National Institute of Mental Health Roundtable Discussion: Promissory Notes and Prevailing Norms in Social and Behavioral Sciences Research

Abstract

Most workshops convened by the National Institute's of Health are devoted to the puzzle-solving activities of\nnormal science, where the puzzles themselves and the strategies available for solving them are determined largely\nin advance by the shared paradigmatic assumptions, frameworks, and priorities of the scientific community's\nresearch paradigm. They are designed to facilitate what Thomas Kuhn referred to as elucidating topological detail\nwithin a map whose main outlines are available in advance. And apparently for good reason. Historical studies by Kuhn and others reveal that science moves fastest and penetrates most deeply when its practitioners work within well-defined and deeply ingrained traditions and employ the concepts, theories, methods, and tools of a shared paradigm. No paradigm is perfect and none is capable of identifying, let alone solving, all of the problems relevant to a given domain of inquiry. Thus, the essential day-to-day business of normal science is not to question the limits\nor adequacy of a given paradigm, but rather to exploit the presumed virtues for which it was adopted. As Kuhn\ncautioned in his discussion of paradigms, re-tooling, in science as in manufacture, as an extravagance to be\nreserved for the occasion that demands it. Well, as the marketing people say --- this is not your father's Oldsmobile. We are breaking with tradition today by stepping outside the map to initiate and pursue a long-overdue dialogue about paradigm reform and scientific retooling. Our warrant for prosecuting this agenda is a Kuhnian occasion that demands it--- is a protracted paradigm crisis, the neglect of which has hurt us terribly and the resolution of which will determine the viability and fate of the social and behavioral sciences in the 21st century. Since the details of the crisis are well know within and outside our ranks, a brief sketch of its main outlines will suffice as a framework for our dialogue\ntoday. They include, (a) widespread dissatisfaction with the meager theoretical progress and practical yield of\nmore than a century of social and behavioral sciences research in many substantive domains, (b) long-neglected\nyet widely recognized deficiencies in the epistemological assumptions, discovery practices and justification\nstandards of the dominant paradigm on which the social and behavioral sciences have relied --- and rely--- to conceptualize, interpret, and guide their empirical research, (c) a broadly based consensus among leading\nscholars and scientists about the need for fundamental paradigm reforms, and (d) institutional incentive structures\nthat not only encourage and reinforce the status quo but discourage constructive reform efforts. \n\nOur objective for the next eight hours is to formulate strategies and recommendations for leveraging the\nresources and influence of the National Institute of Mental Health to foster a climate of constructive reforms where\nthey are needed by freeing investigators in from the oppressive constraints of existing paradigms and facilitating, encouraging, and funding their retooling their efforts

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