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

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.