and scientists.
In 1996, 111 789 people in the United States earned bachelor’s degrees in social
science, and 73 828 did so in psychology [15]. Combined, the social science and
psychology degrees represent 48.3 percent of the 384 674 bachelor’s degrees earned
in the sciences, and 15.7 percent of all the 1 179 815 bachelor’s degrees earned.
However, only a small fraction of those with social science degrees will be employed
as social scientists, and a better measure might be higher degrees. In 1950, social
scientists represented 9.5 percent and psychologists represented 5.5 percent of the
6535 people earning science and engineering doctorates in the United States. By
1975, when 18 799 S&E doctorates were awarded, fully 20.1 percent were in social
science and 14.6 percent were in psychology. But in 1997, out of a total of 26 847
S&E doctorates, only 15.1 percent were in social science and 13.0 were in psy-
chology. Thus Ph.D. production agrees roughly with the BLS projections that social
science is not a vigorously growing field.
The gross numbers of people gaining degrees or holding jobs may mask consider-
able variations in their demographic characteristics, and substantial changes may be
occurring in the gender or ethnic composition of the scientific workforce. In 1995,
just 11.6 percent of the engineering doctorates awarded in the US were earned by
women, and the proportion was also low in astronomy (17.3%), physics (12.3%),
mathematics (22.3%) and computer science (17.3%) [16]. In contrast, fully 63.5
percent of all US psychology doctorates were earned by women, with female majori-
ties also in anthropology (58.4%) and sociology (53.1%). The fraction of US doctor-
ates earned by women was much lower in political science (29.8%) and economics
(24.1%). The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that in 1998 African-Americans
earned just 2.2 percent of US doctorates in the physical sciences, compared with 5.4
percent in the social sciences and psychology [17]. In contrast, Asians were more
highly represented among physical–science doctorate recipients, 12.9 percent com-
 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650 637

pared with only 5.3 percent in the social sciences and psychology. There are many
ways to interpret these figures, but clearly the social sciences are drawing from
significantly different population pools, the motivations that draw people to these
disciplines probably vary considerably, and thus these disciplines are likely to
respond in different ways to changing pressures on the labor market.
Charles Cappell has analyzed the evolving characteristics of academic social
science from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, a period when many of the social
sciences and humanities suffered enrollment declines at American colleges and uni-
versities [18]. He reports that student quality declined substantially in both sociology
and political science, but not in economics, and sociology also lost in terms of its
share of the number of degrees awarded. Cappell found that the rise of business
programs largely explained the enrollment declines that occurred, and this rise
reflected a general societal shift in emphasis away from the public sector toward the
private sector. Although economics directly competes with business programs for its
student enrollment, the two fields also have an obvious symbiotic relationship. But
sociology is an almost exclusively public sector oriented discipline, and jobs for
sociologists outside academia tend to be in government social programs, although
a few sociologists find employment in market research. Political science provides
preparation for people who intend to enter public service, but also serves as an
undergraduate pre-law major for future attorneys in either the public or private sector.
In Cappell’s model, a cultural swing back toward the public sector would cause a
resurgence of sociology, political science and possibly other similar disciplines.
However, given that both public and private sectors are likely to play significant
roles in society, the model predicts that the prominence of the various social sciences
will probably vary only within the range that has already been defined by the second
half of the twentieth century.
In July, 1945, Vannevar Bush submitted his famous report, Science: The Endless
Frontier, which encouraged government to invest in scientific research after World
War II and did much to establish the rationale that endured until the end of the Cold
War [19]. Thus, about fifty years after Bush named it, the “endless frontier” was in
danger of ending, and scientific organizations invested much debate in developing
new rationales for massive government funding [20]. In his survey of the societal
costs of reducing government funding for science, Kenneth Brown notes, “Benefits
from social science research are likely to be even more abstract, elusive, and hard
to measure than those in the natural sciences” [21]. Thus, in this new era of cost
accounting, it may be difficult to expand social science unless the research clearly
benefits society. Without expansion, there may be no change; without change, there
may be little serious consideration for the future.

