  Common observations of the unpredictability of human behavior and the
influence of one question on the answer to another suggest social science
experiments are probabilistic and may be mutually incompatible with one
another, characteristics attributed to quantum mechanics (as distinguished from
classical mechanics). This paper examines this superficial similarity in depth
using the Foulis-Randall Operational Statistics language. In contradistinction
to physics, social science deals with complex, open systems for which the set
of possible experiments is unknowable and outcome interference is a graded
phenomenon resulting from the ways the human brain processes information. It is
concluded that social science is, in some ways, "less classical" than quantum
mechanics, but that generalized "quantum" structures may provide appropriate
descriptions of social science experiments. Specific challenges to extending
"quantum" structures to social science are identified.
