It's worth remembering that even physics isn't immune to this, it doesn't hit headlines often but there's certainly been criticism and dialogue orbiting the var

It's worth remembering that even physics isn't immune to this, it doesn't hit headlines often but there's certainly been criticism and dialogue orbiting the various domains of physics that exist at a largely theoretical level and impossible to disprove level. At the same time, the history of physics has actual examples of situations where theory was decades ahead of the discoveries that would facilitate validating the claims and predictions being made. It all boils down to if an approach or school of thought provides utility or other value beyond what's currently available. Philosophy had almost the opposite problem at one time ironically, the concern that theory was gaining precision but becoming unhelpful for formulating comprehensible statements (in the non-mathematical sense) about the human experience. The greater problem is the politicalization of science for which I'll use Gender Studies, though this is not to say Gender Studies is the only politicized field nor that it is the most egregious offender in any way. Having a cohesive theory of gender is useful, especially for comparing and contrasting different cultures even if it's at a level that's superficial compared to other fields like physics. At the same time, some social movements have realized that they can use aspects of gender theory to grant themselves legitimacy while leveraging the exclusionary nature of academia to silence criticism and largely control the public dialogue. A good example of the utility gained having a theory of gender is the various African refugee groups who have come to the United States over the years. I had the luck to interview a psychologist who did work helping to evaluate and integrate some of The Lost Boys of Sudan. Many of the Lost Boys exhibited signs of mental trauma and her role in helping them integrate into American life was trying to provide relief for this trauma. She noted that a major challenge initially was that there was common mindset, stemming from a mix of age and a group outlook rooted in the need to survive, where personal problems weren't viewed or even necessarily understood the way they are in the U.S. The result was that many of the refugees she was working with not only didn't see the point in many of her questions (and by extension how to answer them) they also had difficulty engaging with her at all in a manner condusive to therapy as it's practiced in the U.S. Handwaving a lot for brevity, her initial approach was to explore a trait she had observed and viewed as a quiet but severe sort of masculinity that was extremely common amongst the boys she was working with. Making early progress was largely about coming to understand this quality better and speaking to it in ways that introduced new concepts by breaking them down into smaller ideas which could then be explored by discussing them as contrasts. Is 'quiet masculinity' an especially scientific descriptor? Probably not, but it was nonetheless useful to her as an ad-hoc compass concept for breaking down barriers to providing effective therapy and it was made possible by synthesizing her understanding of gender theory with her broader knowledge of human psychology. Contrasting the previous anecdote is my experience with undergraduate Gender Studies courses which are often a mix of course work on theoretical fundamentals and lecture presentations. The presentations are rarely outright superfluous from what I've observed but it'd be dishonest to say that they aren't also laced heavily with normative political statements masquerading as sensibility and which offer nothing extra to the lecture in terms of information or utility. This sort of soapbox sophistry is unhelpful because when it's eventually brought to the spotlight it erodes the public's trust in academia which is often too compartmentalized and arcane for a layperson to see where one subfield ends and another begins. This is, in my opinion, why the social sciences in general make for such an easy punching bag. Because it quickly becomes unclear why in one situation an idea is treated as rediculous while in another it might be presented as a key component of some broader framework. The penultimate point to all of this being, it's because science deals with running into hard problems that it's important to recognize when we're mostly paving familiar territory and when we're operating mainly with ideas that are 'the best we've got'. The ladder is no less helpful in the face of total ignorance but it can be much more vulnerable to biases of perspective and culture. Vigilant introspection is therefore a constant necessity.