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A focus of criticism on methodological and ethical grounds, the undercover or `covert' approach to fieldwork persists as a useful technique in certain settings. Questions remain about the credibility of the published findings from such work. Covert researchers nearly always protect the anonymity of their subjects and locations. Other researchers cannot validate the covert researcher's claims, yet ethical guidelines often insist that researchers demonstrate the benefits that derive from a covert study. If researchers cannot show that their studies will prove beneficial, ethical standards will weigh against the study, on the presumption that the omission of informed consent should be counterbalanced by the scientific rewards of the research. An attempt to open the results to greater peer investigation might place subjects at risk of unwanted notoriety or even danger. There does not seem to be a way that covert research can meet ethical guidelines unless we adjust our conceptions of research, ethics, or both.

An argument is made against the conventional viewpoint that the natural sciences are void of all subjectivity, bias, & personal or political moral values. Using the "emancipatory sciences" of feminism, antiracism, & class struggles, common assumptions are presented that demonstrate the problems involved in eliminating social biases from research techniques. These emancipatory sciences usually either: (1) ignore the other's concerns; (2) define the other's concerns as a causal outcome of one's own concerns; or (3) include, only incidentally, the concerns of the others into one's own concerns. It is imperative that the relationships among gender, race, & class become more cohesive. The class problem, eg, should be recognized as manifesting itself in different forms depending on the race & gender of those involved. 19 References. R. Logsdon

Social Science Metadata and the Foundations of the DDI

Reflections on a Quest for Social Science Data in Vietnam

Establishing an Australian Social Science Data Archive: Progress and Plans

Notes on the Social Sciences as Producers of Technologies

RéSUMé. — La possibilité d'une coopération féconde entre philosophie morale et sciences humaines et sociales est exclue par certains philosophes et sociologues parce que, d'après eux, leurs disciplines sont orientées dans des directions complètement opposées. Les sciences humaines et sociales portent sur ce qui est ; la philosophie morale sur qui doit être. À mon avis, c'est une erreur qui provient du fait qu'ils ne tiennent pas compte de l'existence de principes du raisonnement moral (« devoir » implique « pouvoir » ; « pas de différence normative sans différence factuelle », etc.) et de théories morales (différentes variétés d'éthique des vertus ou de conséquentialisme) qui établissent des passages entre ce qui est et ce qui doit être.

Observations on The "vanity of the philosopher" / Charles R. McCann, Jr. -- The "vanity of the philosopher": analytical egalitarianism, associationist psychology, and eugenic remaking? / Andrew Farrant -- In the shadows of vanity: religion and the debate over hierarchy / J. Daniel Hammond -- The vanity of the economist: a comment on Peart and Levy's The "vanity of the philosopher" / Kevin D. Hoover -- Classical equality: on the content on analytical egalitarianism / Joseph Persky -- Thinking about analytical egalitarianism / David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart -- Social anthropology in economic literature at the end of the 19th century: eugenic and racial explanations of inequality / Terezio Maccabelli.

This article is not about the gun control issue per se; instead, it considers the way in which this issue has been treated by social scientists. The article points to some of the shortcomings in what is commonly referred to as the conventional social scientific approach to controversial social matters. While the subject examined in the article is gun control, other equally controversial issues, such as school busing or the legalization of marijuana, could have been used as well to make the same points.SUMMARYUsing the gun control issue as a case in point, this article has argued that the conventional social scientific treatment of controversial social phenomena often has much more in common with sagecraft than it does with social science. The social scientific treatment of the gun issue passed on to the general public through magazine articles, the published findings of various social‐science‐assisted commissions, and social science textbooks, is generally identical to the pro‐gun control argument accepted by that segment of American society with which the more prominent social scientists are more likely to identify—namely urban, college educated, philosophically and politically liberal, upper‐middle class, or cosmopolitan America. It would appear that cosmopolitan ethnocentrism and the sage orientation that it fosters do little to encourage the intellectual curiosity and skepticism so vital to the social scientific enterprise.