HARDER THAN ROCKET SCIENCE

摘要

Dalton Conley is an award-winning researcher who works on the politically charged issues of race, gender and class. He tells Tony Reichhardt why he wants to stress the 'science' in the social sciences. For some in the hard sciences, it was difficult to fathom: a sociologist winning the US National Science Foundation's A. T. Waterman award for achievement by a young researcher? Surely there must be some mistake. But in his acceptance speech last month, Dalton Conley was far from defensive about his discipline's status. "I would like to argue that sociology is among the hardest sciences of all - harder than the proverbial rocket science," he told a black-tie gathering in Washington DC.