Are all social sciences bullshit ?

[Inkthing]

Hi everyone!

I'm interested in psychology and in a lot of social science but I recently read about Nassim Taleb and his point of view of them which is along with Karl popper's statements. Now I'm struggling to find the truth because I was about to start psychological studies but these guys really influenced my thinking so I'd like to have others point of views and especially people who agree with them. Let me explain..

The point is that it seems in all social science, the methodology used in studies is to confirm a theory instead of disconfirm it. This is related to what Taleb call a Black Swan : Years ago, people thought there were only white swan because they had never seen others swans in the worlds, it was an overall statement that only white swans existed. Untill one day one person discovered a black swan. At this point all of the previous theory of white swan collapsed. One discomfirmation destroyed all of the previous theories. That's why they called social science pseudo-science. Because all of the
social science research are victim of a confirmation bias, ( cognitiv bias are from psychology, do u understand why am i struggling ??)

To link that with what taleb and popper think about real science is like with Einstein. Einstein didnt look at the past to confirm his theory but discover the general relativity and nowadays no one have been able to disconfirm it. Instead, i heard recent facts justified it. If one day someone will be able to disconfirm his theory, all of the general relativity will collapse, this is like the black swan.

So i have been thinking about it and one begining of statement against the title statement that i figured out may be conformity : It seems just a few people are marginal (isnt it the definition of marginal?), just a few people do not think like most of others people, most of people brain works similarely, (add to this that society is conditioning people to behaviour in the same way) and so one psychological statement which is disconfirm in few people but confirm in a lots of could not be totaly wrong because of the likelyness of people. and on the average this statment is true.

What do u think about all of that ? I'm looking for the truth and every thoughtful statement are welcome.

[Walker]

Have you read about Szasz’s views, and what do you think of them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz

“Szasz argued throughout his career that mental illness is a metaphor for human problems in living, and that mental illnesses are not "illnesses" in the sense that physical illnesses are; and that except for a few identifiable brain diseases, there are ‘neither biological or chemical tests nor biopsy or necropsy findings for verifying DSM diagnoses.’”

[Walker]

Social science confirmation is now being used in conjunction with facial recognition technology (and a totalitarian database) in China, to identify passing faces in terms of social worth.



That's a very efficient way of rounding up the philosophers.

Social sciences (ss) may be bs, but they ain't no joke.

[Dalek Prime]

I'm only answering because you mentioned Popper. There is a bias towards classical positive utilitarianism in the social sciences, if that is what you are wondering. Popper was a negative average preference utilitarian, as far as I can gather. So no, you will not find the two meeting minds. To them, it's all about the good to society, not to the individual in society.

It's not all bullshit, but it is biased. Positive utilitarianism is the norm.

[Inkthing]

Have you read about Szasz’s views, and what do you think of them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz

“Szasz argued throughout his career that mental illness is a metaphor for human problems in living, and that mental illnesses are not "illnesses" in the sense that physical illnesses are; and that except for a few identifiable brain diseases, there are ‘neither biological or chemical tests nor biopsy or necropsy findings for verifying DSM diagnoses.’”

I didnt know about him but it's interesting. I personally don't believe that because I think even if mental illness aren't physically real they, perhaps indirectly, lead to physical illness : stress can cause inflamation in the body or increase your heart rate which can cause disease, I have other examples.. But it could be also in the other way (or in both like a cycle) : I've read that the gut microbiota affects the brain.

but with these informations, my recent read about taleb and your responses is making me think that a distinction must be made between these studies with a physical effect and the bull shit social science could be like with ur second response : the face recognition with social worth seems to be more linked to stereotype and influenced by reflexion or even manipulation by external sources like medias, which can be different to every humans. but not necessarely false but not universal.
@dalek prime : is that what u meant with your statement ? that the norm of social science is likely to focus on a majority as oppose to popper who were more focus on an universal truth(exact science) ?

thank you both I think I'm figuring it out with your replies.

[Dalek Prime]

Have you read about Szasz’s views, and what do you think of them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz

“Szasz argued throughout his career that mental illness is a metaphor for human problems in living, and that mental illnesses are not "illnesses" in the sense that physical illnesses are; and that except for a few identifiable brain diseases, there are ‘neither biological or chemical tests nor biopsy or necropsy findings for verifying DSM diagnoses.’”

