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by themitigating 1420 days ago
That's one thing that social sciences has contributed though you didn't provide any sources.

"This is what social sciences have contributed the last 40 years." This statement implies that's the entirety of what they have contributed which is false.

1 comments

I mean, what I'm pointing to here is critical theory. From CRT going into gender and critical queer theory all the way into fat studies, etc. It can all be grouped under grievance studies and it's a large part of what the social sciences have outputted. It also happens to be political useful and used to cite "the science" as a justification for wielding power and making claims to knowledge.

Anyways - you seem to like to take this line all the time - "where's the evidence". It's everywhere. It isn't my job to keep you informed of the world you occupy. Either willfully or not, your inability to keep up on developments isn't an excise to demand "sources" when you have access to the same search engines as everyone else. This information isn't difficult to find.

I'm torn here.

Yes, some people use "where's the evidence" as a conversational gambit to try to shut down discussion they don't like. (And if you provide evidence, they may say "that's only one source, got any others?") And if they're being dishonest in asking, there's no point supplying the evidence they request; it is useless to try to have a conversation with those who will not listen.

On the other hand... when you make a claim, the burden of evidence is actually on you, not the other person. And if you say "you have access to the same search engines as everyone else", well, that's true. On the other hand, one person writes a post, and ten people read it, or a hundred people, or a thousand. Making the thousand do the searching, instead of having the one writer do it, is really inefficient.

This leaves you at "do the work of providing the evidence, but don't feed the dishonest trolls", which is... well, at best it's not very actionable advice.

I told you I was torn...