Humanities aren't a science and shouldn't be treated like one (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: Humanities aren't a science and shouldn't be treated like one (2012)

#161

Post by username90 » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 8:55 AM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #121

everyone wrote: post #2

Why are they even taught in colleges? They're more of a hobby thing really (and more enjoyable that way imo)

Humanities are the most effective method of teaching empathy that I am aware of.

Is there any evidence of this? To me it seems like humanities makes people have less empathy, since instead of feeling other people they analyze them.

For example, to me it seems like American politicians have way less empathy than European politicians even though European politicians have studied way less humanities than American ones. So my belief that studying humanities helps you deconstruct the human experience and see us as robots, hurting your empathy.

I do however believe that studying humanities makes it easier to answer what the tester wants you to answer on empathy tests, since you now understand those tests better.

Re: Humanities aren't a science and shouldn't be treated like one (2012)

#162

Post by alexashka » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 8:56 AM UTC

shash wrote: post #144

lopmotr wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've successfully applied it to animals so it works. Just because it's against your sense of morals doesn't mean it's not based on real science.

The problem with eugenics isn’t the idea of selective breeding, but the conflation of mostly irrelevant traits or uninheritable traits with important and inheritable ones. Leading to a loss of genetic diversity and concentration of genetic diseases. “If done right”, but I doubt it can ever _be_ done right...

Huh? You can cherry pick an attempt to do something in any discipline and then go on to doubt if it can ever be done right.

What you said is not even an argument - it is just an expression of personal preference towards specific actions.

I like apples, you like bananas, where do we go from here?

I heard somewhere that there are three types of information: facts, fiction and fiction masquerading as facts.

It seems to me that you're engaging in the third type, as are many others who hear an opinion that seems to make sense and aligns with their preconceived preferences, which they then go on to repeat with an incredible level of certainty. I'd argue 99% of what people say is of this variety, which is a problem because it is so pervasive, that hardly anyone seems to notice. It's like we're in the matrix, maaan.

Re: Humanities aren't a science and shouldn't be treated like one (2012)

#163

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 9:14 AM UTC

lopmotr wrote: post #117

throwaway2048 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how that changes anything about it being psuedoscientific garbage

What do you mean? It's selective breeding for humans the same as we do for farm animals and cats and dogs. It's not pseudoscientific.

No - it's pseudo moral. It's reviled because proponents are reliably racist idiots who don't even understand the limits of the science - or why breeding humans like farm animals really isn't such a great idea.

Re: Humanities aren't a science and shouldn't be treated like one (2012)

#164

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

selectionbias wrote: post #109

andreilys wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it still baffles me that people think economics is a proven science and not built on a shaky foundation that falls apart soon as you prod it.

Look at the latest edition of QJE. You will see mostly studies addressing a particular policy question, e.g., 'what was the effect of this policy change on unemployment' which they answer using randomly controlled trials or quasi-experimental methods. Which aspect of this falls apart when you prod it?

What's a "quasi-experimental method" and how do you do randomly controlled trials on entire countries?

Re: Humanities aren't a science and shouldn't be treated like one (2012)

#165

Post by mihaaly » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 9:19 AM UTC

The story reminds me of the HR practices of 'measuring' personality based on questionnaire to judge the competence of people for certain positions and determine their carrier path inside the organization (e.g. at Trimble). Imagine you are a software engineer applying for an engineering role and they ask you a hundred or more questions to compare the importance of aspects such as punctuality, trust, being patient, lawfulness, honesty and several more, 3 at a time, make a strict order of importance. Without specifics on the work context and situation. Then they build a multi dozen component report how good you are in this and that on a 1 to 5 scale. The way you work. Based on answers to strange questions, not actual work. When it is impossible to answer accurately (because it depends, or there is no order like between playing piano or being tall) then the results will be inaccurate, yet they use it to classify workforce like steel by its properties, determining their fate. Assessing work performance before doing any work. And they take it dead seriously like gauge on a pressure tank. It is just so ... well dumb, forcing any kind of oversimplified measurement on complex and fluid things, sounds like measuring friendliness by meter. People change, people adapt, people behave differently in different circumstances, very very differently, and definitely not how they admit it, no one can count how many influential factors there are, these robotic and unified approaches are just distorting for the purpose of appearing fair. It is far from fair, it is just robotic - which is ironic from a department called human resources, feels like robots work there not humans. Measuring fish by how high it can jump before allowing to swim.

It is just pretentious not scientific.

