Just ran across that quote by Nigel Thrift (in this paper

"I have what I think is a pretty good test of whether a person is a social scientist or not: do they eavesdrop on a fairly regular basis on other people’s conversations on trains and planes, on buses, in the street, and so on? If they don’t, I suspect that they really want to be a philosopher or an architect – or both. The difference is crucial for me. One kind of work (mainly) involves trying to figure out what other people are thinking as they are doing. The other (mainly) involves thinking. They are not the same."

Why do I blog this? maybe it's a bit of a stereotype (especially towards architects) but I find that quote curiously exemplifies the empiricist versus speculative debate.