Wow, despite the stereotype you peddle to the angry at the world basement dweller *portion* of Slashdot, these same social scientists you mock include most of the founders of any significant human civilization and the documentors/philosophers of high level thinking; which I'm told is something required even to do even "real" science. Heck many of them were "real" scientists as well and not just wimpy philosophy space wasters. Back when people were only considered wise if they valued both understanding the physical and the metaphysical. These beta test scientists understood silly things like maintaining analyzing history, being able to speak/write coherently, and many other social innovations were key to a society where ""real" science could be performed. These proto-social scientists found patterns and themes in history, created structured language, documented things, and otherwise enabled the wide spread acceptance and clear reasoning for the social contract distinguishing humans from other animals through mutual generational information transfer. This is what makes us able to understand the value of interaction over pure instinct and creates an environment where experiments and science can exist. Humans didn't do much of anything to progress up until this point. Before all this a lab would have been pointless and useless, specimens/materials from far away lands would be impossible to acquire or identify, the concept of the academic collaboration/review model would seem pointless. Heck good luck building anything even resembling a piece of modern scientific equipment over the course of a lifetime. Even if you did you would be all alone in figure out how to use it. Though none of that would interest you because you likely would be too focused on survival, unfamiliar with anything you hadn't personally experienced, and without any way to compile, compute, or transfer knowledge to future generations. So science, "real" or "social" would seem like a total waste, and in the just another thing distracting you from the next meal. Luckily some early humans understood what you do not. Thank them everytime you do anything that you wouldn't see your dog do.