2. Scenarios for the future of the future in social science

For decades, serious scholars of the future have realized that simple mathematical
extrapolations of current trends fail to cover the range of plausible outcomes that
are worth considering, and that there can be great value in sketching alternative
638 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650

scenarios [22]. Here we will consider nine models of how social science might
develop over the next few decades, presenting each as a separate scenario but reco-
gnizing that in reality two or more may combine. Each scenario defines a key prin-
ciple that could affect the development of social science, briefly explores its impli-
cations for the sciences themselves, and then concludes with thoughts about how
the social sciences might consider the future if the scenario were realized.

3. Surprise-free projection

This is neither the best nor the worst of times for the social sciences, marked
neither by great optimism nor great pessimism. If current conditions continue, the
social science of the next few decades will have a modest presence on college cam-
puses and in the halls of government, but it will have relatively little influence over
society at large. A surprise-free scenario is not merely a static picture of the present
projected on the future, however. Rather, current trends and the most likely changes
must be included. Current trends suggest a slight increase in the status of economics,
and perhaps a slight decrease in the statuses of other social sciences.
It would not be surprising to see the birth, death, or merging of interdisciplinary
fields, as the needs of society change and intellectual developments within the social
sciences build or destroy the opportunities for organizational bridges. Among the
most glaring anomalies in the current structure of the social sciences is the fact that
two separate social psychologies exist, one within psychology and the other within
sociology [23]. There have been serious attempts to merge these two, for example
the Social Relations Department at Harvard which fragmented three decades ago,
and a new ecumenical movement to merge the social psychologies is at least conceiv-
able. The connection between professional demography and sociology is awkward,
because courses on population are generally taught within sociology departments
which do not provide the right mathematics or necessary connections to biology,
so one could imagine demography becoming independent or realigning itself with
other departments.
Most social sciences can be expected to retain approximately their current place
within the academic world, but particular disciplines may be reaching a point of no
return. For example, the demise of cultural anthropology is predictable, because this
once strong field will lose its traditional subject matter as the preliterate societies of
the Earth blend into global society. The field also faces methodological challenges,
notably the uncertain status of ethnographic methods [24]. To be sure, ethnography
can be a valid way of developing theories and charting some empirical topics for
later careful examination by other more quantitative methodologies, but it is not
entirely clear why anthropologists are better prepared to do exploratory field studies
in modern societies than sociologists, political scientists, or even journalists. Anthro-
pology has long postulated that cultures are relatively uniform and cohesive, thus
requiring none of the elaborate sampling techniques of survey methodology [25],
but the demise of pristine “primitive” societies (both as myth and reality) calls this
debatable assumption into serious question. Some would even say that cultural
 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650 639

anthropology was an element of European colonialism, or a temporarily necessary

corrective to its cultural hegemony, and with the demise of colonialism it has become
superfluous. Anthropology could be merged into other social sciences, and many
colleges already have joint sociology-anthropology departments.
In many becalmed disciplines and beleaguered subfields, the mood may be defens-
ive and the focus therefore may be on the past, rather than on the future. However, as
was the case throughout the twentieth century, particular policy issues and scientific
questions will stimulate various fields to look at aspects of the future. For example,
demographers will continue to be challenged by the continuing population explosion
in many developing countries and by the fertility collapse in many developed nations
[26]. The recent trends toward a global economic system connecting increasingly
democratic nations and relatively free local markets will demand a range of future-
oriented studies by economists and political scientists [27].

