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Agree with your larger point but: > This may show up as lots of superfluous/unreproducible papers and journals many not even based on the scientific method. s

Agree with your larger point but: > This may show up as lots of superfluous/unreproducible papers and journals many not even based on the scientific method. seems very STEM-centric. It sounds like you're saying academia outside of the realm of science is useless which I completely disagree with.

greenail 5y ago
I'm suggesting that we may be overinvesting in some parts of academia outside the realm of science and that publishing in a journal may not be the best way to measure how to tune those investments. Sokal's work in 1996 was interesting and "Sokal Squared" seems relevant to the topic. A journal's ability to filter out parody seems like a good test for evaluating the overall quality of investments in a field.
deertick1 5y ago
Not OP, but would like to say : I don't think science outside of stem is useless, but it is fundamentally different and fundentally less reliable/reproducible. In terms of reliability and rigor, it seems to go about like : Math -> computer science -> physics/chemistry -> biology -> everything else. As you continue, you must ignore more independent variables to conduct an experiment. By the time you get to social sciences where you're doing self reported survey studies on your sensation of gender acceptance, you cant really call it science anymore. Not saying its useless, but ir absolutely should not be treated with the same level of reverence and trust as the harder sciences. People act like the government should be making policy decisions based on psychology thesis papers, or that id you disagree with some purple haired feminism professor, you are a science "denier." Ultimately this is a function of poor education, and hivemind thinking caused by our inundation with news and various media. But yeah, my point is STEM (in its colloquial usage) is really all that can be considered science and people tend to mistake any academic paper or public persona for science or a scientist respectively, and that just isn't so. Sorry for the rant.
- albatruss 5y ago
  Something important to understand is that the hard sciences are more rigorous, but that's because they're easier to model than what the social sciences have to deal with. The naming is confusing.
- dash2 5y ago
  Article author here. I take your point, but you know there's more to social science than studies of feelings about gender acceptance, right? Here's a randomized controlled trial about how to distribute bednets for malaria: http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/bednets/Cohen_Dupas_Free_Distribution_or_costsharing_2009.pdf http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/bednet.... Getting this right potentially saves thousands of lives. It's a rigorous experiment, so in terms of causality you could argue it's considerably tighter and less theory-dependent than e.g. earth sciences. There are really two issues here which get conflated. First, social life is complex, people aren't like atoms, and all our explanations are gross simplifications. Second, yes, there's a lot of bullshit social science out there. But there's also some real social science, and it can address important issues.
Frost1x 5y ago
There's a lot of non-scientific papers produced from the sciences, they're just heavily laced with jargon, complexity, or intentionally limited scope to make publication viable and hide the shortcuts behind them. When I was young I believed things outside of the sciences and math were useless. As I've grown older, I realize the tremendous value of the arts, humanities, and other studies. They're just not as obviously functional or as easily quantifiable and much of this work is difficult. These studies help us think as humans and not machines. Yes, they can be gamed by disingenuous and often do get low rewards in society, but they're not inherently useless disciplines. The other studies provide much value to what makes life worth living, IMO. Literature, art, the human state. I love science, don't get me wrong, but I also enjoy the rest.
bregma 5y ago
But everyone knows you can only get rich by working in STEM. Have you ever heard of a musician worth millions? Or a writer? Or an actor? Or an athlete? Fashion designer?
- Game_Ender 5y ago
  What percentage of writers, athletes, actors, or musicians are worth millions? Compare that to the number of STEM graduates. It’s not that you cannot, it’t about the likelihood.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    The humanities also include law, politics, and economics [1]. What percentage of laywers, politicians, and economists are worth more than STEM graduates? How much relative power does each sector have? [1] Technically a social science, certainly not a hardcore STEM subject.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Economics is not in the humanities, political science is not in the humanities, and law is not typically considered in the humanities. It kinda sounds like you don't know what the humanities are.
      - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanities#Law_and_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanities#Law_and_politics Just to be clear, you're both kind of right, but I take objection to your overly aggressive stance on this where you rebut and accuse without providing any sort of evidence.
      - Apocryphon 5y ago
        The humanities, liberal arts, and social sciences are usually lumped together as "not-STEM".
- 5y ago
burnished 5y ago
nah, this is a huge problem in STEM fields
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
A distinction should be drawn between “this entire field is useless” and “the current discussions in this field are wankery”. IMO, STEMlordery stems from students surmising—correctly or not—that their humanities professor’s publications are wankery and then falsely assuming that the entire field is hokey junk. Accrediting boards who demand proof that all departments produce relevant scholarly work are also to blame for the situation, as it leads to a proliferation of write-only journals that will publish any word salad that can be convincingly proven to be in dialogue with contemporary scholarship.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  I have observed that purported STEMlordery is more of myth than reality, or a caricature created by the media. I have found that on many stem-centric communities that people employed in STEM have great respect for the humanities, such as history, philosophy, or writing. Look at how many non-STEM articles get voted to the top of hacker news, such as articles about literature or philosophy.
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    Undergraduate underclassmen and high school students are where you find most real live STEM lords. STEM professionals may be ignorant of the humanities, but they are (for the vast majority) no longer condescendingly dismissive enough to be true STEM lords.
  - dash2 5y ago
    Personally I love literature and art, my bedroom is lined with poetry books in several languages, and for that very reason, I dislike much of the modern humanities, with their pious, dreary approach to these beautiful and important things.
    - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
      > I dislike much of the modern humanities with their pious, dreary approach As someone who recovered from a mild case of being a STEMlord in college, grandiose claims of unearned self-importance are what turned me off from literature classes. I was always down to take a class in history, philosophy, or music if my schedule had an opening for that semester, but I took the minimum I could get away with in languages & literature. Part of the problem is that English departments insist they are important because they “teach you how to be fully human”, which induces eye rolls: it’s like how the Quality Inn having the word “quality” in its name is unintentionally ironic. I still don’t know if the Dead Poets Society was meant as a satire of self-important literature classes or as a genuine homage to them. At least the way it was taught when I was in high school, poetry was either cheesy rhymes or was the literary equivalent of debugging someone else’s code golf. It wasn’t until I discovered the authors Mark Danielewski and Christian Bök that I understood the joy in playing with language for its own sake.
fallingknife 5y ago
I think the problem is that non-STEM classes have been dumbed down to the point where they just aren't on the same level. You see lots of failed science majors in English class, but no failed English majors in differential equations class. But why not? Writing is hard, and if you had to be as good of a writer to be an English major as you do at math to be a math major, lots of people would fail out of that too. But they don't because those classes are easy. I've never actually heard anybody argue that the subject matter isn't worthy.
- leetcrew 5y ago
  > You see lots of failed science majors in English class, but no failed English majors in differential equations class. I always find this funny to read, because that's more or less what happened to me. I was originally very interested in philosophy and the classics, but I just couldn't keep up with the reading and paper assignments. I'm not a bad writer in general, but I'm terrible at writing academic papers. I picked CS/math because I was tired of staring at a blank word document and slowly panicking for a week. with CS/math, I could just sit down and start making progress immediately on a problem set or coding project. I see the point of what you're saying though. there's a limit to how rigorous an english class can practically be. the difference between bad and mediocre writing is mostly mechanics. but what's the difference between good and great writing? I doubt the "experts" could even agree, let alone come up with a rubric for grading papers.

