Most pawns should have at least some research and social skill by default.

[Call me Arty]

 Simple, really. I can understand somebody being totally inept with, say, Shooting. If a fair amount of pawns are some collection of farmer, office drone, or have some other similar "safe" backstory, I can understand 0 shooting skill. Similarly, a gigantic chunk of people in first-world countries have difficulty growing a houseplant, so I could understand people who come from planets completely coated in either glistening skyscrapers or concrete having difficulty with the concept.

Y'know what I can't understand?

The number of pawns I've had with between "Barely heard of it" (0) and "Beginner" (2) levels in either Social or Research skills. Do you mean to tell me that

• Cave Tenders, who literally have nothing else in their caves other than fungi and the people they care for
• An escaped convict who - as the lack a melee bonus - probably relied on kissing-up to guards and fellow inmates to survive
• Gatherers, who could be entirely responsible for their tribe's survival
• Message carriers, who needed to be able to break the bad news directly to nobility
• Geologists, who are specifically mentioned as working with other people
• Many, many more . . .

. . . are all capable of being totally socially inept? What about the fact that

• Aromatherapists, who use specific plants for specific uses
• Hunters, who are specifically mentioned as "learn[ing] to track and trap any animal in the most dangerous of places, and had deep knowledge of many ingenious methods of taking down specific large animals"
• Space bartenders, who "used his knowledge of herbs in order to craft his own strange concoctions for his customers"
• Wandering healers, who are mentioned as studying back when they were just "healers"
• Colony settlers, who actually volunteered to get planted on a Rimworld
• And many, many more. . . again . . .

. . . can all lack any problem solving, or are incredibly bad at researching (almost half the speed as a "capable amateur")?

I'm not implying that Tynan takes a week out of development to decide exactly how charismatic a deep space minor would be, or precisely how many years of space-college a sculptor attended to learn about art theory, and give them arbitrary scores for each and every backstory that doesn't already have a value. I just think that the average human - with our social tendencies and thoughtful brains evolved over thousands of years - should be a bit better at being, well, not a rock with a face drawn on it.

[Jibbles]

To be honest, I hope it all gets reworked.  I try to keep my pawns alive when I play but I don't like most of them.  What you usually get is a pawn who has hardly any useful skills and passion unless they're old af and about to croak at any moment.  These lack of skills are usually stacked with bad traits.  The issue I have is how often I see it. Incapable of violence? I don't even deal with those anymore.  Cool it's in the game, but they appear way too much so I'm done with them. 

[jamaicancastle]

I have definitely met people who have 0 in Social and Research in the real world, soooo...

Notwithstanding that - from a design perspective, if there's nobody occupying the "0" point of your scale, you might as well take the lowest point someone does occupy and put 0 there instead. And from another design perspective, the way social/research (or any) skill maps to things like research speed and recruit chance depends on the designer's final intended speed/chance/other effect - so if they change things so most pawns have Research 2 instead of Research 0, they'll just recalibrate how research points work so that it takes the same amount of time. (If anything, by narrowing the gap between average and great researchers, this change would make better researchers less impactful.)

[Call me Arty]

I have definitely met people who have 0 in Social and Research in the real world, soooo...
. . .
- so if they change things so most pawns have Research 2 instead of Research 0, they'll just recalibrate how research points work so that it takes the same amount of time. (If anything, by narrowing the gap between average and great researchers, this change would make better researchers less impactful.)

That's just the thing though, there are exceptions to the rule. Defectors, for example, have a lowered social skill as a result of not trusting people, so they'd still have a lower skill for social than most. Apocolypse Survivors, similarly, have lessened research due to books not being part of scavenging, so they'd also be a part of the "Barely heard of it" group.
Most people are on a bell curve. Most people are grouped in the middle of a curve, which is the average person, and the outliers are what make the lip of the bell. Due to the difference of, say, a capable amateur (what you would call someone if they were "average") being only a level six out of twenty (20 being a Legendary Master) by Rimworld's standard, you're not getting a perfect graph where most people are about level 8-12. The issue I'm having is that Rimworld's standards for skills set the average for a lot of skills really low, even though it makes little sense for Social and Research specifically. Sure, you've met people who are 0's, but I'm certain the wide majority of people you've met are a least around a four, assuming you're out of elementary.
Also, I'm not sure about you, but roles in my colony are really specialized. Most of the time, people are only getting jobs they're passionate for. I'm certain that you wouldn't turn away a level three researcher with a burning passion for a level four researcher with none, but an interest in literally anything else.

[cultist]

Depends on how you look at the social skill. I see it as an expression of a pawn's understanding of rhetorics, abillity to argue and sway opinion, or even emotionally manipulate others. You can be a nice person and have a normal relationship with others without being good at these things. It's more of a "politician" skill than an "empathy" skill.