A few weeks ago, I discussed the dangers of chronocentrism, which has been defined by British science journalist Tom Standage as “the egotism that one’s own generation is poised on the very cusp of history.” I wrote:
From Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man — “History is directional, and its endpoint is capitalist liberal democracy” — to Rifkin’s The End of Work — “We are entering a new phase in history, one characterized by the steady and inevitable decline of jobs” — to Millenarians, present-biasedness and the belief that the old rules no longer apply seem insuperable for many people.
Nowhere was this clearer than when the world’s population hit seven billion a few weeks ago. Never mind the past 25 million years of human evolution, during which humans always managed to develop technologies to feed themselves. Never mind the fact that famines are man-made and not directly caused by a lack of food to go around. Never mind all that: many commentators saw fit to inform us that the old rules no longer applied, and that we were about to enter an era of starvation and famine.
Chronocentrism in the Social Sciences
Chronocentrism is particularly pernicious in the social sciences in general and in economics in particular.
Indeed, for many, it seems difficult to take a long view of the history of economic thought and admit that, much as we chuckle at some of the research “findings” of a few hundred years ago (Malthus is a particularly good example), researchers 50 years from now will find plenty to criticize about our own work — if they read it at all. Yet how many times do we seem willing to fight tooth and nail to defend research findings?
I get the impression that in the natural sciences, researchers are more aware of this particular manifestation of present-biasedness. In the natural sciences, the understanding that no paper is perfect appears widespread, and researchers seem conscious that their work can be improved.
Perhaps as a result, researchers in the natural sciences cite each other’s work a lot more than economists and other social scientists do.
But surely the benefit of hindsight will always imply that we’ll think we’ve figured out how to do things ‘better,’ or think, at the very least, that we (in the present/now) have a greater understanding of things. And it that regard, the *now* is indeed the cusp of history.
The point is vis a vis what? The past does not require us to think/do/innovate in the present in absolute terms, relative terms seem to always suffice.
It is enough that “Our studies are not as biased as Matlhus’ ” because that’s, you know, oh so laughable. But we don’t really have, as the natural sciences a gold standard (i.e proving /disproving something).
I don’t think there is necessarily a lack of humility in the social sciences recognizing that better papers/studies could be made. I think this is even a more worrying scenario, one a la Rumsfield, where we’re confronted with the reality that the social sciences innately face unknown unknowns. In the absence of a true indicator of what a perfect study/paper is, we’re left to trust, that if we’re in a ‘now’ the present authors in the field are our best shot to do things, not perfect, but better vis a vis the past (however immediate that is).
I agree with you in that this type of group thinking seems to be more salient in the social sciences. I suppose is the nature of our trade. This relativist approach of sorts would be harder to pull off in the natural sciences!