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Considerations: 1) First, questioning the premise—you may encounter a whole lot more pop-social-science writing than the Real Deal. Consider, for example, what

Considerations: 1) First, questioning the premise—you may encounter a whole lot more pop-social-science writing than the Real Deal. Consider, for example, what a smart and thoughtful person, whose main exposure to the work of historians was watching Ancient Aliens, might think of history, as an academic field. I don't know what you've read, but it's possible a lot of it's way toward the entertaining-but-wrong end. 2) As for "rigorous science", the social sciences have many limitations that something like chemistry or physics do not. They are necessarily based much more on observation and comparison of complex real-world systems. Limited ability to perform controlled experiments doesn't make them not science, as there's more to science than just that, but it does mean it can be very difficult to prove solid, definitive results in social science. It does also mean that the edges of social science are a great place to hide and nurture some serious bullshit, and if it's politically convenient for someone maybe even get your bullshit a few well-funded think-tanks—that in addition to how much the heart of it's full of bullshit, too, due to careerist game-playing by researchers, but that's not so different from other fields.

alfiedotwtf 5y ago
> I don't know what you've read, but it's possible a lot of it's way toward the entertaining-but-wrong end. Not quite... I've gone through the classics, Wealth of Nations, Das Kapital, General Theory of Employment etc, and about to start Ricardo. What I've found is although they sound logical and use many examples to make their case, I still see most (with some exception to Keynes) of these are just opinion with possibly selective bias of examples. What's bad here, is that these authors each take themselves as gospel, which then politicians have implemented these ideas with a blunt hammer.
- handrous 5y ago
  Ricardo's going to be a fun one, then. I think you'll find he doesn't make quite so broad a claim re: the benefits of free trade as free-trade advocates tend to imply he does, in his study of comparative advantage. (there's a trend here, since similar things happen with Adam Smith) There is a divide between political philosophy (and adjacent economic work) and social science proper, that's analogous to the divide between the theoretical side of modern physics and the experimental side but cranked up a few notches. As in most other sciences, journals, low-print-count and narrowly-scoped books from academic presses, and (to some degree) textbooks, are where the scientists really work (this doesn't mean it's all good work, of course)—though the standard reading (which you seem to be working through) is standard for a reason, and guide the vocabulary and context of that work. > possibly selective bias of examples. Heh, when you're lucky there are a good number of even biased examples. The really painful ones are mostly "suppose if..." fairy tales spinning fantasies based on some questionable premises and definitions, the odd bad syllogism, and a very small number of cherry picked examples that, if you dig, aren't even presented accurately. Whole schools of political and economic thought can be based almost entirely on this, as their adherents sneer at the illogic and idiocy of those who aren't convinced.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > There is a divide between political philosophy (and adjacent economic work) and social science proper, that's analogous to the divide between the theoretical side of modern physics and the experimental side but cranked up a few notches. Its not really that analogous. Theoretical physics is at least in theory still predictive, though it may be vert distant from the pragmatics of verification. There are areas of political/economic science that are like that, but political/economic philosophy is predominantly normative rather than predictive (Austrian school economics, despite being called “economics” rather than “economic philosophy” and despite occasionally making fact rather than value claims is, and fairly openly admits to being, part of this.) There's a lot of people who are active as public intellectuals on both sides of the predictive/normative world, and the media (who are often the employers of public intellectuals) do an extremely poor job of explaining, when they aren't straight up concealing, the divide between predictive and normative elements of controversies in political and economic debates.
    - handrous 5y ago
      > Its not really that analogous. Theoretical physics is at least in theory still predictive, though it may be vert distant from the pragmatics of verification. Sure, I intended the "cranked up a few notches" to cover the difference, but could have been clearer. Think things that don't even have a clear path to verifiability or testability, but continue to generate papers (string theory, maybe) but even more speculative. > There are areas of political/economic science that are like that, but political/economic philosophy is predominantly normative rather than predictive (Austrian school economics, despite being called “economics” rather than “economic philosophy” and despite occasionally making fact rather than value claims is, and fairly openly admits to being, part of this.) Absolutely! Part of the trouble is that to chart a course in politics or economics, you have to choose a desired outcome with winners and losers, so there's inherently a normative aspect to it. There's a whole lot of "ought" involved that's practically unavoidable. Throw in conflicts of interest and it's a hell of a mess. It's like if no-one had been able to agree on where Apollo 11's Eagle should land, and also they're already in flight, and also gravity doesn't always do what we think it does, and also several of the people involved are being paid to shill for particular landing sites, even if the spacecraft can't physically reach them within its fuel budget, but they've got some really fancy-looking explanations about the whole "gravity is weird sometimes" thing so maybe they're not full of shit? To pick on the Austrians in particular (hey, you brought them up, not me, I only posted a complaint about their broad political sphere's style of argument without naming them :-) ) they've got a bad case of presenting their ethical egoism as also satisfying consequentialist approaches better than any other framework, just by happy coincidence. This should set off one's alarm bells at full volume, but it sure does help them cast a wide net when evangelizing.

