Whether sociology can ever become a full-fledged "science" (a description of a class of events predictable on the … - Anatol Rapoport

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Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.

Anatol Rapoport

Whether sociology can ever become a full-fledged "science" (a description of a class of events predictable on the basis of deductions from a constant ra~onale) depends on whether the terms which sociologists employ to describe events can be analyzed into quantifiable observables.

Class, Deductions, Description, Events, Quantifiable, Sociology

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To gain knowledge, we must learn to ask the right questions; and to get answers, we must act, not wait for answers to occur to us.

Answers, Ask, Gain, Knowledge, Waiting

On the question of whether a behavioral science can in principle be constructed, we shall take no sides. That some kinds of human behavior can be described and even predicted in terms of objectively verifiable and quantifiable data seems to us to have been established.

Behavioral, Data, Kinds, Principles, Sides

The first attempts to consider the behavior of so-called "random neural nets" in a systematic way have led to a series of problems concerned with relations between the "structure" and the "function" of such nets. The "structure" of a random net is not a clearly defined topological manifold such as could be used to describe a circuit with explicitly given connections. In a random neural net, one does not speak of "this" neuron synapsing on "that" one, but rather in terms of tendencies and probabilities associated with points or regions in the net.

Describe, Firsts, Led, Systematic, Way

(Game theory is) essentially a structural theory. It uncovers the logical structure of a great variety of conflict situations and describes this structure in mathematical terms. Sometimes the logical structure of a conflict situation admits rational decisions; sometimes it does not.

Decision, Doe, Games, Logical, Rational, Structural

Cooperate on move one; thereafter, do whatever the other player did the previous move.

Cooperate, Moving, Player, Previous, Thereafter