Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

Honestly this is a thin critique indeed. Social sciences are difficult precisely because they focus on phenomena with multi-factorial causes. Simple, high confidence, predictive theories are rare in psychology, sociology, anthropology etc, not because social scientists are committing a 'hoax'. In part because the factors impacting individual and collective behaviour are profoundly complex. And also because experimentalism in the social world is ethically, practically and epistemically fraught. We can't easily experiment on people or societies, and we can't stand as independent observers of phenomena of which we are part. We can develop hypotheses, develop experiments which attempt to falsify our null hypothesis, triangulate evidence from different observations and so on. We can model, observe, and infer. Over time we can develop frameworks that are measurably useful - from CBT to behavioural economics. But none of this is easy or definitive.

I note how common this perspective - that social science is some kind of conspiracy of faux expertise - is becoming on Hackernews. And how ironic it is, given that it's rooted in a lack of expertise or even familiarity with the topics critiqued.

This is just one forum in which the growing social skepticism of expertise in general, and science in particular is being articulated.

My mother donates 10% of her income and volunteers at homeless shelters because she feels that God wants her to. Other than that she lives like pretty much everyone else. Oh no, so terrible! Someone get this woman into the asylum!

I mean, there was plenty of objectionable (by modern standards) behaviour practiced in both Rome and Ancient Greece that there’s really no reason to somehow try and pull Carthage into it.

He observes that in older human societies a transgression could easily lead to an infinite loop of vendetta-like bloodshed. He also observes that sacrifices always targeted a victim that is nearly a member of society (if not an actual human outcast or child, then an animal which people like and are reasonably close to on a daily basis) but never quite.

Part of his theory appears to be that ritual sacrifice (a murder that follows a particular procedure) eventually emerged as a viable steam vent that made societies more resilient. It lets out the impulse that causes members of society to be violent to each other, but focuses this impulse on someone who is adjacent to yet outside of that society, carries no social function, and is unable to push back or seek revenge, thus defusing the impulse safely (for society).

(A functioning justice system in modern civilization performs a similar role, taking revenge out of the hands of the victim.)

    Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
    - Seneca