4 ms·

If a physicist wants to prove that a perpetual motion machine can work, they'll be shot down. If a sociologist tries to do the equivalent, as long as their idea

by wisty 11y ago

If a physicist wants to prove that a perpetual motion machine can work, they'll be shot down. If a sociologist tries to do the equivalent, as long as their idea is attractive it's hard for detractors to prove they are wrong.

dalke 11y ago
What's an equivalent? That a culture can be unchanged for 500K years? A sociologist who proposes that will be dismissed as being un-biological and a-historical.
- wisty 11y ago
  Sociology is a big field, with a long history of bad ideas. For every sociologist, there's an equal and opposite sociologist. Let's just pick on one area, education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_%28philosophy_of_education%29#Criticism_of_discovery-based_teaching_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_%28philosophy_o... > After a half century of advocacy associated with instruction using minimal guidance, there appears no body of research supporting the technique. In so far as there is any evidence from controlled studies, it almost uniformly supports direct, strong instructional guidance rather constructivist-based minimal guidance during the instruction of novice to intermediate learners. Even for students with considerable prior knowledge, strong guidance while learning is most often found to be equally effective as unguided approaches. Not only is unguided instruction normally less effective; there is also evidence that it may have negative results when student acquire misconceptions or incomplete or disorganized knowledge So .. the big "theory" in education is that "students learn better by teaching themselves". That's probably not untrue, for a bored upper-middle-class student who's ahead of the class (who do you think does a PhD in education?), but for most students it turns out to be a bad idea. But it feels good to say "Teach the students how to learn, not what to learn!". And if you can write hundreds of thousands of words on the topic, and give a feel-good summary to peers, what's stopping the idea from gaining traction?
  - dalke 11y ago
    The assertion is that "social sciences are statistical and rigorous, too. The objects measured are fuzzier, not the science practiced." Your observation on constructivism is not in disagreement with that statement. For an example from medicine, which is also fuzzy, and quoting from http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/menopause/in-depth/hormone-therapy/ART-20046372 http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/menopause/in-d... : > Hormone replacement therapy — medications containing female hormones to replace the ones the body no longer makes after menopause — used to be a standard treatment for women with hot flashes and other menopause symptoms. Hormone therapy (as it's now called) was also thought to have the long-term benefits of preventing heart disease and possibly dementia. > Use of hormone therapy changed abruptly when a large clinical trial found that the treatment actually posed more health risks than benefits for one type of hormone therapy, particularly when given to older postmenopausal women. As the concern about health hazards attributed to hormone therapy grew, doctors became less likely to prescribe it. with http://www.webmd.com/menopause/features/hormone-replacement-therapy http://www.webmd.com/menopause/features/hormone-replacement-... saying "And now, a number of recent studies show that hormone replacement therapy may have protective benefits for women who are early in menopause." Another example might be ulcers, which a few decades ago were believed to be caused by diet and lifestyle, rather than H. pylori. A third might be the relatively recent work of Ioannidis titled "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False". You write "For every sociologist, there's an equal and opposite sociologist." On the topic of education, my understanding is that a large majority of sociologists believe that "socioeconomic status [is] a strong predictor of children’s educational and social outcomes" (quote from http://cepa.stanford.edu/iies2012 http://cepa.stanford.edu/iies2012 ). This view derives originally from the Coleman Report in the 1960s and hasn't appreciably changed over the decades. If your statement is correct, then there should be a large number of sociologists in education who believe that socioeconomic status is at best a weak predictor. Where are these sociologists?
    - wisty 11y ago
      > If your statement is correct, then there should be a large number of sociologists in education who believe that socioeconomic status is at best a weak predictor. Where are these sociologists? You're talking about an observation, not a model or even a qualitative explanation. People have always known that the Sun "moves around" the Earth. That's an observation, and was never in dispute. The model has changed, though. Doctors have always known that ulcers exist. Their model of the cause changed in the light of new evidence. Did the Coleman Report do much to change the views of sociologists? I'm guessing they always knew that "rich kids do better at school". Do they think that's due to genetics, teacher behavior, better schools, parents reading to kids? Do they suggest the same interventions, to fix the inequality?

