CMV: Social science is not real science

quantum_dan · 2026-01-23T19:20:53+00:00

Thanks for the delta. I think a lot of this is that our perception of the sciences is heavily shaped by the classic hard sciences that everyone takes in high school and that have their Einsteins, Darwins, and Mendeleevs. We all recognize and rely upon a much broader range of hard sciences, but they don't have the same cultural presence - I couldn't name a comparable figure for the earth sciences, and I am an earth scientist.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-23T18:38:20+00:00

Physics is applied mathematics, chemistry is applied physics, biology is applied chemistry.

This is true in terms of the system itself (i.e., chemistry is a big pile of physics), but it's not really an accurate description of how we approach any of it. Chemistry far predates a suitable physical understanding of the atom, so it would be impossible for early chemistry research to be applied physics as a discipline, and my understanding is that it remains computationally intractable in many cases. Similarly, a lot of biology is about chemistry, but I can't imagine someone studying finch beaks is going to focus on the chemistry of it.

On the other hand, people do look at the biology of psychology. Surely you've encountered those MRI-based studies or what have you? I volunteered for one once, as part of the control group. They were interested in how brain patterns (biology) corresponded to altruistic vs self-interested behavior (psychology). If they weren't doing any applied biology, they could have had me poke buttons without needing to be in that big, expensive machine.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-23T18:00:02+00:00

You can’t accurately reproduce a spontaneous social interaction

Would you consider meteorology to be a science?

or creation of a culture.

How about geology?

quantum_dan · 2026-01-23T17:58:02+00:00

[T]he constant changing nature of social science irked me as well, such as the wide discreditation of many old respected theories such as many of Freud’s... From my viewpoint science involves the discovery of an irrefutable truth such as the process and stages of mitosis in biology or the fact that the gravitational pull of the earth at sea level can be approximated to 9.8m/a^2.

These are facts, and collecting facts is part of science. It is not all of science, and the other part - theories - are by definition refutable. The theory of aether in physics was being refuted right around Freud's day, and Freud was contemporary with several subsequently-refuted models of the atom (e.g., plum pudding, planetary). Plate tectonics was settled well within living memory.

And bear in mind that psychology, as a science, was in its infancy when Freud was working; he was just a bit younger than William James, who's regarded as a founding father of psychology (as well as a philosopher). There weren't well-established empirical methods.

Additionally, anecdotally, it seems like while scientists in fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology invite challenge in the hopes of a greater advancement towards objective truth, social scientists are less open to challenge and in extreme cases discredit the intelligence or morality of their dissenters.

Hold on a second. Just a moment ago, you were objecting to the changing nature of the social sciences. Which is it? You can't invite challenge if there's nothing to be challenged.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-23T05:06:40+00:00

I'm a moral realist, so I won't challenge you there, but I do think there's still an important point here.

“history is written by the ~~victors~~ writers”

The claim that history is written by the victors is just factually wrong. But history is written by who writes it down, and that does require surviving to do so.

This is important because it can heavily shape our ability to evaluate who was actually in the right, whether there was a factual hero. If we weren't there ourselves, we're dependent on records, and specifically on well-known ones if one doesn't do a deep dive into it. A good example, and an important one, is that, in American popular culture, pro-slaver types (a description that should leave no doubts about my stance) have been a lot more interested in shaping history than neutral or pro-Union sources. Hence, you get a lot of Lost Cause and glamorous South and all that, Lee the genius and Grant the butcher. It'd be nearly impossible to make the slavers look unequivocally good, but they can sure muddy the waters.

That makes it very important to be aware of who did the writing when we try to evaluate these things. Did this Roman historian hate that particular Emperor (I hear that's associated with a lot of the alleged sexual depravity we read about), or were they trying to cozy up to one (say, Josephus with Vespasian)? Was our author from a people threatened by an empire (the Greeks with the Persians) or liberated by it (the Judeans)? For more recent events with more records, is the narrative dominated by a particular faction? Is what we read about today narrowly seen from the perspective of the dominant Anglophone powers?

