Science of Man & Human Professions (Vol. 2)

This book is available in French only.

After having, in Volume 1, challenged the mythical reasoning within the social sciences that limits their scientificity, Adrien Morel continues his approach here by addressing the magical character of their practices.

All professions, whether or not they concern the human being — the author takes the example of sailing — are built by empirically discovering and accumulating effectiveness, long before being able to explain it.

Thus, all sorcerers since the dawn of time have been able to identify the effects of a plant and transmit that knowledge. Science appears on the day we become capable of explaining this effectiveness. At the same time, it makes it possible to multiply it. The professions concerned then move from empiricism to engineering.

The human professions are no exception. The sciences that concern them are only just emerging, and practitioners still confuse their empiricism with an experimental approach. Things are done, but we do not know what we are doing, as long as “it works”… Modern social sciences are therefore full of magical practices. Some are even reduced to them.

The author successively addresses psychometric tests (IQ), psychotherapies, neuroscience, while also touching on economics, pharmacology and politics… In the gap between the practices they implement and the theories available to account for them, the space of magic unfolds. Yet, one day soon, an authentic engineering will succeed this empiricism.