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Interview with Scott Aaronson

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#11

Post by pron »

vixen99 wrote: post #10
pron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect to Aaronson (with whom I find myself agreeing on many things), I wouldn't take his evaluation on the state of social science and his analysis of its core problems as correct. He's not a social scientist, and I don't think he'd appreciate an anthropologist evaluating the state of affairs in quantum computing research.

So from now on, do we present our credentials and cvs before commenting to any extent in public? No. The whole point about science is that anyone at all should be able to criticize any piece of work on the basis of the facts. Let's suppose the criticism is rubbish. All to the good. That will emerge and so will salient criticism, if it exists, that may have escaped the 'credentialized' scientists. Only my impression o…

All I meant is that there's little point in presuming the statement is correct and then asking a followup, when there's little reason to believe that it is in the first place. Aaronson doesn't support this statement, nor does he argue it -- he just asserts it. In any event, my point had little to do with credentials and much to do with knowledge. I don't think Aaronson claims he has too much knowledge in the social sciences, credentialed or otherwise. Would you also presume his medical advice to be correct?

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#13

Post by pron »

privong wrote: post #9
pron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect to Aaronson (with whom I find myself agreeing on many things), I wouldn't take his evaluation on the state of social science and his analysis of its core problems as correct. He's not a social scientist, and I don't think he'd appreciate an anthropologist evaluating the state of affairs in quantum computing research.

> He's not a social scientist, and I don't think he'd appreciate an anthropologist evaluating the state of affairs in quantum computing research. But, from things I have read elsewhere, there does seem to be a reasonably convincing body of evidence that there are systematic biases in social sciences. Some of this perhaps stems from discrimination (e.g., in hiring practices) based on political allegiance. Jonathan Hai…

> there does seem to be a reasonably convincing body of evidence that there is systematic biases in social sciences.

But Aaronson makes a far more specific assertion than "there is evidence for systematic bias in social sciences".

I agree that there is political bias in social science departments. It is painfully clear to anyone who ever sets foot in one, especially as an outsider (much like the sexism in SV). I think that overall it harms research, perhaps significantly, and it must be addressed. But outsiders sometimes view this (rather obvious) criticism as a complete refutation of the field(s), which it is most certainly not. To their credit, social researchers actively study this bias without need for external pressure, and even acknowledge it's a problem, something which cannot be said for other disciplines (one could argue that it is social researchers' job to study precisely such things, but at least you can see that they're not intellectually dishonest enough to avoid the issue or to dismiss it as inconsequential).

BTW, in general, I think that outsiders usually tend to overestimate internal criticisms (in any discipline). When (internal) critics say "our estimate of the variable x to be 10 is far too low!" they really mean "x is more likely to be 12", while outsiders interpret it as "x is probably 1000".

> political leaning likely has a much smaller influence on one's research in physics and chemistry, compared to one's research in sociology

True, but the correlation between political leaning and social research may very well be a reverse causal relationship: that one's research in sociology is far more likely to affect one's politics than research in physics. If there is an over-representation of a particular ideology in the social sciences (although it's hard for me to put all the social sciences in one category, because they are quite different from one another -- more different than, say, physics and chemistry), it may serve as evidence that some common and politically pertinent ideas arise from the research itself[1] as much as evidence of anything else.

BTW, I've read the interview with Haidt that you linked to -- thank you for that -- it is truly horrifying. But I get the sense that this is a rather American phenomenon. I certainly didn't experience anything close to it in magnitude at my university.

[1]: And I don't mean necessarily from the results, but possibly from the process.

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#14

Post by afarrell »

pron wrote: post #11
vixen99 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So from now on, do we present our credentials and cvs before commenting to any extent in public? No. The whole point about science is that anyone at all should be able to criticize any piece of work on the basis of the facts. Let's suppose the criticism is rubbish. All to the good. That will emerge and so will salient criticism, if it exists, that may have escaped the 'credentialized' scientists. Only my impression o…

All I meant is that there's little point in presuming the statement is correct and then asking a followup, when there's little reason to believe that it is in the first place. Aaronson doesn't support this statement, nor does he argue it -- he just asserts it. In any event, my point had little to do with credentials and much to do with knowledge. I don't think Aaronson claims he has too much knowledge in the social s…

This is argument from authority. But, in a world where we don't go through people's statements and rigorously examine the provenience of each of them, argument from authority is a valid heuristic.

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#15

Post by moultano »

ced wrote: post #4

In social sciences, there’s an absolutely massive bias in favor of publishing results that confirm current educated opinion, or that deviate from the consensus in ways that will be seen as quirky or interesting rather than cold or cruel or politically tone-deaf. Isn't that a massive problem for meta-analyses? If there are 15 studies supporting the consensus/politically-correct position and 5 against it, that might be…

You can assess this using funnel plots. If publication bias were not a factor, then you expect effect size to be uncorrelated from sample size. If they are correlated, then it's likely publication bias is having some effect on the results.

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#16

Post by johngossman »

pbw wrote: post #12

Wow he seems very smart but not very succinct.

It is an incredibly long interview, but I assume it was e-mail. And full of short gems like:

"QM isn’t even “physics” in the usual sense: it’s more like an operating system that the rest of physics runs on as application software"

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#17

Post by pron »

afarrell wrote: post #14
pron wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I meant is that there's little point in presuming the statement is correct and then asking a followup, when there's little reason to believe that it is in the first place. Aaronson doesn't support this statement, nor does he argue it -- he just asserts it. In any event, my point had little to do with credentials and much to do with knowledge. I don't think Aaronson claims he has too much knowledge in the social s…

This is argument from authority. But, in a world where we don't go through people's statements and rigorously examine the provenience of each of them, argument from authority is a valid heuristic.

Perhaps it is an argument from meta-authority, or a meta-argument from authority :) But I don't think it is. The argument is simply that there's little reason to accept a factual statement as correct if it is not supported by factual study.

The reason I'm so sensitive about this issue in particular is that I've personally been involved both with the social sciences and STEM, and I'm extremely annoyed to see people in the latter group put so much emphasis on evidence, and at the same time display such a broad dismissal of the former group without so much as a rudimentary understanding of the field(s). You hardly see historians dismiss research in solid-state physics as you see computer scientists dismiss research in sociology (which goes above and beyond the well-accepted inaccuracy of the latter due to intractability).

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#18

Post by dilemma »

privong wrote: post #9
pron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect to Aaronson (with whom I find myself agreeing on many things), I wouldn't take his evaluation on the state of social science and his analysis of its core problems as correct. He's not a social scientist, and I don't think he'd appreciate an anthropologist evaluating the state of affairs in quantum computing research.

> He's not a social scientist, and I don't think he'd appreciate an anthropologist evaluating the state of affairs in quantum computing research. But, from things I have read elsewhere, there does seem to be a reasonably convincing body of evidence that there are systematic biases in social sciences. Some of this perhaps stems from discrimination (e.g., in hiring practices) based on political allegiance. Jonathan Hai…

There are systematic biases in the social sciences, and there are systematic biases in physics. Read Lee Smolin's The Trouble with Physics. As they are social systems, they will always be biased. And the most dangerous bias is the one that claims itself unbiased, fully objective.

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#19

Post by lucb1e »

For those reading comments before the article: the title is rather silly, but it contains lots of interesting stuff. For example the answers to questions 14 and 15 sound very sane to me, compared to most people's views on it.
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