Human Behavior: The most complex science of all

"The social sciences are largely hokum."-Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory

Like the New York Time's article stated, social sciences tend to be looked down upon by scientist in more clear cut fields, like Physics or Biology. The latter fields follow the scientific method to see if a hypothesis is found true or rejected. As a member of the advertising field, we find ourselves using social sciences a lot because measuring the successfulness of a campaign can be difficult, especially with social marketing. The Truth anti-smoking campaign won a lot of awards, and the numbers show a decrease in the amount of teen smokers. However, at the same time the price of cigarettes increased by more than half. Was it the great campaigns that swayed smokers, or the cost in product? 

That being said, I do agree that social sciences are not really science, but observations that still have their purpose in research. Human behaviors are so complex, it could even be said that social sciences should be considered a more complex science than the "hard" sciences. 

Here's a good article by a psychology professor