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> At the end of the day, is all this measuring anything other than trends in filling up questionnaires? I get that sense that this makes up a bulk of social sc

> At the end of the day, is all this measuring anything other than trends in filling up questionnaires? I get that sense that this makes up a bulk of social science research. This would be a criticism of the field as a whole.

skybrian 7y ago
I'm not sure, but filling out questionnaires doesn't seem all that different than polling, which seems pretty accurate?
caseysoftware 7y ago
Which leads to two linked questions: - Is it a valid criticism? - If so, are the social sciences really sciences at all? And one philosophical question: - What happens if an entire field of "research" is dissolved as wholly subjective and not repeatable? This would be much bigger than the debunking of phrenology or astrology as those don't have university departments, journals, or attempt to set social policy.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
I'm sorry that this comes across this way. I think the social sciences are useful and in fact indispensible. I disagree with their methodology and with the practice of copying methods from other fields that are really not suitable to the subject matter of the social sciences. For instance, if you define a set of answers to a questionnaire as "agreeableness" and assign it a score, you can do maths with it, just like physics can define the measurement on a thermometer as "temperature" and do maths with that. But there are no thermometers in the social sciences and the maths seem to only be measuring the researchers' intuitions (and of course, their cultural biases). [Edit: don't ask me what a thermometer is actually measuring- but I know that if a thermometer shows the water in the kettle is 100°C then the water is boling. If my agreeableness is 1, what does that do? Does it have a consistent effect? Can I measure the effect? With what? Another questionnaire? So it's questionnaires all the way down? Well, I know for sure that whatever thermometers are measuring- it's not thermometers all the way down.] It would be a lot more informative to hear what the researchers think, their intuitions and conclusions from their careful observations of human behaviour _without_ any attemt to quantify the unquantifiable. We would learn a lot more about the human mind by listening to the _opinions_ of people who have spent their life studying it if it wasn't for all the maths that (to me anyway) are measuring meade-up quantities. If nothing else, there would be more space left in their papers to explain their intuition.
- inimino 7y ago
  > If my agreeableness is 1, what does that do? Obviously, there is an entire literature that measures what it does in terms of life outcomes other than questionnaires. If you'd like to learn something very elementary about a field you're completely unfamiliar with, you might be better off picking up a textbook, rather than borderline trolling of the "this entire field is nonsense, prove me wrong" variety.
  - dboreham 7y ago
    I don't think that was borderline. More like antisocial?
- tinco 7y ago
  > If my agreeableness is 1, what does that do? It means you are more likely to answer other questions in a certain way. Other studies might even show that you might be likely to behave in a certain way. > Does it have a consistent effect? Yes, but like thermometers only work on groups of molecules, the questionnaires are consistent on groups of humans. > Can I measure the effect? With what? Another questionnaire? So it's questionnaires all the way down? No, you could easily do a follow up study by finding groups of people that answered the questionnaires in a certain way, and then have them participate in behavioral experiments. > Well, I know for sure that whatever thermometers are measuring- it's not thermometers all the way down. The manner in which molecules bump into eachother randomly. The harder they do it the more space they take up. The more people in your group with an agreability score of 1, the more space they might take up ;) Opinions are not science, maths is. We don't improve the social sciences with more vague intuitions. If you want to read intuitions then maybe read a glossy instead. Science is about making quantifiable statements, and maths is the way you turn samples into those. We certainly don't need any more room for so-called experts to tell us how we should behave in their papers. We tried that, and it was awful.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
    >> Opinions are not science, maths is. We don't improve the social sciences with more vague intuitions. If you want to read intuitions then maybe read a glossy instead. Science is about making quantifiable statements, and maths is the way you turn samples into those. We certainly don't need any more room for so-called experts to tell us how we should behave in their papers. We tried that, and it was awful. That's a very well structured passage, thanks for the comment. However, what I see is that psychology is trying very hard to make quantifiable statements about things that it can't do quantifiable statements about. Yes, maths can be used to turn observations into quantifiable statements. But just because someone is using maths, it doesn't mean they're turning observations into quantifiable statments. You can use maths to quantify non-existent quantities that you have never observed and the maths themselves won't stop you. I will mention Daryl Bem and his measurements of ESP now, but I don't mean that psychology is like parapsychology, only that you can misuse maths if you're not very, very careful. And just because you have maths it doesn't mean you're being careful. And I think intuitions and personal expertise with a subject are the basis of scientific knowledge. The maths are there as a common language to communicate the intutions gained in a manner that makes them accessible to others who do not have the same expertise. Maths is the language of science, because it's used to communicate scientific knowledge, not because it's a set of magickal formulae that transform eveything to solid science.

skybrian 7y ago

I'm not sure, but filling out questionnaires doesn't seem all that different than polling, which seems pretty accurate?

caseysoftware 7y ago

Which leads to two linked questions: - Is it a valid criticism? - If so, are the social sciences really sciences at all? And one philosophical question: - What happens if an entire field of "research" is dissolved as wholly subjective and not repeatable? This would be much bigger than the debunking of phrenology or astrology as those don't have university departments, journals, or attempt to set social policy.

