A study has just been published in the journal Nature , whose French press echoed. It indicates that, since 1945, scientific discoveries have become less and less revolutionary (or "disruptive"). To reach this conclusion, the authors analyzed the articles published since 1945 by assigning them a "disruptiveness" score. They observed a constant decline in this index.
Beyond the debates raised by this study, the methodology and conclusions of which are discussed, one is tempted to make a transposition: could it be that the social sciences have followed the same path?
Of course, any overall judgment is necessarily unfair: it does not do justice to the many quality studies that are carried out each year. However, one cannot help but wonder: where does this feeling come from that the social sciences no longer contribute much? Where are the significant works? Are studies still being produced that will be able to endure in the decades to come?
A comparison with the past gives the measure of the decline. Let us consider that the 1890s saw the simultaneous publication of works that are still historic: The laws of imitation from Tarde (1890), The rules of the sociological method by Durkheim (1895) and The psychology of crowds by Le Bon (1895). In the 1960s and 70s, it was the era of the "four musketeers" of sociology: Crozier, Touraine, Boudon, Bourdieu.
What is comparable today? Sociology seems to be driven by an army of civil servants who, without necessarily being unworthy, mass-produce a homogeneous and tasteless literature, which seeks less to advance sociological knowledge than to serve militant causes.
This drift had been perfectly described by Raymond Boudon in a very nice article. He pointed out a paradox: the social sciences have never been so abundant and present in society, whether in public policies or in the media, but they have abandoned their explanatory purpose. If we wanted to be mean, we could say that they have become a component of the state apparatus, sociologists being the new organic intellectuals of our time.
