Pray tell, what actually is a “social science?” Personally, I have been befuddled since my collegiate days. The rigor of science seems incompatible with the humanness of humanity. Science itself (including the word) is a relatively recent invention of an ancient befuddled populace that required the discipline. Science does use and accumulate data, so the social sciences were invented to do the same with other areas of knowledge and society. But the problem there is examined in a new book, “Uncontrolled”, by the business consultant, Jim Manzi. Manzi describes it this way: “we have much less formal knowledge about society than economists and other social scientists often claim, and that therefore we need to rely predominantly on practical expertise, federalism and trial-and-error learning to make useful progress.” Or perhaps more clearly, as the New York Times columnist, David Brooks said in a column he wrote about Manzi’s book: “The world is changing fast, producing enormous benefits and problems. Our ability to understand these problems is slow. Social policies designed to address them usually fail and almost always produce limited results. … The first step to wisdom is admitting how little we know and constructing a trial-and-error process on the basis… Full Story

James Madison wrote in Federalist 51: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” For the sake of his argument, let’s suppose that these guiding angels would have not only ethics, but also a spoonful or two of common sense. The decisions made by we mere mortals eager to redevelop our declining cities sometimes lack both. In this week’s column, my colleague Mike Bailey offered the conundrum of both the councilman and the mayor being correct about the establishment of a church where a heavily subsidized, perpetually struggling restaurant once was. The councilman was concerned about a non-taxpaying use of the structure, but the mayor said that in spite of that concern, it what was right for the community. The bare facts of the matter down by Prairie Rock, one proven over more than a decade, are that the 16,200 square foot part of… Full Story