I didnt know about him but it's interesting. I personally don't believe that because I think even if mental illness aren't physically real they, perhaps indirectly, lead to physical illness : stress can cause inflamation in the body or increase your heart rate which can cause disease, I have other examples.. But it could be also in the other way (or in both like a cycle) : I've read that the gut microbiota affects the brain.

but with these informations, my recent read about taleb and your responses is making me think that a distinction must be made between these studies with a physical effect and the bull shit social science could be like with ur second response : the face recognition with social worth seems to be more linked to stereotype and influenced by reflexion or even manipulation by external sources like medias, which can be different to every humans. but not necessarely false but not universal.
@dalek prime : is that what u meant with your statement ? that the norm of social science is likely to focus on a majority as oppose to popper who were more focus on an universal truth(exact science) ?

thank you both I think I'm figuring it out with your replies.

No. I'm taking about the bias towards what is better for society than the individual. They are searching for truths and solutions though a biased lens, the bent being towards the larger group. Nothing to do with exactness or 'truths'.

Think of economics for example. In itself, it's a simple science of scarcity and distribution. The problems lay in the biases of the economists view of how things should be distributed. More for some? Less for others? Equally? According to need, or greed? Do you see how biases drive solutions here? That's what I'm speaking of. Both Marxists and capitalists understand economics. It's how they are biased towards distribution that differentiates them. And that permeates all social sciences.

[FlashDangerpants]

The point is that it seems in all social science, the methodology used in studies is to confirm a theory instead of disconfirm it. This is related to what Taleb call a Black Swan : Years ago, people thought there were only white swan because they had never seen others swans in the worlds, it was an overall statement that only white swans existed. Untill one day one person discovered a black swan. At this point all of the previous theory of white swan collapsed. One discomfirmation destroyed all of the previous theories. That's why they called social science pseudo-science. Because all of the
social science research are victim of a confirmation bias, ( cognitiv bias are from psychology, do u understand why am i struggling ??)

I accidentally strayed into a module of political science once ... it was horrible. They made me read Bruno Latour - literally arguing that distant uninhabited star systems should have political representation on Earth, and I was apparently supposed to just accept that this is a thinig people say and aren't mocked for. I developed some harsh views about the level of rigour in that field, ones which I haven't entirely shaken off yet. But they aren't really fair, BL not withstanding.

In these matters I would suggest considering what Isiah Berlin had to say about this sort of stuff. Nameley that we spawn a new field of study whenever we come across a new sort of question that the existing fields cannot answer. Physics and other hard sciences are never going to have answers for the sort of questions that social sciences were created to explore, and so it isn't really appropriate to judge them by that standard. This isn't a problem, there are questions of human and animal psychology that just can't be answered in the same way that question about neutrinos can. Nor really should they, if we find ourselves searching for the velocity or the circumference of a suicidal thought, we won't necessarily come up with a very useful answer*.

It seems to me that wherever the phsychological sciences get themselves into real trouble, it arises from failing to consider the proper objectives that are limited by the form of question their field was manufactured to ask and answer. It's ok, they are allowed to invent new fields such as evolutionary phsychology when the need arrises. If you pick up more or less any book by Mary Midgley, you are likely to find an extended rant on this subject, particulalry with relation to a branch of phsychiatry called behaviourism. Long story short, they tried to make head shrinking more of a science by abandoning all the internl psychology bits and looking only at external behaviour. Weird idea, bizarrely popular in its day, still does the rounds I believe.

Whether the world benefits more from bystanders sneering at various sciency types when they fail to recognise their overreach, or from good guys on the inside of these fields cautioning in advance against it, is an open question.




* His idea of what philosophy does is that it ponders questions where we don't even know how to spot a correct answer yet. Once that point is resolved, the question is offloaded to whichever of the sciences is equipped for the mundane task of actually answering the damn thing. This is much better than that bollocks about 'love of wisdom', philosophy should be a stupid intellectual wank-fest, as this is the only possible explanation for the people that do it.

[Inkthing]

No. I'm taking about the bias towards what is better for society than the individual. They are searching for truths and solutions though a biased lens, the bent being towards the larger group. Nothing to do with exactness or 'truths'.