4. Post-industrial society
This scenario was offered by sociologist Daniel Bell in his 1973 book, The Coming
of Post-Industrial Society [28]. Bell argued that industrial society was giving way
to a distinctly different post-industrial phase marked by five fundamental character-
istics. First, the economic sector shifts from a goods-producing to a service economy.
Second, a professional and technical class comes to predominate in the occupational
distribution. Third, the axial principle of post-industrial society is the centrality of
theoretical knowledge as the source of innovation and of policy formulation. Fourth,
there is a strong orientation toward the future, especially the control of technology
and technology assessment. Fifth, a new intellectual technology is created to assist
in decision making.
Although Bell is sometimes described as a “neoconservative”, he is conservative
primarily in the area of culture, and I have heard him describe himself as a socialist
with respect to the economy. His vision of the post-industrial society involves a
good deal of centralized government planning, based on the results of policy-oriented
social–scientific research. Bell’s book was published at a time when many social
scientists were excited about new “social indicator” data collection projects, such as
the General Social Survey which began in 1972, that could chart changing public
well-being. Thus, in a post-industrial society, social science will play important pol-
icy-relevant roles, and projecting trends into the future would be among them.
A range of social indicators feed into government planning for the future. For
example, statistics on fertility and migration can provide the basis for reasonably
accurate demographic projections of the future needs for school teachers and
classrooms. With the use of empirically grounded theory, it may be possible to pre-
dict the consequences of more subtle social changes, such as the effect that amalga-
mation of police jurisdictions would have on the quality of law enforcement or that
promotion of democratic regimes would have on the likelihood of war [29]. But this
symbiosis between social science and social policy depends upon a particular polit-
ical environment that may exist in some technologically advanced nations and not
others, or which may go into and out of fashion over the years.
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5. Clash of civilizations

A third of a century ago, political scientist Samuel P. Huntington predicted that

in the year 2000 Russia and China would be frustrated expansionist powers, whereas
the more successful United States expansionism would have entered a period of
disintegration and decay [30]. As the end of the twentieth century approached, Hunt-
ington developed his thesis into a general model describing the world of the future
as a collection of competing civilizations, each with a distinctive cultural heritage,
in which the United States was merely the central state of Western Civilization [31].
The rival civilizations would include Sinic (China), Hindu (India), Islamic and per-
haps African, whereas connections would be uncertain between Western Civilization
and the Orthodox (Russia and other Eastern Orthodox nations) and Latin Amer-
ican civilizations.
Huntington’s thesis directly contradicts the view held by many social scientists that
science, communication, and the conditions of work in modern society are inexorably
eroding cultural differences through processes of globalization and secularization
[32]. If his model proves to be correct, then several of the social sciences will have
important jobs interpreting for the members of any one civilization what is happening
in the others. Indeed, the role, style or even existence of social science in any given
civilization will depend upon fundamental cultural assumptions and institutions.
If “post industrial society” is a left-wing view of the future, then the “clash of
civilizations” represents right-wing futurology [33]. Perhaps the most significant
work in this tradition is Social and Cultural Dynamics by Pitirim A. Sorokin, a vast
four-volume work that presents a general cyclical theory of the rise, transformation,
and decline of civilizations [34]. According to Sorokin, a great civilization begins
in an ideational phase when a coherent set of spiritual beliefs gives it strength. As
time passes, it slowly loses its grip on its spirituality, doubt sets in, and the culture
becomes progressively more sensate. Western Civilization is far advanced into sen-
sate decadence; Islamic Civilization may be much earlier in its current cycle of
development, and one could imagine that the various Qigong spiritual movements
currently sweeping China could become the basis of a vigorous ideational renaissance
of Sinic Civilization. Sorokin’s work has been in eclipse for half a century, in part
because Marxism became the preeminent macrosociological futurology, but his
approach is well-suited for a world in which distinct civilizations battle.

6. Anthropological renaissance

The predicted demise of cultural anthropology is not a foregone conclusion [35].

