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Think about how loose medical science used to be (and for how long)! leeches, bloodletting, miasma, ridiculous enemas and all sorts of outright nonsense. We've
by bingidingi 5y ago
Think about how loose medical science used to be (and for how long)! leeches, bloodletting, miasma, ridiculous enemas and all sorts of outright nonsense. We've got a lot more mistakes to make, but social sciences will improve too.
- ch4s3 5y agoTo be fair, no one was using statistics and the scientific method to support bloodletting, or miasma theory.
- Karrot_Kream 5y agoNo, but let's not forget that much of statistics was originally invented to provide a rigorous underpinning for eugenics. Pearson, who invented many of the most commonly used statistical results, was a prominent eugenicist and contributed greatly to its ideas.
- ch4s3 5y agoThat doesn't mean that statistics aren't a useful tool for checking the strength of evidence, or building a case for a hypothesis.
- Karrot_Kream 5y agoSure, but it doesn't change the fact that your findings will be as useful or useless as your premise. If you're trying to use statsitics to prove pseudoscience, well, it's still pseudoscience at the end of the day. (NB: I don't mean that psychological sciences are pseudoscience.)