by wisty 11y ago

dalke 11y ago

What's an equivalent? That a culture can be unchanged for 500K years? A sociologist who proposes that will be dismissed as being un-biological and a-historical.

wisty 11y ago
Sociology is a big field, with a long history of bad ideas. For every sociologist, there's an equal and opposite sociologist. Let's just pick on one area, education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_%28philosophy_of_education%29#Criticism_of_discovery-based_teaching_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_%28philosophy_o... > After a half century of advocacy associated with instruction using minimal guidance, there appears no body of research supporting the technique. In so far as there is any evidence from controlled studies, it almost uniformly supports direct, strong instructional guidance rather constructivist-based minimal guidance during the instruction of novice to intermediate learners. Even for students with considerable prior knowledge, strong guidance while learning is most often found to be equally effective as unguided approaches. Not only is unguided instruction normally less effective; there is also evidence that it may have negative results when student acquire misconceptions or incomplete or disorganized knowledge So .. the big "theory" in education is that "students learn better by teaching themselves". That's probably not untrue, for a bored upper-middle-class student who's ahead of the class (who do you think does a PhD in education?), but for most students it turns out to be a bad idea. But it feels good to say "Teach the students how to learn, not what to learn!". And if you can write hundreds of thousands of words on the topic, and give a feel-good summary to peers, what's stopping the idea from gaining traction?
- dalke 11y ago
  The assertion is that "social sciences are statistical and rigorous, too. The objects measured are fuzzier, not the science practiced." Your observation on constructivism is not in disagreement with that statement. For an example from medicine, which is also fuzzy, and quoting from http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/menopause/in-depth/hormone-therapy/ART-20046372 http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/menopause/in-d... : > Hormone replacement therapy — medications containing female hormones to replace the ones the body no longer makes after menopause — used to be a standard treatment for women with hot flashes and other menopause symptoms. Hormone therapy (as it's now called) was also thought to have the long-term benefits of preventing heart disease and possibly dementia. > Use of hormone therapy changed abruptly when a large clinical trial found that the treatment actually posed more health risks than benefits for one type of hormone therapy, particularly when given to older postmenopausal women. As the concern about health hazards attributed to hormone therapy grew, doctors became less likely to prescribe it. with http://www.webmd.com/menopause/features/hormone-replacement-therapy http://www.webmd.com/menopause/features/hormone-replacement-... saying "And now, a number of recent studies show that hormone replacement therapy may have protective benefits for women who are early in menopause." Another example might be ulcers, which a few decades ago were believed to be caused by diet and lifestyle, rather than H. pylori. A third might be the relatively recent work of Ioannidis titled "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False". You write "For every sociologist, there's an equal and opposite sociologist." On the topic of education, my understanding is that a large majority of sociologists believe that "socioeconomic status [is] a strong predictor of children’s educational and social outcomes" (quote from http://cepa.stanford.edu/iies2012 http://cepa.stanford.edu/iies2012 ). This view derives originally from the Coleman Report in the 1960s and hasn't appreciably changed over the decades. If your statement is correct, then there should be a large number of sociologists in education who believe that socioeconomic status is at best a weak predictor. Where are these sociologists?
  - wisty 11y ago
    > If your statement is correct, then there should be a large number of sociologists in education who believe that socioeconomic status is at best a weak predictor. Where are these sociologists? You're talking about an observation, not a model or even a qualitative explanation. People have always known that the Sun "moves around" the Earth. That's an observation, and was never in dispute. The model has changed, though. Doctors have always known that ulcers exist. Their model of the cause changed in the light of new evidence. Did the Coleman Report do much to change the views of sociologists? I'm guessing they always knew that "rich kids do better at school". Do they think that's due to genetics, teacher behavior, better schools, parents reading to kids? Do they suggest the same interventions, to fix the inequality?