Anthropology could have important roles to play in a world of clashing civilizations,
but there is an entirely different way in which the significance of this discipline
could grow substantially. Although preliterate societies, its traditional subject matter,
are fast disappearing, developments in research methodology and changes in
advanced technological societies are opening new vistas for research on culture. Two
examples prove that methodological innovation can resurrect a seemingly moribund
 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650 641

discipline. Physical anthropology has been transformed by the introduction of bio-

logical techniques for studying genetic variations in humans and primates, both living
and ancient [36]. Geography has gained immeasurably from the development of com-
puterized geographic information systems [37]. Similarly, cultural anthropology
could be transformed by the application of both well-established and novel tech-
niques of quantitative analysis to the study of culture in modern society.
By “culture” I mean not primarily the norms, beliefs and values which sociologists
have studied for decades, but the fine arts, mass entertainment, and design aspects
of technology that provide the texture of life in industrial or post-industrial societies.
We normally think of the fine arts as being the province of humanistic studies, but
anthropologist Stuart Plattner has shown that anthropological science can contribute
much to our understanding of modern art worlds [38]. If we have indeed entered a
new phase in the evolution of society in which information is paramount, then the
most valuable resource will not be coal or iron but culture. For example, the music
industry is a major source of wealth and employment that has largely been ignored
by rigorous social science [39]. If culture will be the fundamental resource of the
information society, then we need a wholly new discipline, a quantitative cultural
anthropology, to chart it and to generate a range of valuable new systems for manag-
ing and even creating it.
An example of how quantitative studies of popular culture can contribute to futur-
ology is my research on science fiction (SF), a project that employed factor analysis
of survey data on preferences for particular authors to map the intellectual structure
of this literary genre [40]. Four primary dimensions of stylistic and ideological vari-
ation emerged, the first three of which constitute competing views of the future.
Hard-science SF was written by authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov,
emphasizes new developments in technology and the physical sciences, and is opti-
mistic about the benefits of technical innovation. New-Wave SF writers like Harlan
Ellison and Brian Aldiss experimented with new literary styles, speculated about
future developments in the social sciences, and were pessimistic about humanity’s
capacity to create a better world. The fantasy cluster of writers, including Robert E.
Howard and J. R. R. Tolkien, found more hope in magic than in science and postu-
lated that human courage can defy supernaturally-ordained fate. The fourth dimen-
sion in the factor analysis was time, appropriately enough, anchored by respondents’
preferences for classic writers such as Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, and expressed
in the SF lament that “the future ain’t what it used to be” [41].

7. Hegemony by economics

In many ways, economics seems in a strong position today, and one might imagine
that it could gain a recognized hegemony over the other social sciences. It possesses
a relatively coherent scientific paradigm based on the concept of efficient markets,
an ideology now promulgated globally [42]. Economists tend to believe that their
growing toolkit of formal theories and quantitative research methodologies will con-
tinue to improve. Already, economics influences political science through the subfield
642 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650

of political economy, and it influences sociology through a number of channels

including rational choice theory [43]. Concentration of effort on particular topics
and orientations within the social sciences may sometimes be determined by the
methodological tools available. For example, Paul Krugman has argued that main-
stream economics ignored both economic development and economic geography for
a number of years, because the field had come to place a high priority on rigorous
formal modeling, but methods for modeling phenomena in these areas was lacking
[44]. However, Krugman contends, appropriate techniques for modeling have
become available, so these two areas logically ought to flourish over the next few
years. The same could happen in many other substantive areas.
Economists may, however, have overemphasized the scientific success of their
discipline, and it may boil down to the fact that the world of commerce has provided
them with a rather good natural metric, namely money whether measured in dollars,
pounds, or francs. The prestige of economics may rest less upon its scientific rigor
than upon the fact that it deals with something everybody wants, again: money.
When asked why he robbed banks, Willie “The Actor” Sutton is reputed to have
said, “That’s where the money is”. The same factor may explain why intelligent
people flock to economics. Outside the imaginary realm of efficient markets and
rational actors, economics may have no more real explanatory power than the other
social sciences. The historical episode that gave us the word “hegemony” was the
ultimately unsuccessful attempt of classical Athens to dominate Greece, and econom-
ics may likewise face considerable opposition if it attempts to exercise hegemony
over social science. Reformists of the political left and humanistic post-modernists
are heavily over-represented among recruits to sociology [45], so rather than be
absorbed by economics, sociology could become a counter-culture resisting what it
perceived to be the right-wing, technocratic stance of economics. Some of the
humanities, such as philosophy, could help form this academic subculture opposed
to economics [46].
Then there would be at least two fundamentally opposed social-science futurolog-
ies, one based in economics and one opposed to it, possibly based in sociology. An
example of hegemonic economic futurology is a recent paper by Dani Rodrik analyz-
ing the future course of international economic integration [47]. Rodrik argues that
“international economic integration, the nation-state, and mass politics cannot co-
exist”. Thus, the present situation of uneasy co-existence cannot last, and one of the
three factors will be destroyed by the combined action of the other two. Assuming
the primacy of economics, Rodrik prophecies that nation-states will be replaced by
global federalism in which the scope of political action is identical to the world-
wide market.