greenail 5y ago

I'm suggesting that we may be overinvesting in some parts of academia outside the realm of science and that publishing in a journal may not be the best way to measure how to tune those investments. Sokal's work in 1996 was interesting and "Sokal Squared" seems relevant to the topic. A journal's ability to filter out parody seems like a good test for evaluating the overall quality of investments in a field.

deertick1 5y ago

Not OP, but would like to say : I don't think science outside of stem is useless, but it is fundamentally different and fundentally less reliable/reproducible. In terms of reliability and rigor, it seems to go about like : Math -> computer science -> physics/chemistry -> biology -> everything else. As you continue, you must ignore more independent variables to conduct an experiment. By the time you get to social sciences where you're doing self reported survey studies on your sensation of gender acceptance, you cant really call it science anymore. Not saying its useless, but ir absolutely should not be treated with the same level of reverence and trust as the harder sciences. People act like the government should be making policy decisions based on psychology thesis papers, or that id you disagree with some purple haired feminism professor, you are a science "denier." Ultimately this is a function of poor education, and hivemind thinking caused by our inundation with news and various media. But yeah, my point is STEM (in its colloquial usage) is really all that can be considered science and people tend to mistake any academic paper or public persona for science or a scientist respectively, and that just isn't so. Sorry for the rant.

albatruss 5y ago
Something important to understand is that the hard sciences are more rigorous, but that's because they're easier to model than what the social sciences have to deal with. The naming is confusing.
dash2 5y ago
Article author here. I take your point, but you know there's more to social science than studies of feelings about gender acceptance, right? Here's a randomized controlled trial about how to distribute bednets for malaria: http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/bednets/Cohen_Dupas_Free_Distribution_or_costsharing_2009.pdf http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/bednet.... Getting this right potentially saves thousands of lives. It's a rigorous experiment, so in terms of causality you could argue it's considerably tighter and less theory-dependent than e.g. earth sciences. There are really two issues here which get conflated. First, social life is complex, people aren't like atoms, and all our explanations are gross simplifications. Second, yes, there's a lot of bullshit social science out there. But there's also some real social science, and it can address important issues.

