[zooq_ai]

No. Social Science almost always is done/funded by organizations / people who already have a set agenda. A Department of "Equity and Justice" will always fund research that fits their mission. Thanks to spurious correlation, you can make up anything. Many social science research are not reproducible.

It's also done by people who aren't hard-core physicists or mathematicians, meaning they can't/won't do true multi-dimensional analysis and 2nd and 3rd order effects.

[nickpinkston]

Yea, because physical science is never funded by anyone with an agenda...

That's at least what the American Petroleum Institute, the Tobacco Institute, the Beverage Institute, etc. tell us about climate change, smoking, and sugary drinks...

[aiauthoritydev]

You kind of prove the point previous person is trying to make. Hard science proved the tobacco leads to cancer, Social Sciences helped Tobacco companies get highest ESG ratings.

Climate change is another of "not really science" fields mostly peddled by social sciences.

[zooq_ai]

Huh? API, Tobacco all do Social Science. You are actually kind of proving my point.

[nickpinkston]

They all fund fake hard science research.

[aiauthoritydev]

The "fake" part mostly comes from the "social science" aspect.

[nickpinkston]

I assure you that physical research includes questions like whether climate change is happening, smoking causes cancer, and excess sugar causes diabetes haha.

[zzzeek]

The same way all disease is studied by "doctors" who are deeply anti disease. You can't trust people with such a "set agenda"

[aiauthoritydev]

Here is the rule of thumb. Does the "scientist" pay some serious price for being wrong ?

Doctors lose business if they are not very good. Bakers lose business if they are not very good. Car mechanics lose business if they cant diagnose problems properly.

The "ai safety", "bio ethicist", "gender justice researchers", "transrights researchers", "diversity officers" etc. pay no price of being wrong or peddling fake made up ideas, falsified data or pure nonsense. On the contrary more nonsense you can peddle higher you go in this field. Hence it is safe to assume a lot of these professions are full of fake, fraudulent individuals.

PS. There are indeed good people in these fields but they are very few and hard to find.

[__loam]

Bio-ethics is an extremely important aspect of the field in most research involving human and animal subjects. When we don't know about bio-ethics, we do fucked up shit as a society like the Tuskeegee Syphilis Trial. We did gain useful medical knowledge from that study but it had a massive human cost, most of which was borne by a poor community mostly made up of one racial minority. When bio-ethicists get things wrong there is absolutely a horrific cost and when I did bio research I had to take an ethics course every 3 years.

[knowaveragejoe]

> It's also done by people who aren't hard-core physicists or mathematicians, meaning they can't/won't do true multi-dimensional analysis and 2nd and 3rd order effects.

This is so incredibly insulting to entire fields of study. The whole backlash against anything vaguely DEI-related has really done a number on the coldly logical HN. Prejudice does exist and we are allowed to study it.

[bilbo0s]

meaning they can't/won't do true multi-dimensional analysis and 2nd and 3rd order effects.

Neither does any other researcher these days. Thus, the crisis of reproducibility in “peer reviewed” papers.

Kind of disingenuous to single out social scientists for this practice. Probably a bit more wise to clean our own house first. Certainly unwise to be engaged in the very practices we’re attacking.

[zooq_ai]

Social Scientists actually have a problem that they can't do true controlled experiments (unless they spin an alternate universe). So, they literally have to work with spurious correlations

Physical Science and Math can be isolated enough to do controlled experiments

[DontchaKnowit]

While you are correct about the hypocrisy, doesnt change their point

[bilbo0s]

It does make thinking people roll their eyes at the point however.

[DontchaKnowit]

Youre being self aggrandizing.

And look at me, being hypocritical. But my point stands.

[hpeter]

Let's take a look at one of the definitions of science

--------- Science noun The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. ---------

It does not include where the funding or bias comes from.

It also doesn't include if their explanations are correct or not.

-------- social science noun The study of human society and of individual relationships in and to society. ...etc. --------

What you can do is (rightly) question their results, but can't say it's not science.

[__loam]

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it."