Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Arrogance is skimming a PhD thesis in a field wildly different from your own and deciding you are more competent in your ability to evaluate its "rigor" than the dozens or people in that field who evaluated it that had a different conclusion. What a flimsy and transparent effort to insulate non-rigorous fields from criticism. Ironically, one of the things I do for a living these days, as an attorney, is attack the…
Yes but what is your perspective on the study of individual personal behaviour and societies. Are you saying that all the "serious but not rigorous" fields that do so are A) all doing it wrong, and that you know a better way, B) That there is a better way and noone has tried, Or C) that it is impossible and we shouldn't bother trying. Because if it's A or B, you can see why someone would call you arrogant. And if it'…
That is not to say we can't seek to understand these things. To the contrary, humans have myriad ways to understand and respond to these things, including religion, tradition, culture, convention, etc. Academic inquiry that has the veneer of rigor--through credentials, peer review, conferences, etc.--but isn't actually rigorous improperly displaces those other ways of knowing, and cedes social power to a narrow class of elites.
The education and socialization of children, for example, is one of the fundamental pillars of society. People around the world have their own ideas of how best to socialize their kids. Unless you can bring real science to the table--unless you can create reproducible results that speak for themselves--you shouldn't be so arrogant as to act like your work can substitute for those other ways of knowing.