Quote of the Day - social science

“We live in an era of social science, and have become accustomed to understanding the social world in terms of 'forces,' 'pressures', 'processes', and 'developments'. It is easy to forget that those 'forces' are statistical summaries of the deeds of millions of men and women who act on their beliefs in pursuit of their desires. The habit of submerging the individual into abstractions can lead not only to bad science (it’s not as if the 'social forces' obeyed Newton’s laws) but to dehumanization" (Steven Pinker)