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Love the decision tbh. Social science does not deserve money. There has been too much fraud going on and I'm not sure about the benefits compared to hard scienc

Love the decision tbh. Social science does not deserve money. There has been too much fraud going on and I'm not sure about the benefits compared to hard science or medical science. I do understand why this impacts Maori disproportionately but making this matter about race is unfair. we're talking about a very small number of researchers here. The average person of whichever race is only affected in the sense that his tax dollars are spent more effectively.

cess11 2y ago
[flagged]
- boxed 2y ago
  But somehow it's the physicists, chemists, and mathematicians who are doing something about it, not the social scientists (or whatever the term is).
  - cess11 2y ago
    That's just gibberish. Physics, medicine and so on are full of fraud. It's rather common in academia. The social sciences can tell you why, math can't.
    - dgfitz 2y ago
      I think it's sprinkled all over this thread. Social science can tell you why, absolutely. But then can't replicate it.
      - cess11 2y ago
        The "replication crisis" reaches way beyond social sciences, and not all scientific epistemologies are founded in so called replication.
        dgfitz 2y ago
        Ok.
    - boxed 2y ago
      The "why" is utterly irrelevant if you can't then do anything about it. It also seems like some of that "why" research was fraud too, so they couldn't even answer that. Meanwhile the hard science guys are forcing retractions.
      - cess11 2y ago
        Let me introduce you to one of the main driving forces behind retractions, PubPeer: https://pubpeer.com/ https://pubpeer.com/
        boxed 2y ago
        ..and?
tmpz22 2y ago
We should scrap economics?
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  TBF, western economics is a joke compared to the other social sciences. It needs to be fused with sociology or political science to make a lick of sense.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > western economics is a joke compared to the other social sciences Rejecting empirically-proven supply-demand pricing models (no DSGE, I’m talking supply chain models that predict end prices) because it’s politically inconvenient is exactly the sort of nonsense the social sciences are criticised for.
    - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
      > Rejecting empirically-proven I thought we were discussing science here? Get out of here. Go read some Hume.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > thought we were discussing science here? Get out of here. Go read some Hume It's pointed phrasing, but it works. When we have overwhelming evidence for a phenomenon that has solid theoretical foundations, it's fair to say it's empirically proven. Not absolutely or mathematically proven. But if you've read Hume or even Popper, you already know that. The core point remains the case: a lot of economics is uncomfortable for some people (there isn't a strong partisan leaning to this tendency, in my experience) and so they come up with elaborate arguments for why that evidence should be discarded. The top comment illustrates this [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42408895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42408895
- nradov 2y ago
  Maybe? Has it produced any actionable results? I mean the research results produced by economists aren't necessarily wrong, but since policy makers just ignore the research anyway then what's the point of funding it?
PittleyDunkin 2y ago
> There has been too much fraud going on and I'm not sure about the benefits compared to hard science or medical science. Maybe you should have taken it in school when you had the chance.
- dgfitz 2y ago
  Fwiw, I took psych101, sociology101 , and minored in philosophy. I learned very little, certainly learned more just reading the books than going to class. Class was largely useless.
  - mintplant 2y ago
    I'm surprised you didn't get anything out of psychology. The psych I took as an undergrad has been quite useful in my daily life.
    - dgfitz 2y ago
      How so? Philosophy helped me to think critically and find edge cases. Psych taught me about different parts of the brain and their functions. Soci taught me my professor was a giant fraud and the entire discipline was a 'solution' looking for a problem.
ausbah 2y ago
you know the replication crisis in pretty much every discipline of science right? esp our industry’s pet fav machine learning
result2vino 2y ago
[flagged]
demosthanos 2y ago
Wow. I disagree with your position on the merits and read through your replies to see if someone had provided an effective counterargument, but you really touched a nerve: it's straight ad hominem snark all the way down. So I guess I'll give honest engagement a shot. > I'm not sure about the benefits compared to hard science or medical science. ... we're talking about a very small number of researchers here. The average person of whichever race is only affected in the sense that his tax dollars are spent more effectively. If I'm understanding you, this is your main point: social sciences have a weaker return on investment than medical sciences (and presumably some others?). Here's a counterargument. There are some fields that study universal facts about biology or physics. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, these will largely yield similar results that can be applied anywhere. There's a small amount of value to replicating research done in one population on a different population, but humans are broadly similar enough that it's not strictly necessary. On the other hand, there are fields where the location of the research absolutely does matter. This is true of the social sciences. Conclusions drawn about the functioning of one human culture are not broadly translatable to other cultures. This means that even if the net return on investment for medicine is higher (and it probably is, precisely because it translates to more people), it's actually more valuable for small countries to pay for their own social sciences than their own medical research. They can always take advantage of what others are learning about biology, but if they don't research the way that New Zealand works then no one will.
- lWaterboardCats 2y ago
  In theory what you say sounds great, unfortunately in practice, many fields have become far from objective and “peer reviews” seem to be more of “peer support”.
  - demosthanos 2y ago
    This is baby-with-the-bathwater logic. Because there are flaws in the system (which are flaws in all of academia, not limited to the social sciences) we should defund the programs entirely and give up on whole fields of endeavor.
- 2y ago
neves 2y ago
"hard" science without social disciplines gave us Nazism

