Four different experts (Mark Bevir, Brian Epstein, Nile Green, Jennifer Michael Hecht) give their candid perspectives on how social science research should be improved.

To mobilize America's intellectual resources to meet the security challenges of the post-9/11 world, US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates observed that "we must again embrace eggheads and ideas." But the gap between national security policymakers and international relations scholars has become a chasm. Michael Desch traces the history of the relationship between the Beltway and the Ivory Tower from World War I to the present day. Recounting key...

"Nice Racism asserts that it is white progressives who are responsible for inflicting the most daily harm on people of color"-- DiAngelo identifies many common white racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm. She explains how spiritual white progressives seek community by co-opting Indigenous and other groups' rituals create separation, not connection. Challenging he ideology of individualism,...

Anthropology is the organized study of what makes humans human. It takes an objective step back to view homo sapiens as a species and ask questions like: Given our common characteristics, why aren't all of us exactly the same? Why do people across the world have variable skin and hair color and so many inventive ways to say hello? And how can knowing the reasons behind our differences--as well as our similarities--teach us useful lessons for the future?...

"A new, counterintuitive theory for how social networks influence the spread of behavior. New social movements, technologies, and public-health initiatives often struggle to take off, yet many diseases disperse rapidly without issue. Can the lessons learned from the viral diffusion of diseases be used to improve the spread of beneficial behaviors and innovations? In How Behavior Spreads, Damon Centola presents over a decade of original research examining...