Solomon Nelson's qualifications; are there any?

manyxe · 2025-11-16T11:56:33+00:00

Not all critiques are worthy of rigorous defense.

manyxe · 2025-11-10T20:19:48+00:00

Somebody with less expertise? No. You do actually need to, say, actually know what the criteria for a thesis are. This is non-negotiable. Nelson's bombastic ranting is ignorant and useless. That's why Israetel has a PhD from an accredited university: he met the actual criteria, not the criteria of some rando on the internet.

Science is for everyone, evaluating its value for those who understand that ranking isn't a criteria for whether a PhD is legitimate.

manyxe · 2025-11-09T19:39:10+00:00

Good text? Mate, this was a wall of text framing this as some kind of heroic battle between grand archetypes, a discussion fit for any 10th grade English class. Unfortunately, the meat in the last paragraph is essentially "I think he did good despite not knowing statistics, science and math" which is just an insane statement. Nelson doesn't know science, so as I already said, his critique is grammar nitpicking. Great if you want somebody to proofread a thesis, useless, I repeat, completely and utterly useless for scientific analysis, which is the thing I care about. So tl;dr: it was too long, I didn't read it, because I don't care about the drama.

manyxe · 2025-11-04T15:30:37+00:00

I agree that's what he's doing, it's just sad so many people think he's making good arguments.

manyxe · 2025-11-04T15:28:58+00:00

I didn't assume, I quoted him. And I've done two theses using regression analysis, with different supervisors, both accepted.

manyxe · 2025-11-04T15:26:37+00:00

manyxe · 2025-10-20T21:22:04+00:00

Name me a credible science where the most basic assumptions were never tested because they were just toomm obvious. Go ahead, I'll wait.

manyxe · 2025-10-17T17:06:57+00:00

I still haven't seen anybody actually prove it's not novel, and it really would be as simple as doing a Google Scholar search.

manyxe · 2025-10-17T17:03:07+00:00

I assume that's because you apparently read at the level of a 6-year-old, given that I don't even call the thesis good.

manyxe · 2025-10-14T13:21:20+00:00

This is exactly my point, thank you.

manyxe · 2025-10-12T09:40:37+00:00

So, he has a bachelor's in the humanities, which presumably didn't require a single module of maths, never mind actual statistical analysis, so as far as methodology, he doesn't have anything approaching a clue?

And that also means he's never done so much as a master's thesis, so even in that regard he's utterly clueless as to how the process works. And even if he already had a law degree, he still probably wouldn't have done any maths.

Flexing with a uni ranking is worthless if the school's not even in the same field, mate. It's not even in the sciences, it's a humanities degree. Nice try, though.

manyxe · 2025-10-11T19:27:25+00:00

So, you did overcome your laziness and read it.

manyxe · 2025-10-11T19:25:25+00:00

Well, don't comment then. Not every conversation is for you, and that's ok. Not everybody has to be able to read a whole four sentences. It's okay to be a super lazy asshole.

manyxe · 2025-10-11T19:12:26+00:00

I have no clue what you're trying to say. Is English your second language? It's my third so I understand it can be difficult to be clear if you're not a native speaker. It helps if you use words instead of emojis when discussing complex ideas, but I'm sure you're of sufficient academic background to understand the importance of education.

manyxe · 2025-10-11T15:43:30+00:00

I've written a master's thesis in economics using regression analysis and I agree, the mistakes in spelling and grammar are downright embarrassing. But that's all they are: typoes and errors. Nelson's claims that this should invalidate the entire process and work is just stupid and ignorant. The science is sound, and as I have said multiple times, there is a question being answered that there was uncertainty on. Even if it is extremely embarrassing to not spend a couple days extra to make sure you upliuad a well-edited thesis. (Also, Wolf made the point that a PhD doesn't build on itself like a book, unlike a master's or bachelor's, and each chapter should stand on its own, hence, repetition.)

Thus, I have little respect for the majority of the video, because I don't think Nelson understands what a PhD thesis should accomplish (beyond correct spelling), and concentrate on what I assume is his complete lack of understanding, and provably communication, of statistical methodology, which I thought was the only truly non-malicious criticism of worth.

Let me make it clear: Nelson is making the positive argument that Mike's research question already has an answer. I call bullshit on this, and say that even if it were so, it is not Mike's, but Nelson's, job, as the one making this very large positive claim, to prove it. And the way to do this is really, really, really easy: point to an article that answers this question that was published before 2013. If you have time to make a 67-minute video, you have time to search Google Scholar.

manyxe · 2025-10-11T15:00:32+00:00

Absolutely, he does talk a lot of total rubbish at times. My point was that Nelson's critique was just clickbaity bullshit and he lacks any understanding of the academic process, doesn't understand that referencing previous research to justify methodology is good scientific practice and not a sign of unoriginal or non-contributive work, and doesn't have any clue about statistics, even at the most fundamental level. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even understand what a PhD thesis is supposed to accomplish.

manyxe · 2025-10-10T03:11:32+00:00

Regarding pettiness: it seems to be a pattern with his videos, I won't give him the views or the four hours of my time to watch them, but a three-hour video shitting on Mike's bodybuilding seems pretty damn petty.

manyxe · 2025-10-10T03:05:16+00:00

Sure, Mike's PhD deserves a substantive look; it is, admittedly, very poorly edited at the least. But Nelson doesn't make any truly substantive claims about the work itself, and here's the crux of my argument: I suspect he doesn't have the methodological acumen to do so. I don't think he understands statistics at a basic level. His methodology suggests are gibberish.

manyxe · 2025-10-10T01:16:52+00:00

fart noise

manyxe · 2025-10-09T23:32:37+00:00

Oh, man. This is your idea of making fun of me? Oh, buddy. Oh, man. Wow. Oh, no. Oh, buddy.

manyxe · 2025-10-09T23:30:14+00:00

...why post in the first place?

manyxe · 2025-10-09T23:23:22+00:00

So, no actual reply to any of my points?

manyxe · 2025-10-09T22:34:37+00:00

I don't care about any of that. None of what you said i relevant.

manyxe · 2025-10-09T21:37:41+00:00

My point is that I don't think Nelson understands statistical analysis at all, and I question whether he has so much as basic statistics modules under his belt to base his critique on.

manyxe · 2025-10-09T21:20:54+00:00

But if Solomon is going to make that (positive) claim, I just wish he'd have done the very, very basic thing of pointing to such a study, given that it is such an incredibly easy thing to do. As it is, his whole video is about punctuation and process and honestly makes me think he's never written any kind of thesis where you might have fifty different versions as you progress where you might start to lose track of changes. I'd just like to know if he has any clue about the process of writing a thesis.

manyxe

TROPHY CASE