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by Vomzor 2415 days ago
Sadly the majority of sociologists still seems to believe the debunked theory of nurture over nature[1] and tend to ignore all things biology. Consequently, a lot of gender related studies are just ideology instead of robust science.

In the last decades STEM enrollment for girls rose in poor countries. And Disney movies are watched worldwide, including poor countries...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/29/so-is-it-nat...
2 comments
sytelus 2414 days ago
No. Disney movies are watched lot less in 3rd world countries. Most population in these countries didn't had (perhaps recently) any on-demand access to large movie collection - not as VCRs, DVDs or streaming. You gets to watch movie if it is on the cable at the time you are watching. This significantly reduces exposure and tendency to watch same kind of movies over and over. Also, market for expensive Disney toys and accessories isn't accessible to most people.
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fsloth 2414 days ago
Yeah, as science I have serious doubts about sociology. As a way to form an ontology it's plausibly worse than vernacular tradition. Please prove me wrong and point me to high quality sociological studies. I want to believe we have practical tools to deal with the future of our species.
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groceryheist 2414 days ago
How about https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/521848

?

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fsloth 2414 days ago
Applied graph theory? I don't have access to full article so I can't tell if it's actual math or something more hand-wavy stuff.
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groceryheist 2414 days ago
Here's a non-paywalled version. https://ndg.asc.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Centola...

This is just an example of a well-known recent sociology paper that can appeal to science-minded people unfamiliar with sociology.

By the way, it's a danger to rely too much on mathematical formalism as a heuristic for deciding whether a research field is scientific or valid. String theory for example lacks empirical evidence (and maybe even the possibility of empirical validation altogether).

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sytelus 2414 days ago
In general I agree. However many studies in this field had been large scale enough with low variance that effect is not ignorable. Given similar results, it appears reproducibility is also high.
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