Frost1x 5y ago

There's a lot of non-scientific papers produced from the sciences, they're just heavily laced with jargon, complexity, or intentionally limited scope to make publication viable and hide the shortcuts behind them. When I was young I believed things outside of the sciences and math were useless. As I've grown older, I realize the tremendous value of the arts, humanities, and other studies. They're just not as obviously functional or as easily quantifiable and much of this work is difficult. These studies help us think as humans and not machines. Yes, they can be gamed by disingenuous and often do get low rewards in society, but they're not inherently useless disciplines. The other studies provide much value to what makes life worth living, IMO. Literature, art, the human state. I love science, don't get me wrong, but I also enjoy the rest.

bregma 5y ago

But everyone knows you can only get rich by working in STEM. Have you ever heard of a musician worth millions? Or a writer? Or an actor? Or an athlete? Fashion designer?

Game_Ender 5y ago
What percentage of writers, athletes, actors, or musicians are worth millions? Compare that to the number of STEM graduates. It’s not that you cannot, it’t about the likelihood.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  The humanities also include law, politics, and economics [1]. What percentage of laywers, politicians, and economists are worth more than STEM graduates? How much relative power does each sector have? [1] Technically a social science, certainly not a hardcore STEM subject.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Economics is not in the humanities, political science is not in the humanities, and law is not typically considered in the humanities. It kinda sounds like you don't know what the humanities are.
    - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanities#Law_and_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanities#Law_and_politics Just to be clear, you're both kind of right, but I take objection to your overly aggressive stance on this where you rebut and accuse without providing any sort of evidence.
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      The humanities, liberal arts, and social sciences are usually lumped together as "not-STEM".
5y ago

burnished 5y ago

nah, this is a huge problem in STEM fields

BeFlatXIII 5y ago

A distinction should be drawn between “this entire field is useless” and “the current discussions in this field are wankery”. IMO, STEMlordery stems from students surmising—correctly or not—that their humanities professor’s publications are wankery and then falsely assuming that the entire field is hokey junk. Accrediting boards who demand proof that all departments produce relevant scholarly work are also to blame for the situation, as it leads to a proliferation of write-only journals that will publish any word salad that can be convincingly proven to be in dialogue with contemporary scholarship.

paulpauper 5y ago
I have observed that purported STEMlordery is more of myth than reality, or a caricature created by the media. I have found that on many stem-centric communities that people employed in STEM have great respect for the humanities, such as history, philosophy, or writing. Look at how many non-STEM articles get voted to the top of hacker news, such as articles about literature or philosophy.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  Undergraduate underclassmen and high school students are where you find most real live STEM lords. STEM professionals may be ignorant of the humanities, but they are (for the vast majority) no longer condescendingly dismissive enough to be true STEM lords.
- dash2 5y ago
  Personally I love literature and art, my bedroom is lined with poetry books in several languages, and for that very reason, I dislike much of the modern humanities, with their pious, dreary approach to these beautiful and important things.
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    > I dislike much of the modern humanities with their pious, dreary approach As someone who recovered from a mild case of being a STEMlord in college, grandiose claims of unearned self-importance are what turned me off from literature classes. I was always down to take a class in history, philosophy, or music if my schedule had an opening for that semester, but I took the minimum I could get away with in languages & literature. Part of the problem is that English departments insist they are important because they “teach you how to be fully human”, which induces eye rolls: it’s like how the Quality Inn having the word “quality” in its name is unintentionally ironic. I still don’t know if the Dead Poets Society was meant as a satire of self-important literature classes or as a genuine homage to them. At least the way it was taught when I was in high school, poetry was either cheesy rhymes or was the literary equivalent of debugging someone else’s code golf. It wasn’t until I discovered the authors Mark Danielewski and Christian Bök that I understood the joy in playing with language for its own sake.

fallingknife 5y ago

I think the problem is that non-STEM classes have been dumbed down to the point where they just aren't on the same level. You see lots of failed science majors in English class, but no failed English majors in differential equations class. But why not? Writing is hard, and if you had to be as good of a writer to be an English major as you do at math to be a math major, lots of people would fail out of that too. But they don't because those classes are easy. I've never actually heard anybody argue that the subject matter isn't worthy.

leetcrew 5y ago
> You see lots of failed science majors in English class, but no failed English majors in differential equations class. I always find this funny to read, because that's more or less what happened to me. I was originally very interested in philosophy and the classics, but I just couldn't keep up with the reading and paper assignments. I'm not a bad writer in general, but I'm terrible at writing academic papers. I picked CS/math because I was tired of staring at a blank word document and slowly panicking for a week. with CS/math, I could just sit down and start making progress immediately on a problem set or coding project. I see the point of what you're saying though. there's a limit to how rigorous an english class can practically be. the difference between bad and mediocre writing is mostly mechanics. but what's the difference between good and great writing? I doubt the "experts" could even agree, let alone come up with a rubric for grading papers.