cess11 2y ago

[flagged]

boxed 2y ago
But somehow it's the physicists, chemists, and mathematicians who are doing something about it, not the social scientists (or whatever the term is).
- cess11 2y ago
  That's just gibberish. Physics, medicine and so on are full of fraud. It's rather common in academia. The social sciences can tell you why, math can't.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    I think it's sprinkled all over this thread. Social science can tell you why, absolutely. But then can't replicate it.
    - cess11 2y ago
      The "replication crisis" reaches way beyond social sciences, and not all scientific epistemologies are founded in so called replication.
      - dgfitz 2y ago
        Ok.
  - boxed 2y ago
    The "why" is utterly irrelevant if you can't then do anything about it. It also seems like some of that "why" research was fraud too, so they couldn't even answer that. Meanwhile the hard science guys are forcing retractions.
    - cess11 2y ago
      Let me introduce you to one of the main driving forces behind retractions, PubPeer: https://pubpeer.com/ https://pubpeer.com/
      - boxed 2y ago
        ..and?

tmpz22 2y ago

We should scrap economics?

PittleyDunkin 2y ago
TBF, western economics is a joke compared to the other social sciences. It needs to be fused with sociology or political science to make a lick of sense.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > western economics is a joke compared to the other social sciences Rejecting empirically-proven supply-demand pricing models (no DSGE, I’m talking supply chain models that predict end prices) because it’s politically inconvenient is exactly the sort of nonsense the social sciences are criticised for.
  - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
    > Rejecting empirically-proven I thought we were discussing science here? Get out of here. Go read some Hume.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > thought we were discussing science here? Get out of here. Go read some Hume It's pointed phrasing, but it works. When we have overwhelming evidence for a phenomenon that has solid theoretical foundations, it's fair to say it's empirically proven. Not absolutely or mathematically proven. But if you've read Hume or even Popper, you already know that. The core point remains the case: a lot of economics is uncomfortable for some people (there isn't a strong partisan leaning to this tendency, in my experience) and so they come up with elaborate arguments for why that evidence should be discarded. The top comment illustrates this [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42408895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42408895
nradov 2y ago
Maybe? Has it produced any actionable results? I mean the research results produced by economists aren't necessarily wrong, but since policy makers just ignore the research anyway then what's the point of funding it?

PittleyDunkin 2y ago

> There has been too much fraud going on and I'm not sure about the benefits compared to hard science or medical science. Maybe you should have taken it in school when you had the chance.

dgfitz 2y ago
Fwiw, I took psych101, sociology101 , and minored in philosophy. I learned very little, certainly learned more just reading the books than going to class. Class was largely useless.
- mintplant 2y ago
  I'm surprised you didn't get anything out of psychology. The psych I took as an undergrad has been quite useful in my daily life.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    How so? Philosophy helped me to think critically and find edge cases. Psych taught me about different parts of the brain and their functions. Soci taught me my professor was a giant fraud and the entire discipline was a 'solution' looking for a problem.

ausbah 2y ago

you know the replication crisis in pretty much every discipline of science right? esp our industry’s pet fav machine learning

result2vino 2y ago

[flagged]

demosthanos 2y ago

Wow. I disagree with your position on the merits and read through your replies to see if someone had provided an effective counterargument, but you really touched a nerve: it's straight ad hominem snark all the way down. So I guess I'll give honest engagement a shot. > I'm not sure about the benefits compared to hard science or medical science. ... we're talking about a very small number of researchers here. The average person of whichever race is only affected in the sense that his tax dollars are spent more effectively. If I'm understanding you, this is your main point: social sciences have a weaker return on investment than medical sciences (and presumably some others?). Here's a counterargument. There are some fields that study universal facts about biology or physics. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, these will largely yield similar results that can be applied anywhere. There's a small amount of value to replicating research done in one population on a different population, but humans are broadly similar enough that it's not strictly necessary. On the other hand, there are fields where the location of the research absolutely does matter. This is true of the social sciences. Conclusions drawn about the functioning of one human culture are not broadly translatable to other cultures. This means that even if the net return on investment for medicine is higher (and it probably is, precisely because it translates to more people), it's actually more valuable for small countries to pay for their own social sciences than their own medical research. They can always take advantage of what others are learning about biology, but if they don't research the way that New Zealand works then no one will.

lWaterboardCats 2y ago
In theory what you say sounds great, unfortunately in practice, many fields have become far from objective and “peer reviews” seem to be more of “peer support”.
- demosthanos 2y ago
  This is baby-with-the-bathwater logic. Because there are flaws in the system (which are flaws in all of academia, not limited to the social sciences) we should defund the programs entirely and give up on whole fields of endeavor.
2y ago

neves 2y ago

"hard" science without social disciplines gave us Nazism