10 ms·

The application of the term 'science' to the social 'sciences' was a terrible mistake. How does the author justify this statement: > "A global study ... finds

The application of the term 'science' to the social 'sciences' was a terrible mistake. How does the author justify this statement: > "A global study ... finds that economic inequality on a social level cannot be explained by bad choices among the poor nor by good decisions among the rich." ...when their article quotes the first author as saying: "Our research does not reject the notion that individual behavior and decision-making may directly relate to upward economic mobility... *we narrowly conclude that biased decision-making does not alone explain a significant proportion of population-level economic inequality.*" ?? How do they bring themselves to make the statement: > "Poor decisions were the same across all income groups, including for people who have overcome poverty." ... when the study didn't look at any real-world decisions whatsoever, but merely at performance on a battery of academic tests, (whose relationship with real-world decision-making we're expected to take on faith)?

sirspacey 3y ago
“Why you arguing with what science says?” Every time I hear this I respond “Science says nothing. Only scientist.” What I find amusing is that people arguing for something want to metabolize sweeping generalizations. If social science teaches you anything, it’s that sweeping generalizations are a poor framework for understanding anything.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- vacuity 3y ago
  > “Science says nothing. Only scientist.” That's a great way of putting it. I'm ashamed that I only recently realized it during a discussion about science and religion with my friends. I defined science along the lines of "best-effort iteration on making a hypothesis, collecting data, and evaluating the hypothesis". And that's without considering the human factor, whether it's confirmation bias, thirst for fame, or some other weakness. That's not to say that science is worthless; on the contrary, it embodies our capability to rationalize our universe. It's unfortunate that so many people think that understanding science means listening to the mainstream consensus of scientists, without critically evaluating their own values, assumptions, and the limitations or outright flaws of the studies. Nuance shouldn't be overlooked and mistaken conclusions should be addressed.
  - germandiago 3y ago
    Many people do not have a background strong enough to analyze papers. Most. Even many of us, depending on the topic, not either. People are more driven by belief than anything else. I try not to as much as possible, but I humbly believe I am at least able to detect one thing: when things do not match each other and there are cracks and contradictions. However, many people do not care to get informed beyond a basic article without any research (not even a paper) and will still fiercely support their positions. That is why I think people have more of belief and emotion than rationality when it is about highly politicized topics.
- hirundo 3y ago
  > If social science teaches you anything, it’s that sweeping generalizations are a poor framework for understanding anything. Here are some sweeping generalizations that seem to be helpful: E = mc^2 a^2 = b^2 + c^2 F = ma
causality0 3y ago
[flagged]
- hahaha581 3y ago
  Could it be that these folks have a different value system than you? To them money is made to be spent not horded. You can always declare bankruptcy if you run out of it. Isn't it allowed every 7 years. Why is your way better? You probably value the thought of having money more vs actually spending it. Time passes by for both parties.
  - causality0 3y ago
    Why is your way better? Because they complain about all the consequences of their actions without changing them? They complain about their tiny apartment, about their out of date phones and computers, about how much their animals cost in time and money, about how they have to take suboptimal medications because they can't afford the correct ones? Then when an emergency happens they have to beg money off their friends. "Having a different value system" is almost always code for shitty behavior and poor impulse control.
underlipton 3y ago
They're basically saying that social inequality is not the sum total of rich people having made good decisions and poor people having made poor decisions. As an individual, it is possible to make savvy decisions that raise your circumstances; however, as a society-level phenomenon, it's incorrect to say that poor people are only poor because they screwed up. As an extreme hypothetical, consider a system where 1) Your annual income is determined by making one specific, arbitrary decision 2) It is possible to be observant enough to make the decision intelligently, but most are not able to perceive the clue clearly and must guess; this is reflected in an outcome distribution that skews towards a preponderance of incorrect answers 3) Making the decision correctly nets you $1 mil; incorrectly, $1,000 4) There are no other opportunities to make money The inequality present in this system is largely a function of the magnitude of the spoils/demerits for being correct/incorrect, not the distribution of correct/incorrect answers.
- gruez 3y ago
  >They're basically saying that social inequality is not the sum total of rich people having made good decisions and poor people having made poor decisions. As an individual, it is possible to make savvy decisions that raise your circumstances; however, as a society-level phenomenon, it's incorrect to say that poor people are only poor because they screwed up. Does anyone honestly think this? Is this a strawman? I don't think you need a study to make you conclude that individual choices don't explain 100% of differences in income/wealth. Someone born in a worse school district is obviously going to be at a disadvantage compared to someone in a better school district, all else being equal. The same exists for luck or other random factors (eg. meeting the right people).
  - kayodelycaon 3y ago
    I grew up around people with the belief poor people are poor because they are lazy or made bad decisions. If a poor person would make good decisions and not be lazy, they wouldn’t be poor.
  - bittercynic 3y ago
    This is probably very different from person to person. Most of the poor people I know personally are hard-working, intelligent people, and are not poor because they screwed some important thing up. It's just circumstances/family obligations, and not any personal failing. I'm also aware of a couple of people who appeared to have a reasonable shot at a stable life with some level of wealth, but they seemed determined to squander it, maybe due to mental/emotional trouble and addiction. I'd like to see society change so that we afford more respect, stability, and comfort to the least fortunate among us, but where this fits into a discussion about personal choices is a contentious issue.
