4 ms·

> I doubt the programs themselves are worse for critical thinking (good luck controlling for confounds), but it's not obvious they're better, either. A lot of

> I doubt the programs themselves are worse for critical thinking (good luck controlling for confounds), but it's not obvious they're better, either. A lot of engineers I’ve encountered who have little social science or humanities experience seem to not be well equipped to critically evaluate works in those disciplines when they do encounter them. Which makes them vulnerable to crackpot ideology, or just latching onto the first thing they encounter that makes sense to them. It works both ways though. Many a non-technical CEO has been talked into buying some worthless overpriced piece of enterprise software over the objections of their IT department.

revelio 4y ago
But your experience isn't universal or even common. Most of the engineers I've encountered can and do critically evaluate work in social science and the humanities, correctly conclude it's built on a very flimsy foundation of scientism, has little value and that this is why social science/humanities academics are so vulnerable to crackpot ideologies. Something much more strongly associated with universities than engineering organizations. Critical theory did not come from Boeing.
- hnfong 4y ago
  > Most of the engineers I've encountered can and do critically evaluate work in social science and the humanities, correctly conclude it's built on a very flimsy foundation of scientism, has little value "correctly conclude", huh. You're basically saying "people with similar backgrounds as mine reject the theories proposed by people with very different backgrounds, and I think they're quite right". I probably have a similar background as you do compared with a professor in social science, so I might agree with your conclusion (that a lot of theories in humanities are flimsy), but I see nothing to indicate (except your assertion) that those engineers you know actually evaluate work in social sciences and the humanities critically. Maybe they reject them because they sound so alien and unfamiliar? If you mean they're "critical" because they don't easily buy into those crackpot theories, perhaps consider the crackpot theories in the software engineering profession -- Agile methodology? Test driven development? Best way to interview programmers? Benefits of using $fad_framework? These are actually questions that could in theory be answered using social science methodologies. Yet what we do as a profession is simply cargo cult what the big names do. IMHO a tech CEO being sold on useless "Agile" methodologies is basically the equivalent of "a non-technical CEO has been talked into buying some worthless overpriced piece of enterprise software".
  - FreakLegion 4y ago
    I really like the example of the non-technical CEO being talked into buying something, for the opposite reason projectazorian intended. There are in many cases hidden business dynamics driving those decisions that make them globally optimal, even though they look like local extrema to Joe Engineer. Mutual backstratching with investors and board members, for example, gets a lot of shit done. The real system is much wider than the one most engineers see, and in that wider system the non-technical CEO may just be the best engineer of all. Or they may be an idiot. That happens, too.
  - revelio 3y ago
    I think a lot of engineers would agree with you that the evidence for TDD, Agile and $fad_framework is weak. Those sorts of debates are a HN staple, so I wouldn't want to criticize the whole field of software engineering because of the popularity of these concepts. Indeed Agile is often criticized for being insisted on by non-developers. Social sciences aren't criticized for being crackpot anyway, that's a strawman, it's more for the standard reasons that they produce a lot of claims but the evidential basis is weak. If social science was riven with internal debate in which these weak claims were constantly and publicly attacked, then we could compare it to the software world, but in practice we don't see that and dubious claims that come from one or two people often persist for decades before anyone decides to take a second look.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  What makes your experience more common or universal than theirs? Sounds like two sets of anecdata.

revelio 4y ago

But your experience isn't universal or even common. Most of the engineers I've encountered can and do critically evaluate work in social science and the humanities, correctly conclude it's built on a very flimsy foundation of scientism, has little value and that this is why social science/humanities academics are so vulnerable to crackpot ideologies. Something much more strongly associated with universities than engineering organizations. Critical theory did not come from Boeing.

hnfong 4y ago
> Most of the engineers I've encountered can and do critically evaluate work in social science and the humanities, correctly conclude it's built on a very flimsy foundation of scientism, has little value "correctly conclude", huh. You're basically saying "people with similar backgrounds as mine reject the theories proposed by people with very different backgrounds, and I think they're quite right". I probably have a similar background as you do compared with a professor in social science, so I might agree with your conclusion (that a lot of theories in humanities are flimsy), but I see nothing to indicate (except your assertion) that those engineers you know actually evaluate work in social sciences and the humanities critically. Maybe they reject them because they sound so alien and unfamiliar? If you mean they're "critical" because they don't easily buy into those crackpot theories, perhaps consider the crackpot theories in the software engineering profession -- Agile methodology? Test driven development? Best way to interview programmers? Benefits of using $fad_framework? These are actually questions that could in theory be answered using social science methodologies. Yet what we do as a profession is simply cargo cult what the big names do. IMHO a tech CEO being sold on useless "Agile" methodologies is basically the equivalent of "a non-technical CEO has been talked into buying some worthless overpriced piece of enterprise software".
- FreakLegion 4y ago
  I really like the example of the non-technical CEO being talked into buying something, for the opposite reason projectazorian intended. There are in many cases hidden business dynamics driving those decisions that make them globally optimal, even though they look like local extrema to Joe Engineer. Mutual backstratching with investors and board members, for example, gets a lot of shit done. The real system is much wider than the one most engineers see, and in that wider system the non-technical CEO may just be the best engineer of all. Or they may be an idiot. That happens, too.
- revelio 3y ago
  I think a lot of engineers would agree with you that the evidence for TDD, Agile and $fad_framework is weak. Those sorts of debates are a HN staple, so I wouldn't want to criticize the whole field of software engineering because of the popularity of these concepts. Indeed Agile is often criticized for being insisted on by non-developers. Social sciences aren't criticized for being crackpot anyway, that's a strawman, it's more for the standard reasons that they produce a lot of claims but the evidential basis is weak. If social science was riven with internal debate in which these weak claims were constantly and publicly attacked, then we could compare it to the software world, but in practice we don't see that and dubious claims that come from one or two people often persist for decades before anyone decides to take a second look.
Apocryphon 4y ago
What makes your experience more common or universal than theirs? Sounds like two sets of anecdata.