TEDxMidAtlantic 2011 - Duncan Watts - The Myth of Common Sense

Summary

The speaker, a former physicist turned sociologist, discusses the challenges of solving complex social problems compared to fields like physics. While common sense helps in everyday situations, it often fails with large-scale social issues involving many individuals interacting in complex ways. The speaker advocates for a more scientific approach to social science, leveraging data from online interactions to better understand human behavior. They highlight the transformative potential of data-driven methods, despite the inherent messiness of social systems, and emphasize the need for systematic research to tackle social problems more effectively.

Takeaways

• 🧑‍🔬 The speaker has a multidisciplinary background, starting in physics and moving into sociology and social networks.
• 🌍 Social problems are more complex than 'rocket science' because they involve many interacting individuals with unpredictable behaviors.
• 💡 Common sense helps us navigate everyday situations but can mislead us when dealing with complex, large-scale problems like economics or politics.
• 🔄 Humans often view complex social issues with a bias of obviousness—once we know the outcome, we can easily craft explanations that seem inevitable.
• 🤔 The real issue with common sense is that when every possible explanation seems obvious, we lose the ability to accurately analyze complex situations.
• 📚 Historical narratives often mislead us, as we try to generalize from past events to predict future outcomes, even though history rarely repeats itself in the same way.
• 🔬 The scientific method has been essential in solving problems where intuition falls short, especially in areas where human behavior is involved.
• 📊 The rise of the internet and digital data has allowed sociologists to measure and analyze human interactions at unprecedented scales.
• 🔭 The availability of large-scale social data is like a 'telescope' for social science, making invisible patterns of behavior visible for analysis.
• 🚀 While social science may never have the elegant laws of physics, the speaker believes that data-driven approaches can significantly improve our understanding of complex social issues.

Q & A

What is the speaker's academic background?

The speaker started as a physicist in Australia, writing an undergraduate thesis on Chaos Theory. Later, they moved to the U.S., completed a PhD in engineering at Cornell University, and transitioned to sociology, eventually working at Yahoo Research.

How does the speaker describe the differences between social science and other scientific disciplines like physics?

The speaker notes that while problems in physics or chemistry often seem difficult, problems in sociology seem easier at first glance, but this perception is misleading. Social problems are complex, involve human behavior, and are challenging to solve, unlike the more deterministic nature of rocket science.

What example does the speaker give to illustrate the difficulty in solving social problems?

The speaker mentions examples like the ongoing difficulty in measuring the effectiveness of advertising, solving political crises, predicting financial meltdowns, and effectively aiding developing nations, despite centuries of study and effort.

What is the central claim the speaker makes about common sense?

The speaker argues that common sense works well for everyday, concrete situations but can mislead us when applied to complex, large-scale social problems involving many interacting people over time.

How does the speaker explain the failure of common sense in understanding complex social problems?

Common sense helps in routine decision-making and interpersonal interactions, but it struggles with large-scale issues that involve complex, dynamic systems. This reliance on common sense leads to incorrect assumptions and conclusions about social problems.

What historical example does the speaker use to demonstrate the flaws of common sense?

The speaker references a 1947 review by sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld about a study on American soldiers during World War II. Lazarsfeld shows how, regardless of the study’s results, people can justify either outcome as 'obvious,' which highlights the problem with relying on obviousness or common sense.

Why does the speaker criticize the way people interpret historical events?

The speaker argues that hindsight bias causes people to construct narratives that make the outcome of events seem inevitable. These narratives, however, are just stories, not true explanations of why events occurred.

What does the speaker say about the limitations of learning from history?

While people often say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, the speaker points out that history never truly repeats itself in complex systems, making it difficult to use past events to predict future outcomes accurately.

What potential solution does the speaker offer to improve our understanding of social problems?

The speaker advocates for a more scientific, systematic approach to studying social problems, leveraging data and computational methods. This approach can offer insights where common sense fails, especially as modern technology allows for the measurement of human interactions on a large scale.

How has technology changed social science, according to the speaker?

The speaker highlights that the internet and digital platforms now allow social scientists to observe and measure large-scale human interactions in real time, which was previously impossible. This data-driven approach is transforming social science.

What does the speaker predict for the future of social science?

While social science is unlikely to achieve the same level of predictive power as physics, due to the complexity of human behavior, the speaker believes the rise of data and computational tools will significantly transform and improve the field.