8. Impact of biological advances

As the development of genetic sequencing and comparison methodologies has

revolutionized physical anthropology, new developments in biology may transform
other social and behavioral sciences. Especially notable is the broad interdisciplinary
 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650 643

field of cognitive neuroscience [48]. Traditional methods of research, such as experi-

ments in memorizing and observation of individuals who had suffered localized brain
damage, have been augmented by exciting new methodologies for connecting human
behavior to specific brain structures and functions, such as positron emission tom-
ography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). These new
research tools are not only facilitating solid scientific progress but also conferring
prestige upon biologically-oriented studies of human behavior, a prestige that may
go far beyond their objective worth. Even unearned honor can have great influence
both within the politics of science and on public policies, affecting who has the
power to do what to whom.
New discoveries in the biological basis of human behavior are likely to have
significant impacts on the ways that people understand and treat each other, even
potentially transforming societal institutions and the response to deviant behavior
such as violence [49]. The degree of optimism or pessimism a culture has with
respect to any serious social problem depends in part on the prevailing theory of the
problem’s causes and the degree of control that members of the society believe they
have over such causes. For example, pre-scientific societies that believe mental ill-
ness is caused by supernatural agents tend to be optimistic that it can be cured by
magic. In contrast, societies that possess little in the way of effective medical treat-
ments, but consider madness to be a physical problem, will be very pessimistic that
it cannot be cured at all [50].
A society that imagines that it possesses effective physical methods may use them
to control deviant behavior even if the causes of that behavior are not well understood
and could reflect fundamental social conflict rather than genetics, physiology, or
other biological factors. This tendency is increased when there exist pseudoscientific
ideologies that facilitate social acceptance of these morally dubious control strategies.
For example, medications such as ritalin are widely used to control disruptive chil-
dren in schools, on the theory that this behavior is a medical syndrome called “hyper-
kinesis” or “attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder”. However, sociologists have
been critical of this approach, considering it to be the unwarranted medicalization
of deviant behavior [51].
The impact of new biological science may cause a split in the social sciences. On
the one hand, some elements in psychology and social psychology may embrace the
new biological science and the technologies of control based on them, whereas other
elements in sociology and branches of social psychology remote from biology may
form a vigorous counter-culture that is highly critical of biology’s influences. Bio-
logically-oriented social scientists may be optimistic that new chemical, genetic, or
electronic treatments will improve individual human behavior and thereby society
at large, but they are unlikely to undertake scholarly futurological studies, simply
because they are not trained in the social scientific disciplines that prepare scholars
to study social trends. Thus, ironically, social–scientific futurology could be stimu-
lated more by a reaction against the rise of cognitive neuroscience than by embracing
the new biological concepts themselves.
644 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650