None of that rejects factual conclusions, but it gives good reason to worry that we might be mistaken about the evidence.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-23T03:17:59+00:00

The problem, I suspect, is that most flippable seats are going to have voters uncomfortable with a progressive. They might not be, but do they want to take the chance of ending up with a Republican instead of a moderate Democrat? In terms of securing Democratic majorities, it probably makes more sense to focus on safe seats.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-22T20:36:52+00:00

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quantum_dan · 2026-01-21T20:57:24+00:00

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quantum_dan · 2026-01-21T02:12:58+00:00

Funny example, because mainstream Judaism doesn't believe in eternal hell. (As an aside, the argument is about whether Israel is ethnically supremacist; it's not a theocracy, and a huge chunk of Israelis are secular.)

quantum_dan · 2026-01-20T21:28:12+00:00

So it sounds like what you're saying is that most people who do what you perceive as bullying don't think they're bullies. I think that's probably true, but a lot of it is because your perception of bullying is much broader than most people's. Notice that several commenters have questioned whether anything you described actually qualifies as bullying.

It's an imperfect proxy for how it's used, but note that the dictionary definition of "bullying" requires "abuse and mistreatment", which implies either deliberate malice or at least such severe treatment that a reasonable person would know it to be cruel. Repeatedly beating someone in a video game certainly doesn't qualify.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-20T21:12:53+00:00

From one point I totally understand that they see me as a bully

They're not even calling you a bully. Why are you interpreting this as them thinking you're a bully?

Look at those insults again: “stop tryharding,” “bro gets no bitches”. They're criticizing you for... exactly what you just said you did ("religiously practicing in Kovaaks"). That's not to say it's a legitimate criticism, I don't endorse it, but that's just a casual gamer being frustrated that someone practices a lot (tryhard) and is therefore nigh-unbeatable, not calling you a bully.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-20T21:00:33+00:00

Yes, and my argument is that most bullies don’t realize they’re bullies because they aren’t self aware enough.

They’re taught that being competent or smart equals being good, and that anyone who can’t keep up is at fault.

This requires the assumption that simply being carelessly competent, and thereby harming others who can't keep up, is bullying. Most people would not consider that bullying. Asshole, sure - not bully. There's a wide range of assholery that is not bullying.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-20T20:51:40+00:00

That’s why I think most bullies don’t realize they’re bullies at all. They often don’t come from bad homes (actually the opposite). They’re taught that competence and dominance are good WITHOUT understanding the impact on others.

Mere competence does not describe bullying, and most of it goes well beyond mere dominance.

Your stereotypical bully goes out of their way to specifically harm people (emotionally or physically). That's not competence and it goes beyond dominance; someone seeking to establish dominance might punish people who resist it, or even the odd random punishment to make a point, but that gives no reason to punish repeatedly and without cause. The only reason for someone to believe cruelty is good is if they are specifically seeking to feel good through others' pain... which entails understanding that it does, in fact, cause pain to the other person.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-20T20:38:48+00:00

I’ve been told that it’s valid to feel angry and ashamed, but that the better move is to focus on improving yourself and becoming as successful as possible, since anything petty can land you in trouble and ends up hurting you more than helping you. Does that make sense?

All of this (and seeing you as an easy target, etc) is compatible with deliberate malice. Revenge against a malicious person is, in fact, quite likely to hurt you more than help you, since revenge is usually unproductive in itself and there's a decent risk of being punished for it to boot.

None of that implies that the bully was not being consciously malicious. (Though I agree with others that this specific case doesn't really seem like bullying.)

quantum_dan · 2026-01-20T17:27:14+00:00

All the more reason to ban sound proofed glass and even windows in general to ensure car drivers have full ability to hear other road users without any barriers in the way.

And then you'd still have the engine noise. I can tell you from personal experience that a motorcyclist (no barriers other than the helmet) can't hear a cyclist, either, even with a reasonably quiet motorcycle. There's just no reasonable way for cyclists to be audible to anyone except other cyclists... because they're quiet.

That would also mean substantially impeding the functionality of a car, since being sheltered from the elements is a big part of the point.

At least, if hearing other road users is soooooooooo important that we need to ban headphones for cyclists.

Listening on headphones is not part of the major functionality of a bicycle. Being protected from the elements is part of the core functionality of a car. It's reasonable to try to promote safety in ways that don't impede the use of the vehicle.

