Soc Rel Criticized At Adams Forum

Social relations resorts to statistics and laboratory experiments to back up wild statements, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. '38, associate professor of History, declared at the Adams House Forum on "Social Relations and Its Criticism," last night.

To hundred and fifty students listened while Schlesinger and Oscar Handlin, associated professor of History, attacked the social relations field, and Jerome S. Bruner, associate professor of Social Psychology, and Alex Inkeles, lecturer on Social Relations and Regional Studies, answered their criticism.

In reply to charges that social relations workers rated their results too highly, Inkeles said, "There are pretentious men in all fields. I generally agree that there are some good and some bad practitioners ... but this is true of all work."

Handlin concentrated most of his criticism on sociology. He called the field "the study of material left over from government and economics."