Beholderess reviewed Critical Mass by Philip Ball
Review of 'Critical Mass' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
As a student (not a very good one, arguably :) of social sciences, I've been more than a little disturbed by what I've seen as trying to "prescribe" how people "must" behave using statistical inferences. This book finally made me understand that social science has nothing to do with prescription, or even with figuring out what is going on in individual human minds. Rather, there are two questions: a) How people tend to behave in certain circumstances b) If they behave that way, what happens.
Also, it sparked my interest in using models to study behaviour.
The last, but not the least, it is quite easy and entertaining to read - popular science at it's finest.
