Our Mission
Breaking out of the walled garden of science.
Social science is often done in a walled garden of concepts, mechanisms, and data that work for other scientists. But when practitioners try to take them out of the garden, they cannot be implemented, their purported effects shrink, and, on occasion, the ideas themselves become toxic. At the Social Design Lab, our science starts in the world and works backwards towards the abstract and theoretical.
Creating knowledge that works
Our goal is to create knowledge that can stand up to the complexities and vagaries of real social worlds. Our research is geared towards identifying large, reproducible, and consistent effects for heterogenous populations. The best science is that which has the biggest impact for the most diverse set of people.
Making progress at the foundations of society
Racism, colonialism, mortality, productivity, democracy, growth, creativity, happiness. Pure science is essential to understanding the core challenges of being together and the purpose of that understanding should be to improve the human condition.
