Social science had a reputation for banality and lost prestige funding to fields like neuroscience.

The claim has two parts, judged as of November 2012: (a) social science had a reputation for being banal or merely restating common sense; (b) it lost prestige and funding to fields like neuroscience. True: commentary and surveys document the banality reputation, and funding or prestige data show social science losing ground relative to neuroscience or similar fields (for example cuts to NSF social science budgets or political-science funding, alongside growing neuroscience funding). Mostly true: both parts are supported, but the funding shift is more modest or less directly tied to neuroscience than stated. Mixed: only one of the two parts is supported. Mostly false: there is only scattered evidence for either part, and the claim overstates it. False: the evidence shows social science's reputation and funding were stable or growing relative to neuroscience.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Consortium Warns Against Clear-Cutting Selected Science Budgets | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) · 11 July 2011

   ““But recently, selected research areas have been unfairly trivialized based on misinformation intended to challenge the scientific review process.””

2. E2 Consortium Warns Against Clear-Cutting Selected Science Budgets | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) · 11 July 2011

   “Fiscal year 2011 funding for NSF’s Directorate for Social, Behavior, and Economic Sciences (SBE) has been estimated at $255 million, the same amount invested in 2010. For 2012, NSF has requested $301 million for its SBE directorate, which is 3.9% of its total budget proposal.”

3. E3 Political Science Funding Black Out in North America? Trends in Funding Should not be Ignored | PS: Political Science & Politics | Cambridge Core Cambridge University Press (PS: Political Science & Politics) · 4 July 2013

   “the amendment passed by a near party line vote of 218–208 with 88.4% of Republicans supporting the amendment and 95.3% of Democrats opposing it”

4. E4 How Much NSF Funding Goes to Social Science? Social Science Space · 10 March 2014

   “funding for the SBE directorate has more than doubled the growth of NSF’s budget in the last decade, growing almost 19 percent to the NSF’s 8 percent.”

E1 gives only indirect support for the reputation part: a 2011 consortium says some research areas had been "unfairly trivialized." On funding, E2 says NSF social-science (SBE) funding was flat from 2010 to 2011 with a higher request for 2012, and E4 says SBE funding grew about 19% over the decade, more than twice NSF's overall 8%. E3 records that a House amendment passed by a near party-line vote of 218–208, but the quoted text does not say what the amendment did, and none of the evidence compares funding with neuroscience. Overall the evidence for a broad loss of funding or prestige is scattered and partly contradicted, so the claim overstates it.