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But is it Science?

Entry 2365, on 2024-10-04 at 12:30:35 (Rating 4, Skepticism)

Summary

I argue that the term "science" is often misused, particularly in fields like social science. I draw a parallel to the overuse of the term "hi-fi" in audio equipment, where the label often signifies lower quality. Traditional sciences like biology, chemistry, and physics don't need to include "science" in their names because their scientific nature is clear. However, I question the validity of fields like social sciences, arguing that their findings are often biased and unreliable. I cite examples like women's studies and indigenous studies, which I believe are more political than scientific. I also highlight the "Replication Crisis" in social sciences, where repeated studies often produce different results, raising concerns about their accuracy. I also raise concerns about climate science, noting the politicization of the field and the potential for bias in media reporting and research funding. Ultimately, I advocate for skepticism towards pronouncements from experts in the social sciences, suggesting that their findings should be evaluated critically and not blindly accepted.

Full Text

Back in the day, when I was really into high quality audio, there was a sort of rule that if any company felt the need to advertise or label their products using the word "hifi" then it probably wasn't. Hifi was supposed to mean high quality audio, but it often meant the opposite: relatively poor quality with a few flashing lights added.

By the way, I am still into quality audio and have a fairly expensive system, but I try to be more realistic about it now, because a lot of the music I want to listen to isn't particularly well recorded, and the quality of sound is affected a lot by the room and other external factors, so with those limitations why try too much to attain perfection?

Anyway, the reason I mention this is that it seems like a parallel to how the word "science" is often used today. This concept came to my attention when a podcast guest criticised computer science this way. He claimed that if your field includes the word "science", then it probably isn't.

I have a computer science degree, so you might think I would reject this idea, but I think it has some merit. Look at the traditional sciences and their names don't actually include the word. There's biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology, etc. There's no need to include "science" because we all know that's what they are.

Computer science is, arguably, a bit different from other sciences, because it is the study of man-made and abstract systems, so that argument could go either way, but of course, I'm not going to stop with computer science, because my real issue is with the social sciences.

There are certainly some scientific principles involved with these, especially in regards to design of surveys, statistical analysis, etc, but I think it might be pushing it a bit to describe these as pure sciences. And this explains why, when we hear the opinion of a social scientist on contentious issues, we quite often have a good laugh at their obvious bias, stupidity, or naivety, but when we hear something from a physicist we might be more respectful.

I should say at this point, that there are social scientists who are competent and relatively unbiased, and their work could be taken seriously, but it seems to me that the majority are really unworthy of even being given any consideration at all.

As I have said in the past, many of the most significant forces dragging modern civilisation down come from universities, especially from the social sciences there. Postmodernism, critical race theory, and other ideologies of that sort are all quite irrational and are prevalent in the social sciences.

Of course there are the extreme cases, such as women's studies and indigenous studies, which really are nothing more than political extremism and irrational ideology at their very core, so I think it's safe to ignore anything coming from those areas, even though they undoubtedly get something right occasionally. But the signal to noise ratio is just too low to make them worth taking much notice of.

Other areas of study, such as political science, are somewhere between. They're not inherently systemically bad, but their findings need to be treated with some suspicion.

So what about another border-line case: climate science? Well, that's both a controversial example and a difficult one to judge. I think the underlying science is probably pretty sound, but the subject is so politicised now that we have to consider several factors.

First, if we are only looking at the results reported in non-specialist sources, like the mainstream media, are we seeing all the results or just those the media outlet feels fits their agenda? I suspect the selection process is very biased there.

Second, is the way the data is presented, especially in headlines, a true representation of the findings? I suspect not. One common issue involves "Betteridge's Law of Headlines". This states that if a headline ends with a question mark, the answer is "no". For example, if I see a headline "Will climate change force us to abandon major cities?" the answer is no. To be fair, there is a possibility that the answer is yes, but if it is the chances are the headline wouldn't have included the question mark.

Third, is there a bias in how studies are funded and which are presented in prominent journals? I have no doubt that this happens, but it is difficult to judge how consequential that might be.

I haven't heard about it recently, but a few years back there was a lot of commentary about the "Replication Crisis", which was an observed issue in the social sciences (mainly) which showed that if a study was done to check the findings of a previous study it would often get different results even when the some methodology was used. This would tend to suggest that the studies are essentially useless.

As well as computer science I also majored in psychology, which despite it's lack of the word "science" in its name, is often thought of as a social science. I remember a lot of emphasis being put on the difficulty in studying human behaviour compared with studying something like an electron, which a physicist might be interested in.

There's no doubt that studying some phenomena in physics is extremely difficult. Read my blog post "Bordering on Impossible" from 2016-05-07 (about LIGO) for an example, but at least gravity waves aren't as awkward as humans, and results from physics are unlikely to be affected by the bias often inherent in psychology.

So my message here is to be cautious of the pronouncements of experts in the social sciences. Of course, they are sometimes right, but under no circumstances should we assume that is the case. It has got to the point where my starting attitude is that they are so influenced by ideology that their results should be ignored. If the results are backed up by credible stats, or if there is a consensus then I might be more interested, but generally I'm not.

Just remember that if a result comes from a university from an "expert" in a field which contains the word "science" (or even if it doesn't) be skeptical. Ask yourself this: is it really science?

Comment 1 (7736) by Jim on 2024-10-17 at 09:15:24:

You criticise universities a lot, but you still work at one. Why? Should you not refuse to do that and resign?

Comment 2 (7737) by OJB on 2024-10-17 at 14:14:04:

I do think universities are the source of a lot of bad trends in society, but they still do a lot of good work as well, especially in the "real" sciences. Whether I work in one or not is hardly relevant to the bigger picture, so I don't think working in one is necessarily supporting the more crazy woke ideas they originate.

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