3 ms·

So now we have a privileged caste of self-appointed social 'scientists' who get to decide what constitutes racism and who gets their life ruined. this is gold,

So now we have a privileged caste of self-appointed social 'scientists' who get to decide what constitutes racism and who gets their life ruined. this is gold, seriously

pron 10y ago
I'm not sure understand what you're asking. Researchers in every field are always a "self appointed caste" and, yes, they tend to be privileged. Racism as an academic term is defined by the academic discipline that studies it, just as physicists get to decide what constitutes energy under the academic definition of energy, even though the word had existed thousands of years earlier, and with a different meaning. I don't think academics often get to decide who gets their life ruined, but social researchers do study the process of what ruins life in society. Have I addressed your questions?
- kofejnik 10y ago
  No, because without repeatability and predictability, an academic is usually just a charlatan
  - pron 10y ago
    Why do you say "without repeatability and predictability"? Social studies must be reproducible. When they are not, they are discredited (where are you getting your information about social science?) As we speak, there are academic organizations being formed to do exactly that: to reproduce more social science results. Prediction, as I explained, is generally impossible, just as it is impossible in computer science and biology in the general case, but in simplified situations, it exists and it is expected. Not only that, it is being used as a technology. Many manipulation techniques employed by large websites employ social science results to great effect. I think you're attacking a strawman image of social science that's been constructed by people who really have no clue. That's not to say that the social sciences aren't plagued by many methodological problems, but we actually do know quite a lot.

3 ms·

So now we have a privileged caste of self-appointed social 'scientists' who get to decide what constitutes racism and who gets their life ruined. this is gold,

by kofejnik 10y ago

So now we have a privileged caste of self-appointed social 'scientists' who get to decide what constitutes racism and who gets their life ruined. this is gold, seriously

pron 10y ago
I'm not sure understand what you're asking. Researchers in every field are always a "self appointed caste" and, yes, they tend to be privileged. Racism as an academic term is defined by the academic discipline that studies it, just as physicists get to decide what constitutes energy under the academic definition of energy, even though the word had existed thousands of years earlier, and with a different meaning. I don't think academics often get to decide who gets their life ruined, but social researchers do study the process of what ruins life in society. Have I addressed your questions?
- kofejnik 10y ago
  No, because without repeatability and predictability, an academic is usually just a charlatan
  - pron 10y ago
    Why do you say "without repeatability and predictability"? Social studies must be reproducible. When they are not, they are discredited (where are you getting your information about social science?) As we speak, there are academic organizations being formed to do exactly that: to reproduce more social science results. Prediction, as I explained, is generally impossible, just as it is impossible in computer science and biology in the general case, but in simplified situations, it exists and it is expected. Not only that, it is being used as a technology. Many manipulation techniques employed by large websites employ social science results to great effect. I think you're attacking a strawman image of social science that's been constructed by people who really have no clue. That's not to say that the social sciences aren't plagued by many methodological problems, but we actually do know quite a lot.