comfypotato 3y ago
Science in the context of politically charged topics generally disgusts me. The outcome, that is. In theory it could help things, but it never does. The authors’ personal beliefs interfere every time. From the conception of their idea, to the research, to the decision to publish the results. By the time we read it, it’s no different than a biased news article. Only the intellectual level at which the biases/beliefs are presented differs. This particular paper is no different. Sure, people are born into different economic conditions. This is obvious. Beyond that, there’s nothing useful to see in the research.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Curious, what are some of the best social science papers and some of the worst social science papers in your opinion?
  - photonthug 3y ago
    I don't think you need to look far to find bad papers, but for good ones doing "real science", I would maybe look for psych stuff that's next door to economics? Kahneman comes to mind
  - comfypotato 3y ago
    As someone else said, Kahneman is OK. He certainly has some brain-tickling research. I’ve read some papers by him about how people use poor logic in decision-making that were truly fascinating. There are countless bad papers. If you lean left, I could show you papers that declare no racial bias in police use of lethal force. If you lean right, I could show you papers that declare no correlation between conservative policy and economic growth.
- bdw5204 3y ago
  The thing that's really interesting to me is how "science" has arguably turned into what it was originally against. Originally, science outright rejected the ideas of specialization and credentialism. And it was founded on opposition to the "scientific consensus" that was enforced by groups like the Catholic Church (though, contrary to popular misconception, it wasn't hostile to religion and in fact scientists like Newton also were interested in trying to reconcile the Bible with the discoveries of science). So much of what passes for "science" today consists of outright logical fallacies like the appeal to authority and the appeal to consensus. And the peer review process is often flawed with self interested reviewers using the process to demand citations to their own work or block papers they disagree with. On any politically sensitive topic, I don't trust any "peer reviewed research" unless I can plausibly answer yes to the following question: "If this paper found the opposite result, would it be published?" Often, the answer is that a paper finding the opposite result would be career ending for the author. Which means there is no disinterested search for truth on that topic and papers on it are just dogma masquerading as science.
agonz253 3y ago
Feynman’s perspective on this: https://youtu.be/tWr39Q9vBgo https://youtu.be/tWr39Q9vBgo
Retric 3y ago
“does not alone explain” means the same thing as “cannot be explained by.” I think your confusion stems from “is influenced by” being a much weaker statement than “can be explained by.” Being in prison for example isn’t ”explained by” people breaking the law as that would require nobody to be falsely imprisoned or be set free on a technicality etc. The second statement follows from the first. If you can’t completely determine someones wealth from past decisions alone, then you can’t group the poor or wealthy by the history of their past decisions.
- tomcatfish 3y ago
  This is not correct. If we want to explain why the sidewalk is wet, and 99% of the time it is because of sprinklers and 1% of the time it is because of rain, then "The sprinklers do not alone explain the wetness", but "The wetness cannot be explained by the sprinklers" is a foolish thing to say.
  - Retric 3y ago
    English is tricky around negatives and groups. “Wetness of all sidewalks globally can be explained by sprinklers.” <- obviously false. “Wetness of sidewalks can never be explained by sprinklers.” <- also obviously false The first applies to all sidewalks as a group, the second applies to subsets of the overall group so it’s false if any subset can be explained by sprinklers. Both quotes are using my first example due to being inclusive and including: “on a social level” and “population-level”
gruez 3y ago
It's strange that you're painting this as a "social 'sciences'" problem, when all the problems you listed are with the phys.org article itself. The social scientists in question are properly qualifying their statements, it's just that the media is taking those statements and running with them.
gwern 3y ago
> ... when the study didn't look at any real-world decisions whatsoever, but merely at performance on a battery of academic tests, (whose relationship with real-world decision-making we're expected to take on faith)? These aren't even decent forms of those academic tests, either. When I read it yesterday, I was very unimpressed: https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/14nuucw/economic_inequality_cannot_be_explained_by/jqabh4z/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/14nuucw/economic... Every single variable here, whether their self-reported current income as relatively young respondents (who haven't had much career/lifetime to build up large SES differences) or the very brief questions about individual cognitive biases which are then discretized to throw away even more information, is poorly measured, and there's not much of a sample to begin with. So, they predictably find that none of their measurements are correlated with each other (the biases don't even correlate with each other), and report the amazing discovery that "economic inequality cannot be explained by individual choices". They fail to reject the null (perhaps because their data is so bad?) and conclude they have proven the null.
mgh2 3y ago
Why is "choice" even a topic in 1st world countries? Marketing https://trendguardian.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale-4fecf8095812 https://trendguardian.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale...
botlp 3y ago
From my reference frame I have no reason but faith to accept your relationship with the real world is sound. For example, your objection ignores that “performance on a battery of academic tests” is also reasonably described as “real-world decisions”. Your definitions for “any real-world decisions” is non-existent; it’s not on us to assume for you. A test is a real world behavior in my opinion. So I’m left feeling your entire comment is “a primate exercising writing skills but failing at establishing any useful logic”.
goodbyesf 3y ago
[flagged]

