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The junk science from social sciences is a combination of students/researchers who both lack the ability to read critically and are given work that requires it
by DiscourseFan 2y ago
The junk science from social sciences is a combination of students/researchers who both lack the ability to read critically and are given work that requires it fundamentally. Any real critical sociologist is going to be far more scientific than most scientists when it comes to their analysis since they have both the rigour of their method and the eye of self-reflexive objectivity, but you don't always get those people. Mostly not, most academics are just fairly mediocre people who were smart enough to get through their classes, kissed enough ass, are seemingly competent and lucky to land a good position.
- watwut 2y agoBasically none of the books upper thread talks about was written by an actual scientist trained in the area they write about. They were written by popular people, either not scientists or writing outside of their expertise.
- Handprint4469 2y agoIf only. The replication crisis means a lot of scientists have written books about their area based on bad research. Not only they were trained in their area, some of them even invented it. I'll give you one concrete example: "Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges", by Amy Cuddy. That book was based on the (now completely falsified) theory of "Power posing"[0], which the author published peer-reviewed papers on. It's a neat little grift: publish a couple of papers, get yourself a TED talk, sign a book deal, and suddenly you're getting hired to teach leadership courses to clueless MBAs and give conference talks to bored executives. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_posing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_posing