Where I see social sciences is on the formalization of ontologies for specific applications or laying the ground work for general AI. Perhaps some thought will help us go from higher concepts of knowledge to imperative languages, which most programming languages still are. We often talk about learning systems that gain knowledge and improve themselves. But there is probably more to it than adding another table row. Given, that is probably very hard.

That said, I think the article mentions science being "social" in the context of how we weight scientific research depending on the authors standing and expression, not the absolute truth behind it. Which actually is probably quite a shame.