Davis Replies

To the Editors of the Crimson:

On the matter of the Babylonian captivity of the Sociology teaching fellow, I should like to say three things to my critics.

1. Policies which punish graduate students for teachin in their home departments are just plain unfair.

2. The number of Sociology concentrators has been increasing, not decreasing.

3. Although The Crimson decided (March 7, 1990) that the underlying issue is not about methodology, The Crimson is wrong. (Such a lapse from omniscience had to happen sooner or later.) The underlying issue is exactly about the nature of social science. On that let me quote, if I may be forgiven, a living social scientist, Geyser University Professor Henry A. Rosovsky:

"...our period in history is characterized by an unusually rapid growth of knowledge, and it follows that the proportion of outdated facts and theories will be unusually large. Classics of permanent value are confined almost exclusively to the humanities." (from The University: An Owner's Manual, pp. 102-103.) James A. Davis