sirspacey 3y ago

“Why you arguing with what science says?” Every time I hear this I respond “Science says nothing. Only scientist.” What I find amusing is that people arguing for something want to metabolize sweeping generalizations. If social science teaches you anything, it’s that sweeping generalizations are a poor framework for understanding anything.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
vacuity 3y ago
> “Science says nothing. Only scientist.” That's a great way of putting it. I'm ashamed that I only recently realized it during a discussion about science and religion with my friends. I defined science along the lines of "best-effort iteration on making a hypothesis, collecting data, and evaluating the hypothesis". And that's without considering the human factor, whether it's confirmation bias, thirst for fame, or some other weakness. That's not to say that science is worthless; on the contrary, it embodies our capability to rationalize our universe. It's unfortunate that so many people think that understanding science means listening to the mainstream consensus of scientists, without critically evaluating their own values, assumptions, and the limitations or outright flaws of the studies. Nuance shouldn't be overlooked and mistaken conclusions should be addressed.
- germandiago 3y ago
  Many people do not have a background strong enough to analyze papers. Most. Even many of us, depending on the topic, not either. People are more driven by belief than anything else. I try not to as much as possible, but I humbly believe I am at least able to detect one thing: when things do not match each other and there are cracks and contradictions. However, many people do not care to get informed beyond a basic article without any research (not even a paper) and will still fiercely support their positions. That is why I think people have more of belief and emotion than rationality when it is about highly politicized topics.
hirundo 3y ago
> If social science teaches you anything, it’s that sweeping generalizations are a poor framework for understanding anything. Here are some sweeping generalizations that seem to be helpful: E = mc^2 a^2 = b^2 + c^2 F = ma

