5 ms·

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.

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.

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.