Re: Humanities aren't a science and shouldn't be treated like one (2012)

#166

Post by dogma1138 » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 9:20 AM UTC

todorus wrote: post #160

akiselev wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd hesitate to even call them intricacies. Billions of years of evolution in biochemistry and multicellular organisms, half a billion years in nervous systems, and over 200 million years in mammalian brains have culminated with about 50 million years of evolution of the primate brain. For every human being that has ever lived, nature has run 10^X continuous brute force "simulations" to arrive at our present civiliza…

That makes it sound all very daunting, but we have a few advantages over nature when it comes to design. * A single life can produce multiple iterations of a technology. * Current technology speeds up the development of the next iteration.

Nature isn’t limited to intentional design tho, I’m not sure what advantage we have when you have a few 1000’s of people trying to progress technology over their life time vs about 7 billion iterations which are governed by natural selection and that is if you only account for a single species.

Also don’t forget that a single life can also produce multiple iterations of itself over its life span.

Designs are limited by what we understand and can imagine as well as other constraints, nature not so much.

Re: Humanities aren't a science and shouldn't be treated like one (2012)

#167

Post by pas » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 9:27 AM UTC

mihaaly wrote: post #159

cycomanic wrote: post #127

This is such a horrible article. Many have already mentioned the conflation of humanities and social sciences. Then by using the example of books (because most would agree books would loose their essence if we just describe them by numbers) it constructs a straw man that somehow we loose something (the beauty?) by using quantitative measures. Sure many studies have flaws (not just in the social sciences), but what is…

When the measurement is flawed you will not know if the therapy works. Sorry. And the measurement is flawed! Actually, there is a crisis of reliability concerning modern research papers. (probably this is the source that many try to build castle out of dough?...)

Flawed is not completely useless. Even a flawed p-hacked measurement can distinguish between big effects efficiently.

Plus even if all the previous measurements were totally useless, that doesn't mean we should just give up and stop trying to measure soft stuff.

No, it's quite the opposite. Instead of many small underpowered experiments and studies we should be spending on fewer but well designed and run larger ones. (Even if that's naturally harder.)

Re: Humanities aren't a science and shouldn't be treated like one (2012)

#168

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 9:28 AM UTC

kissickas wrote: post #106

sytelus wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biology had always been red herring. Lot of biologists actually are careful about making big claims until they understand the mechanisms. There is an evidence based clinical science but that's been made very watertight through structured trials that must comply to well defined standards unlike studies like "Coffee was found to reduce cancer" which is often half-assed surveys with too many statistical biases.

We don't know the mechanisms of plenty of things that we accept as proven with scientific principles, like most of pharmacy. And what about physics before Newton? Or before Einstein? In fact, we still don't know exactly how gravity works. Or magnetism. At what point are you drawing the line of being able to "elaborate the exact mechanism"?

You never elaborate the exact mechanism. But if you can consistently make accurate predictions, you're onto something.

The real argument is about the validity of the predictions. Core science - basically undergrad - is very good at making predictions in its domains of interest. Outside of that everything gets more speculative.

The real problem with soft science research is that it cargo cults data -> statistics into data -> weak correlations -> "truth." And that's not how good science works - because there's just a statement based on correlations that may be accidental, and there's no attempt to make a model at all.

Re: Humanities aren't a science and shouldn't be treated like one (2012)

#169

Post by the-dude » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 9:30 AM UTC

pas wrote: post #167

mihaaly wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the measurement is flawed you will not know if the therapy works. Sorry. And the measurement is flawed! Actually, there is a crisis of reliability concerning modern research papers. (probably this is the source that many try to build castle out of dough?...)

Flawed is not completely useless. Even a flawed p-hacked measurement can distinguish between big effects efficiently. Plus even if all the previous measurements were totally useless, that doesn't mean we should just give up and stop trying to measure soft stuff. No, it's quite the opposite. Instead of many small underpowered experiments and studies we should be spending on fewer but well designed and run larger ones.…

Why would you need a p-hack if the effects are big?

Re: Humanities aren't a science and shouldn't be treated like one (2012)

#170

Post by PeterisP » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 9:39 AM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #57

everyone wrote: post #2

Why are they even taught in colleges? They're more of a hobby thing really (and more enjoyable that way imo)

> Why are they even taught in colleges? They're more of a hobby thing really (and more enjoyable that way imo) Because that's why colleges exist...? Historically universities were not the workforce mills they are today. You did not go to a university to help you find work. Stuff like business/management, engineering, medicine, etc really shouldn't be part of universities.

It's interesting how you go in two sentences from returning to goals of historical universities to suggesting that medicine shouldn't be part of it.

A classic full university was supposed to cover the four historically major fields of study - theology, medicine, law and philosophy (which includes all the modern subtypes of PhD's e.g. physics, math, biology, etc). Three of these fields were pretty much designed to prepare students for the specific needs of knowledge intensive work (clerics, doctors and lawyers) and only the philosophy studies were less practical.