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

I'm sorry that this comes across this way. I think the social sciences are useful and in fact indispensible. I disagree with their methodology and with the practice of copying methods from other fields that are really not suitable to the subject matter of the social sciences. For instance, if you define a set of answers to a questionnaire as "agreeableness" and assign it a score, you can do maths with it, just like physics can define the measurement on a thermometer as "temperature" and do maths with that. But there are no thermometers in the social sciences and the maths seem to only be measuring the researchers' intuitions (and of course, their cultural biases). [Edit: don't ask me what a thermometer is actually measuring- but I know that if a thermometer shows the water in the kettle is 100°C then the water is boling. If my agreeableness is 1, what does that do? Does it have a consistent effect? Can I measure the effect? With what? Another questionnaire? So it's questionnaires all the way down? Well, I know for sure that whatever thermometers are measuring- it's not thermometers all the way down.] It would be a lot more informative to hear what the researchers think, their intuitions and conclusions from their careful observations of human behaviour _without_ any attemt to quantify the unquantifiable. We would learn a lot more about the human mind by listening to the _opinions_ of people who have spent their life studying it if it wasn't for all the maths that (to me anyway) are measuring meade-up quantities. If nothing else, there would be more space left in their papers to explain their intuition.

inimino 7y ago
> If my agreeableness is 1, what does that do? Obviously, there is an entire literature that measures what it does in terms of life outcomes other than questionnaires. If you'd like to learn something very elementary about a field you're completely unfamiliar with, you might be better off picking up a textbook, rather than borderline trolling of the "this entire field is nonsense, prove me wrong" variety.
- dboreham 7y ago
  I don't think that was borderline. More like antisocial?
tinco 7y ago
> If my agreeableness is 1, what does that do? It means you are more likely to answer other questions in a certain way. Other studies might even show that you might be likely to behave in a certain way. > Does it have a consistent effect? Yes, but like thermometers only work on groups of molecules, the questionnaires are consistent on groups of humans. > Can I measure the effect? With what? Another questionnaire? So it's questionnaires all the way down? No, you could easily do a follow up study by finding groups of people that answered the questionnaires in a certain way, and then have them participate in behavioral experiments. > Well, I know for sure that whatever thermometers are measuring- it's not thermometers all the way down. The manner in which molecules bump into eachother randomly. The harder they do it the more space they take up. The more people in your group with an agreability score of 1, the more space they might take up ;) Opinions are not science, maths is. We don't improve the social sciences with more vague intuitions. If you want to read intuitions then maybe read a glossy instead. Science is about making quantifiable statements, and maths is the way you turn samples into those. We certainly don't need any more room for so-called experts to tell us how we should behave in their papers. We tried that, and it was awful.
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  >> Opinions are not science, maths is. We don't improve the social sciences with more vague intuitions. If you want to read intuitions then maybe read a glossy instead. Science is about making quantifiable statements, and maths is the way you turn samples into those. We certainly don't need any more room for so-called experts to tell us how we should behave in their papers. We tried that, and it was awful. That's a very well structured passage, thanks for the comment. However, what I see is that psychology is trying very hard to make quantifiable statements about things that it can't do quantifiable statements about. Yes, maths can be used to turn observations into quantifiable statements. But just because someone is using maths, it doesn't mean they're turning observations into quantifiable statments. You can use maths to quantify non-existent quantities that you have never observed and the maths themselves won't stop you. I will mention Daryl Bem and his measurements of ESP now, but I don't mean that psychology is like parapsychology, only that you can misuse maths if you're not very, very careful. And just because you have maths it doesn't mean you're being careful. And I think intuitions and personal expertise with a subject are the basis of scientific knowledge. The maths are there as a common language to communicate the intutions gained in a manner that makes them accessible to others who do not have the same expertise. Maths is the language of science, because it's used to communicate scientific knowledge, not because it's a set of magickal formulae that transform eveything to solid science.