9. Resurgence of personality psychology

Research on the structure and dynamics of human personality remains an important

part of social psychology, although possibly somewhat eclipsed by other topics at the
present time. However, the rapid transformation of computing and communication
technology may give personality researchers an entirely new field of application:
creation of simulated or duplicated personalities to give machines the capacity to
integrate better into human lives. Examples abound, from the online robot newscaster
Ananova [52] to the nagging disembodied voice that orders people to get away from
the doors of the Washington subway system. Several teams are currently developing
voice browser technology that would enable anyone with a telephone to surf the web
and would vastly improve access for blind people. Much human-computer interaction
in future will take place vocally, so it is worth asking where computers will get the
personalities that give their voices human interest. One suggestion is that machine
personalities will be borrowed from real people and will act as living memorials
after those individuals have died [53]. For example, if your Aunt Bessie was a fine
cook, your automated kitchen could talk with her voice, prepare her recipes, and even
sing her favorite songs while cooking. Thus, personality psychology may undergo a
renaissance if it is asked to provide the fundamental scientific knowledge for the
creation of machine-based persons.
The main scientific thrust in the psychological study of personality has focused
on the attempt to identify a relatively small number of dimensions along which all
people could be measured, from three to seven dimensions with many studies
employing exactly five [54]. Many of these studies use questionnaire measurement
scales, and they will undoubtedly have a role to play in archiving personalities, but
they are designed to measure common dimensions of variation rather than to identify
the qualities that make a person unique. Sometimes this work is called nomothetic,
dealing with abstract general statements, but psychology has traditionally also
included idiographic research on personality that sought to understand the unique
character of individuals [55]. My own recent work has centered on The Question
Factory, a web-based system for creating thousands of questionnaire items that could
capture much more of the unique variation between people than can be measured
by the small numbers of items in conventional personality tests [56].
A person-centered futurology could arise from such a computer-based renaissance
of personality psychology. Rather than employing the predictions of noted intellec-
tuals or projecting future trends in society at large, it would explore the images of
the future held by ordinary citizens and extrapolate trends in their personal lives.
For example, one of the projects carried out by The Question Factory included an
open-ended item in the National Geographic Society’s web-based Survey2000 ques-
tionnaire [57], “Imagine the future and try to predict how the world will change over
the next century. Think about everyday life as well as major changes in society,
culture, and technology”. About half of the 46 000 respondents wrote in at least one
idea about the future, and the enormous mass of verbiage received was boiled down
to 2000 distinct statements. These were incorporated as items in a questionnaire
administration software system called The Year 2100, which an individual may use
 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650 645

to collect and archive his or her personal predictions for the century ahead. Other
systems could be created, either fully computerized or supporting the work of human
counselors, to identify alternative future life courses for individuals and help them
choose one course among many at major decision points in their lives. Alternatives
could be generated for each individual, rather like the scenarios we are presenting
here, but personalized to reflect the individual’s unique resources and personality
characteristics.

10. The new social sciences

The new computing and communication technologies have the potential to

improve the social sciences, integrating across previously separate disciplines and
greatly expanding our capacity to collect and analyze social trends [58]. But at the
same time, the scientific and engineering disciplines that are developing these techno-
logies represent an external threat to traditional social science that may partially
supplant it over the coming decades. For example, cybernetics offers entirely new
theoretical paradigms for analyzing social phenomena, such as conceptualizing
organizations as information-processing systems or modeling social interaction by
artificial intelligence [59]. The collection and organization of data about “the infor-
mation society” may come to be dominated by information scientists or computer
scientists, rather than sociologists and anthropologists [60].
Traditional politically fixated disciplines, such as relatively left-wing sociology
and relatively right-wing economics, may be poorly positioned to move into the new
areas of research connected with the “bio-info-micro” revolution promised by genetic
engineering, advanced computing and nanotechnology. Thus, the new century offers
opportunities for new sciences to arise, displacing those existing ones that ignore
the future. This scenario has so many variables and uncertainties, that it is especially
difficult to predict the outcome or imagine how the new social sciences would shape
studies of the future.

11. Thinking outside the terrestrial box

The modern era differs from all earlier periods of history in a remarkable and
decisive way: Today, unlike in ancient times, no mysterious peoples or civilizations
impinge upon the known world from outside. The ancient Greeks who first systemat-
ized social philosophy were aware of alien societies outside the circuit of the Aegean,
from Spain to India and from Russia to the Sudan, but they knew nothing whatsoever
of the Japanese or the civilizations of the Americas. We, in contrast, can visit practi-
cally every point on the surface of our planet in a few hours. Although there are
still strangers, there are no outsiders. Thus, human society and the social sciences
would be challenged greatly if this situation were to change.
For the past forty thousand years or so, since the demise of the last Neanderthal,
anatomically modern humans have been the only intelligent species on Earth, but
646 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650

