Dear Jude,
The question regarding a "secular" social science will involve quite of a talk. In brief, most social scientists believe that they are "secular," even when they use "qualitative" or soft approaches. In the humanities, there a large number of people who stick to their politics and insist that science is always value laden. They actually often produce ideology rather than science. Therefore, they can do it the way they feel like. This discredits the soft paradigms and makes discussion very complex.
Like you, I also disagree with the rigorous "quantitativism" of the evidence-based trends. This might change in the future because these trends enter into soft areas like architecture, nursing practice, and social work, where the soft paradigms has established a foothold. Currently the quantitative tilt is imposed by the traditions of US National Science Foundation and National Institute for Health (NIH). They fund only (or predominantly?) that type of grants. It is very rare to get grants for "qualitative" research projects. Pure architecture research grants range from $3,000 to $8,000. I exclude here the NIH grants for facilities for the elderly that can go up to $300,000 (over several years). Granting agencies shape our scholarly behavior very strongly.
Best wishes,
Lubomir
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of CHUA Soo Meng Jude (PLS)
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 11:12 PM
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Subject: Re: projection before analysis
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While on this track, is there any hope for a kind of "social scientific" account of design, approaching a kind of theology of design, especially since as John Milbank has argued, there is just no such a thing as the "secular" or "secular social science", and that "social science is just simply bad theology"?
Jude
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