causality0 3y ago

[flagged]

hahaha581 3y ago
Could it be that these folks have a different value system than you? To them money is made to be spent not horded. You can always declare bankruptcy if you run out of it. Isn't it allowed every 7 years. Why is your way better? You probably value the thought of having money more vs actually spending it. Time passes by for both parties.
- causality0 3y ago
  Why is your way better? Because they complain about all the consequences of their actions without changing them? They complain about their tiny apartment, about their out of date phones and computers, about how much their animals cost in time and money, about how they have to take suboptimal medications because they can't afford the correct ones? Then when an emergency happens they have to beg money off their friends. "Having a different value system" is almost always code for shitty behavior and poor impulse control.

underlipton 3y ago

They're basically saying that social inequality is not the sum total of rich people having made good decisions and poor people having made poor decisions. As an individual, it is possible to make savvy decisions that raise your circumstances; however, as a society-level phenomenon, it's incorrect to say that poor people are only poor because they screwed up. As an extreme hypothetical, consider a system where 1) Your annual income is determined by making one specific, arbitrary decision 2) It is possible to be observant enough to make the decision intelligently, but most are not able to perceive the clue clearly and must guess; this is reflected in an outcome distribution that skews towards a preponderance of incorrect answers 3) Making the decision correctly nets you $1 mil; incorrectly, $1,000 4) There are no other opportunities to make money The inequality present in this system is largely a function of the magnitude of the spoils/demerits for being correct/incorrect, not the distribution of correct/incorrect answers.

gruez 3y ago
>They're basically saying that social inequality is not the sum total of rich people having made good decisions and poor people having made poor decisions. As an individual, it is possible to make savvy decisions that raise your circumstances; however, as a society-level phenomenon, it's incorrect to say that poor people are only poor because they screwed up. Does anyone honestly think this? Is this a strawman? I don't think you need a study to make you conclude that individual choices don't explain 100% of differences in income/wealth. Someone born in a worse school district is obviously going to be at a disadvantage compared to someone in a better school district, all else being equal. The same exists for luck or other random factors (eg. meeting the right people).
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
  I grew up around people with the belief poor people are poor because they are lazy or made bad decisions. If a poor person would make good decisions and not be lazy, they wouldn’t be poor.
- bittercynic 3y ago
  This is probably very different from person to person. Most of the poor people I know personally are hard-working, intelligent people, and are not poor because they screwed some important thing up. It's just circumstances/family obligations, and not any personal failing. I'm also aware of a couple of people who appeared to have a reasonable shot at a stable life with some level of wealth, but they seemed determined to squander it, maybe due to mental/emotional trouble and addiction. I'd like to see society change so that we afford more respect, stability, and comfort to the least fortunate among us, but where this fits into a discussion about personal choices is a contentious issue.

comfypotato 3y ago

Science in the context of politically charged topics generally disgusts me. The outcome, that is. In theory it could help things, but it never does. The authors’ personal beliefs interfere every time. From the conception of their idea, to the research, to the decision to publish the results. By the time we read it, it’s no different than a biased news article. Only the intellectual level at which the biases/beliefs are presented differs. This particular paper is no different. Sure, people are born into different economic conditions. This is obvious. Beyond that, there’s nothing useful to see in the research.