Think of economics for example. In itself, it's a simple science of scarcity and distribution. The problems lay in the biases of the economists view of how things should be distributed. More for some? Less for others? Equally? According to need, or greed? Do you see how biases drive solutions here? That's what I'm speaking of. Both Marxists and capitalists understand economics. It's how they are biased towards distribution that differentiates them. And that permeates all social sciences.

ok so if i understand well, u are saying social science(or economics) are biased by confounding goals of the research which lead to a specific interpretation of the data more towards a political issue while trying to give answer on how the human brain works ?

[Dalek Prime]

No. I'm taking about the bias towards what is better for society than the individual. They are searching for truths and solutions though a biased lens, the bent being towards the larger group. Nothing to do with exactness or 'truths'.

Think of economics for example. In itself, it's a simple science of scarcity and distribution. The problems lay in the biases of the economists view of how things should be distributed. More for some? Less for others? Equally? According to need, or greed? Do you see how biases drive solutions here? That's what I'm speaking of. Both Marxists and capitalists understand economics. It's how they are biased towards distribution that differentiates them. And that permeates all social sciences.

ok so if i understand well, u are saying social science(or economics) are biased by confounding goals of the research which lead to a specific interpretation of the data more towards a political issue while trying to give answer on how the human brain works ?

Something like that.

[Inkthing]

FlashDangerpants: I think i get yr point, while physics use the methodology of discomfirmation to destroy a model, social science use confirmation to justify it and so are in need to create other fields to match with more complex phenomena. I agree that the first is much more effective but the point is how would you research it in an other way since behaviour and other things (related to individual) arent exact and universal as the laws of physics are ?

I've read about evolutionary psychology and since it explains much more of our cognitiv bias I think it is a much more revelant field because I think biases are real, they are a weapon against bullshit pseudo-science : All of the bullshit flat earther or UFO are using them(consciously or not) and to be conscious of these biases make people aware that they have been manipulated. So i dont put these in the same category of some social science. like i said I think a distinction must be made. the thing is to find where the distinction has to be made.

[FlashDangerpants]

The ablity to confirm and disprove are only part of the matter. If you have a burning desire for the precise expulsion of doubt, then there are no social sciences that will suit your purpose because that is entirely the province of the hard sciences.

Evolutionary psychology is frequently abused, it's easy to take some input from the field and arrive at the sort of conclusions it cannot in principle support or even describe (I've seen entirely absurd discussions on the topic of rape that claimed scientific justifcation from this sort of misunderstanding). The fact is that if you try to use a particular science to make claims that are not within its actual field of inquiry, pseudo-science will inevitably make an appearance. Some rando zoologist trying to prove there is no god through misapplied science is just as guilty of complete pseudery as any other abuser of any lesser field.

There are numerous perfectly decent sciences which have as part of their field various inquiries into how people come to believe bizarre things. None of them could possibly deliver a falsifiable law on the matter because they are by their method not that sort of science. None of the sorts of sciences that can provide falsifiable laws is equipped for discussion of something as tricky to work with as beliefs, with meanings attached to them, and consequences for the believer.

No field of inquiry is all that useful to the practitioner who is not reasonably aware of what it can and cannot do.

[Dalek Prime]

Evolutionary psychology is pure guesswork, and can neither be proven nor disproven, making it a junk science.

[Inkthing]

The ablity to confirm and disprove are only part of the matter. If you have a burning desire for the precise expulsion of doubt, then there are no social sciences that will suit your purpose because that is entirely the province of the hard sciences.

Are u saying that the human mind will never be understood ? Why the doubt couldnt disapear more and more with time till his extinction? then the "pseudo-science" would become an hard science but I see no other way to understand the mind without making assumption. It's not like observe matter. the evolutionary psychology is trying to understand why the mind is like it is now from an evolutionary point of view because our animals ancestors didnt have a prefrontal cortex which make us able to think like we are doing right now. that's biological. So the answer is in the evolution. no other way. it isnt stupid.

[Inkthing]

Do you ignore all sciences which are unable to collect enough data relatively to others ? and why ?

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

I don't know if it's all complete bullshit, I usually just differentiate it as a 'soft' science. Not sure how collegial that term is

I was going to go off on a small rant about evolutionary psychology, as well. The main problem that comes to mind with many of its proponents, is that they tend to have a very direct interpretation of how 'natural selection' works, when it comes to evaluating what desires we need to have to survive. For example, there is very little evidence that most animals naturally have a desire to 'procreate.' They mostly just have a desire to have sex.