What happens when a sociologist dies? The American economist Paul Krugman quoted an Indian-born collegue who had a very special vision on reincarnation. When an economist dies, he said, two things can happen. When youve been a good, virtuous economist you will be rewarded for this in the next live: you are allowed to return as an physicist. When youve been an evil, wicked economist, you are reborn as a sociologist. This might be true -- although we can never falsify such a statement. Krugman commented that it is just a question of difficulty of the subject: Economics is harder than physics, luckily it is not quite as hard as sociology [Krugman, Pedding Prosperity 1994:xi]. This also might be true, and also hard to prove. But what happens when a sociologists dies? If youve been a good, creative sociologist you will certainly be permitted to return as a sociologist next time. And what if youve been a bad, unproductive sociologist? You will burn in hell forever, surrounded by all evil economists. But the hardest thing to do -- even for the most brilliant sociologist -- is to prove these kind of hereafter statements. They are junk statements, and thats why we may leave them in abeyance in the category of funny science.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:54:27 +0000
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