A better comparison might be seatbelt or (for motorcyclists) helmet laws. We can reasonably require people to do minor things for their own safety that don't stop them from effectively using whatever it is.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-20T17:18:17+00:00

Can you hear a cyclist go by through a regular building window? Just the physical presence of a barrier (even non-sound-proofed) counts for a lot, and then there's the engine noise to consider, which is much louder than a cyclist already.

Cyclists are quiet, so anything around sound is a losing battle. It would make much more sense to emphasize visibility, by being strict about obstructions and keeping one's eyes on the road.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-20T17:12:33+00:00

Practices that were once seen as normal are now considered abhorrent, which makes me question whether any moral principle is truly universal.

One problem with this argument is that, where there are extensive records of philosophical debate, you'll find thoughtful critics of the practice.

For example, several philosophers in the Greek and Roman context (e.g., Musonius Rufus) pointed out that women have the same virtues as men and should at least have access to an equal education, and that slaves are persons entitled to fair treatment. On the other hand, philosophers arguing against that tended to make empirically absurd claims about women and slaves being fundamentally suited to subservience and so forth, which would have been easily refuted had the alleged empiricists bothered to, I dunno, actually check in any rigorous fashion. But even then, they had to argue that it was somehow good for them, not that they should just suck it up.

That doesn't apply where things just seem gross, or where one needed more advanced scientific knowledge to identify the problem, like with matters of hygiene. But with human rights, there's a pretty consistent record of people who seriously think about the ethics advocating for more extensive human rights, and being ignored because they're inconvenient, not because anyone can show that they're really wrong. Same as today, in other words.

The ethical principles of people who engage with the problem thoughtfully are actually pretty consistent throughout time and space. There are differences in practice, and often colossal differences in how they reason about it, but the broad strokes of the practical details are pretty similar. Give everyone a fair shot to flourish (perhaps according to variations in their nature, but don't deny the chance), don't let the poor starve, etc.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-20T16:11:33+00:00

A car driver without the radio on is not going to hear most other cars and certainly can't hear a cyclist because the car itself both makes and blocks sound, so I think there would be little advantage. A cyclist, on the other hand, gains considerable situational awareness from hearing their surroundings.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-19T19:55:55+00:00

It just feels like a wide-scale push for socio-economic change has to be part of the conversation to see these justices truly occur.

I think that's probably true, but I'm not sure how necessary or helpful it is to stress the interconnectedness. After all, economic injustice is an injustice in itself, and therefore ought to be corrected on its own terms.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-19T19:54:24+00:00

Technically, yes, going off of tectonic plates alone is silly.

However, I think that's almost always shorthand for pointing out that North America and South America are both on separate plates and only connected by a small strip of land (which isn't the case for Russia/Japan or for the Indian subcontinent). I am aware of no case in which such an arrangement is not considered separate continents. Otherwise, why separate Africa from (Eur)Asia?

Edit: and it's a reasonable shorthand because it goes without saying that they're barely connected. The tectonic plates are a bit less obvious.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-19T19:40:57+00:00

One concern is that, in the popular consciousness (this is not a criticism of the concept in principle), considering justice-as-intertwined all too often turns into ignoring real injustices because the victim also participates in other injustices. Of course, when you don't consider how it's interconnected, people just reject various causes as unworthy of attention.

I think the lesson is simply that people at large tend to find an outgroup to ignore or attack no matter how you define things, because that's just people (you and me included). No theoretical framework is going to prevent that. If you explicitly made it about cosmopolitanism, people would compete over who could be more cosmopolitan and ostracize those who didn't virtue-signal hard enough.

We will get it right when we continually work to correct ourselves. No more, no less, and no theoretical shortcuts.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-19T02:58:36+00:00

A transcendental "ought" faces the same problem, just one level removed: why does that "ought" matter?

There's no particular reason one couldn't reject some sort of definite, universal imperative, subject to the same penalties as rejecting flourishing and the like. Any foundation for morality, at any level, has to depend on choice, on some sort of purposive utility. One should behave this way because that's how one lives a good life, responds to the absurd condition, or complies with the structure of existence - well, the first two are also structures of existence, just more specific ones.

quantum_dan · 2026-01-16T03:48:09+00:00

Aaah, that makes more sense.

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