kelseyfrog 3y ago
Curious, what are some of the best social science papers and some of the worst social science papers in your opinion?
- photonthug 3y ago
  I don't think you need to look far to find bad papers, but for good ones doing "real science", I would maybe look for psych stuff that's next door to economics? Kahneman comes to mind
- comfypotato 3y ago
  As someone else said, Kahneman is OK. He certainly has some brain-tickling research. I’ve read some papers by him about how people use poor logic in decision-making that were truly fascinating. There are countless bad papers. If you lean left, I could show you papers that declare no racial bias in police use of lethal force. If you lean right, I could show you papers that declare no correlation between conservative policy and economic growth.
bdw5204 3y ago
The thing that's really interesting to me is how "science" has arguably turned into what it was originally against. Originally, science outright rejected the ideas of specialization and credentialism. And it was founded on opposition to the "scientific consensus" that was enforced by groups like the Catholic Church (though, contrary to popular misconception, it wasn't hostile to religion and in fact scientists like Newton also were interested in trying to reconcile the Bible with the discoveries of science). So much of what passes for "science" today consists of outright logical fallacies like the appeal to authority and the appeal to consensus. And the peer review process is often flawed with self interested reviewers using the process to demand citations to their own work or block papers they disagree with. On any politically sensitive topic, I don't trust any "peer reviewed research" unless I can plausibly answer yes to the following question: "If this paper found the opposite result, would it be published?" Often, the answer is that a paper finding the opposite result would be career ending for the author. Which means there is no disinterested search for truth on that topic and papers on it are just dogma masquerading as science.

agonz253 3y ago

Feynman’s perspective on this: https://youtu.be/tWr39Q9vBgo https://youtu.be/tWr39Q9vBgo

Retric 3y ago

“does not alone explain” means the same thing as “cannot be explained by.” I think your confusion stems from “is influenced by” being a much weaker statement than “can be explained by.” Being in prison for example isn’t ”explained by” people breaking the law as that would require nobody to be falsely imprisoned or be set free on a technicality etc. The second statement follows from the first. If you can’t completely determine someones wealth from past decisions alone, then you can’t group the poor or wealthy by the history of their past decisions.

tomcatfish 3y ago
This is not correct. If we want to explain why the sidewalk is wet, and 99% of the time it is because of sprinklers and 1% of the time it is because of rain, then "The sprinklers do not alone explain the wetness", but "The wetness cannot be explained by the sprinklers" is a foolish thing to say.
- Retric 3y ago
  English is tricky around negatives and groups. “Wetness of all sidewalks globally can be explained by sprinklers.” <- obviously false. “Wetness of sidewalks can never be explained by sprinklers.” <- also obviously false The first applies to all sidewalks as a group, the second applies to subsets of the overall group so it’s false if any subset can be explained by sprinklers. Both quotes are using my first example due to being inclusive and including: “on a social level” and “population-level”

gruez 3y ago

It's strange that you're painting this as a "social 'sciences'" problem, when all the problems you listed are with the phys.org article itself. The social scientists in question are properly qualifying their statements, it's just that the media is taking those statements and running with them.

gwern 3y ago

> ... when the study didn't look at any real-world decisions whatsoever, but merely at performance on a battery of academic tests, (whose relationship with real-world decision-making we're expected to take on faith)? These aren't even decent forms of those academic tests, either. When I read it yesterday, I was very unimpressed: https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/14nuucw/economic_inequality_cannot_be_explained_by/jqabh4z/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/14nuucw/economic... Every single variable here, whether their self-reported current income as relatively young respondents (who haven't had much career/lifetime to build up large SES differences) or the very brief questions about individual cognitive biases which are then discretized to throw away even more information, is poorly measured, and there's not much of a sample to begin with. So, they predictably find that none of their measurements are correlated with each other (the biases don't even correlate with each other), and report the amazing discovery that "economic inequality cannot be explained by individual choices". They fail to reject the null (perhaps because their data is so bad?) and conclude they have proven the null.

mgh2 3y ago

Why is "choice" even a topic in 1st world countries? Marketing https://trendguardian.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale-4fecf8095812 https://trendguardian.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale...

botlp 3y ago

From my reference frame I have no reason but faith to accept your relationship with the real world is sound. For example, your objection ignores that “performance on a battery of academic tests” is also reasonably described as “real-world decisions”. Your definitions for “any real-world decisions” is non-existent; it’s not on us to assume for you. A test is a real world behavior in my opinion. So I’m left feeling your entire comment is “a primate exercising writing skills but failing at establishing any useful logic”.

goodbyesf 3y ago

[flagged]