alfiedotwtf 5y ago

> I don't know what you've read, but it's possible a lot of it's way toward the entertaining-but-wrong end. Not quite... I've gone through the classics, Wealth of Nations, Das Kapital, General Theory of Employment etc, and about to start Ricardo. What I've found is although they sound logical and use many examples to make their case, I still see most (with some exception to Keynes) of these are just opinion with possibly selective bias of examples. What's bad here, is that these authors each take themselves as gospel, which then politicians have implemented these ideas with a blunt hammer.

handrous 5y ago
Ricardo's going to be a fun one, then. I think you'll find he doesn't make quite so broad a claim re: the benefits of free trade as free-trade advocates tend to imply he does, in his study of comparative advantage. (there's a trend here, since similar things happen with Adam Smith) There is a divide between political philosophy (and adjacent economic work) and social science proper, that's analogous to the divide between the theoretical side of modern physics and the experimental side but cranked up a few notches. As in most other sciences, journals, low-print-count and narrowly-scoped books from academic presses, and (to some degree) textbooks, are where the scientists really work (this doesn't mean it's all good work, of course)—though the standard reading (which you seem to be working through) is standard for a reason, and guide the vocabulary and context of that work. > possibly selective bias of examples. Heh, when you're lucky there are a good number of even biased examples. The really painful ones are mostly "suppose if..." fairy tales spinning fantasies based on some questionable premises and definitions, the odd bad syllogism, and a very small number of cherry picked examples that, if you dig, aren't even presented accurately. Whole schools of political and economic thought can be based almost entirely on this, as their adherents sneer at the illogic and idiocy of those who aren't convinced.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > There is a divide between political philosophy (and adjacent economic work) and social science proper, that's analogous to the divide between the theoretical side of modern physics and the experimental side but cranked up a few notches. Its not really that analogous. Theoretical physics is at least in theory still predictive, though it may be vert distant from the pragmatics of verification. There are areas of political/economic science that are like that, but political/economic philosophy is predominantly normative rather than predictive (Austrian school economics, despite being called “economics” rather than “economic philosophy” and despite occasionally making fact rather than value claims is, and fairly openly admits to being, part of this.) There's a lot of people who are active as public intellectuals on both sides of the predictive/normative world, and the media (who are often the employers of public intellectuals) do an extremely poor job of explaining, when they aren't straight up concealing, the divide between predictive and normative elements of controversies in political and economic debates.
  - handrous 5y ago
    > Its not really that analogous. Theoretical physics is at least in theory still predictive, though it may be vert distant from the pragmatics of verification. Sure, I intended the "cranked up a few notches" to cover the difference, but could have been clearer. Think things that don't even have a clear path to verifiability or testability, but continue to generate papers (string theory, maybe) but even more speculative. > There are areas of political/economic science that are like that, but political/economic philosophy is predominantly normative rather than predictive (Austrian school economics, despite being called “economics” rather than “economic philosophy” and despite occasionally making fact rather than value claims is, and fairly openly admits to being, part of this.) Absolutely! Part of the trouble is that to chart a course in politics or economics, you have to choose a desired outcome with winners and losers, so there's inherently a normative aspect to it. There's a whole lot of "ought" involved that's practically unavoidable. Throw in conflicts of interest and it's a hell of a mess. It's like if no-one had been able to agree on where Apollo 11's Eagle should land, and also they're already in flight, and also gravity doesn't always do what we think it does, and also several of the people involved are being paid to shill for particular landing sites, even if the spacecraft can't physically reach them within its fuel budget, but they've got some really fancy-looking explanations about the whole "gravity is weird sometimes" thing so maybe they're not full of shit? To pick on the Austrians in particular (hey, you brought them up, not me, I only posted a complaint about their broad political sphere's style of argument without naming them :-) ) they've got a bad case of presenting their ethical egoism as also satisfying consequentialist approaches better than any other framework, just by happy coincidence. This should set off one's alarm bells at full volume, but it sure does help them cast a wide net when evangelizing.