advanced technology could change this in at least four ways. First, the multifaceted
attempt to create artificial intelligence in computers, which has cycled between
overhyped optimism and brooding pessimism since the 1960s, could finally succeed
[61]. Second, genetic engineering of animals could create smart partners for humanity
out of dogs, chimpanzees, and dolphins. Third, a combination of genetic engineering
and social bifurcation could divide the humanity again into two or more competing
species, analogous to the Eloi and Morlochs in The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.
Fourth: establishment of self-sufficient human colonies on Mars or the satellites of
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune would facilitate both cultural and biological
differentiation of humanity into distinct humanities. These possibilities would chal-
lenge social science to find ways of understanding the behavior of each type of being
and its relations to the others. But these would be Earth-born intelligences, sharing
much of our cultural heritage.
The real aliens would, of course, be extraterrestrial intelligences that evolved inde-
pendently under conditions very different from those here on Earth, possibly with
vastly longer histories than ours and strange biologies with unimaginable impli-
cations for their social behavior. For at least sixty years, much of a more-or-less
sober nature has been written about the possibility that life exists on other planets
[62], and in the final decade of the twentieth century much astronomical evidence
accumulated that conditions potentially suitable for life were common throughout
the universe. Reports that fossil microbes had been found in a Martian meteorite
now appear to be premature, but there is some reason to believe that hospitable
conditions for simple forms of life may exist in hydrothermal subsurface environ-
ments on Mars, in a postulated ocean on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, and (if really exotic
chemistry could support biological activity at low temperatures) even on Saturn’s
moon, Titan. Life complex enough to be intelligent seems highly unlikely outside
Earth in this solar system, but the roster of planets identified in orbit around other
stars has surpassed fifty [63].
The idea of radio communication with extraterrestrial civilizations has been popu-
larized so widely that every educated person must be aware of it, yet hardly any
social scientists take account of this possibility [64]. In 1983 I conducted a modest
poll of 212 students at Harvard University, asking open-ended questions about the
possible social consequences of actual radio communication with extraterrestrials
[65]. The most frequently mentioned idea was that the extraterrestrials would teach
us much, giving us tremendous gains in knowledge, but nobody argued that infor-
mation about a totally alien society might transform terrestrial social sciences. None-
the-less, this seems to me one of the likely outcomes, and comparison of terrestrial
with extraterrestrial society would tell us which of the regularities of human life
were mere historical accidents, and which were fundamental features of any social
system. Especially interesting to learn about would be the alien equivalents of
Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, Social Psychology, and Sociology. But,
then, we might be surprised to discover that an intelligent society, perhaps more
advanced than our own, had no need of these dubious disciplines.
 W.S. Bainbridge / Futures 35 (2003) 633–650 647

12. Conclusion

For roughly the century prior to about 1975, it was possible to argue that the
social sciences were still immature and that their value would become obvious once
mature theories and research methodologies had achieved solid but non-obvious
knowledge about the social world. The lack of stunning discoveries and powerful
applications in the subsequent quarter century, despite formalization of theory and
sophisticated quantitative methodologies, leads one to suspect that one of two things
is fundamentally wrong with the social sciences. Either they somehow were estab-
lished on the wrong assumptions, decades ago, or in fact natural laws of large-scale
social behavior do not exist. Other less catastrophic possibilities exist, for example
that social reality is chaotic because it is socially constructed and constantly
reformulates itself [66]. All three of these alternatives suggest that the social sciences,
as currently constituted, are unstable.
The traditional disciplines are anchored to some extent by their bureaucratization
in the departmental structure of universities, by the existence of distinct scientific
associations at both the national and international level, and by government support
for fundamental research and statistical data gathering in specific fields. The most
probable projection always asserts that tomorrow will be just like today, but the nine
scenarios described above demonstrate that dramatic changes in the nature of social
science cannot be ruled out. Thus the future of the future in social science remains
in flux.

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