Much of science, including social science, tries to explain things we all know, but science can also make a contribution by establishing that some of the things we all think we know simply are not so. In that case, social science may also try to explain why we think we know things that are not so, adding as it were a piece of knowledge to replace the one that has been taken away.

— Jon Elster, Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences, p. 16