I agree, however, gut instincts seems to be a world apart from scientific method. Perhaps social science requires a melding of the two; a place for exploring what makes sense intuitively.
Perhaps "unknowns" is a poor choice of wording. "Complex variables" might be better; complex in that the value of the variable can change with changing contexts. In other words, the value of "most preferred soda" is not an absolute value, but changes as context changes.
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