Refracted Knowledge: Viewing Families Through the Prism of Social Science

I reinforce a vision for family science in which we routinely step back from our research to consider the fit of the empirical world with the reality of everyday life. This vision suggests that we pursue the methodological advances of the past decade but remain mindful of the limitations of the scientific approach. Such mindfulness will help us attend to both similarity and variability in families and in family-life experience. A responsible social science also requires that we attend to rhetoric or how we communicate. I reflect on the practice of humility as a way to achieve these goals.