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)

#221

Post by stanfordkid » Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

dash2 wrote: post #151

stanfordkid wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real problem is, is that the humanities -- the social sciences in particular -- have proven themselves to consistently build bad models with unproven assumptions. These assumptions have been leveraged to directly influence policy (instead of, say, trying a lot of different things and seeing what works). Here's a concrete example of a paper [1] that just came out, attempting to impact COVID19 policy, from…

They make assumptions and then foreground them so the reader can understand them. What's wrong with that? Have you discovered a way of drawing conclusions without assumptions? Or do you think you can "just observe" without being guided by theory? What would a non-"fabricated" model look like?

The problem is, that the assumption is not rooted in any empirical phenomena. They have neither historical data to fit to (which itself would be tenuous) nor do they have any sort of first order justification for it.

It's like doing a car crash safety simulation and stating that the airbag provides protective force "linearly proportional to the force of impact, with alpha > 1" ... without ever measuring it or doing any calculations on why this would be the case. Would you drive in a car that was tested this way?

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

#222

Post by shash » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

yk wrote: post #218

shash wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree entirely, especially about history. You form hypotheses on the basis of evidence (literary, archaeological, documentary, etc), make predictions about the kinds of effects you’d expect to find in the historical record, and then modify those hypotheses based on what you find later. How is that not a science?

> make predictions about the kinds of effects you’d expect to find in the historical record, You want to make predictions about the past?

No, predictions about what other undiscovered evidence you’d expect to find about the past. In a way this is like astrophysics in that you can’t conduct experiments, but you can predict that X is correlated with Y. Come to think of it, paleontology...

For example, take the Shakespeare authorship controversy; you could create a hypothesis that say “Shakespeare was indeed the author of Hamlet”. A prediction from this might be, “if a manuscript of Hamlet were ever found it would be in Shakespeare’s handwriting”. Not a really good example to be sure, but just off the top of my head...

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

#223

Post by shash » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 3:06 AM UTC

alexashka wrote: post #162

shash wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Which is the whole point. Eugenics is “fiction masquerading as fact”, as you put it. The core hypothesis (selective breeding works) is sound, but the traits that historical Eugenicists were trying to breed into the populace were all subjective, fictional correlates of what they thought were desirable. It’s not about MY preconceived preferences, but about what preconceived preferences the person running the eugenics experiment has.

When I say it can’t be done “right”, what I mean is that what constitutes the “eu-“ part of eugenics, meaning “good” or “best” is inherently subjective, and the choices of a particular experiment may end up being counterproductive to the goal of creating the “best” humans.

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

#224

Post by UncleMeat » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

username90 wrote: post #161

UncleMeat wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't have scientific evidence. But my wife is a historian and the process of doing history is fundamentally the process of erasing your own context and placing yourself fulling in somebody else's context. That's fundamentally the practice of empathy.

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

#225

Post by dash2 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 8:12 AM UTC

stanfordkid wrote: post #221

dash2 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They make assumptions and then foreground them so the reader can understand them. What's wrong with that? Have you discovered a way of drawing conclusions without assumptions? Or do you think you can "just observe" without being guided by theory? What would a non-"fabricated" model look like?

The problem is, that the assumption is not rooted in any empirical phenomena. They have neither historical data to fit to (which itself would be tenuous) nor do they have any sort of first order justification for it. It's like doing a car crash safety simulation and stating that the airbag provides protective force "linearly proportional to the force of impact, with alpha > 1" ... without ever measuring it or doing a…

I'm too damn lazy to read the paper, so you may be right. But normally, we practice a division of labour. Theoreticians build models in the expectation that empiricists will (a) test them and (b) estimate key parameters. If these guys have said "we have the answer, this is what you should do" then maybe you are right.

I'm not saying either that this phenomenon never happens. I just think it's rather rare, especially among sensible and skilled economists. See also the great Bob Sugden's paper "Credible Worlds", which is available here at the moment.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tony_Lawson2/publicatio...

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

#226

Post by dash2 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 8:14 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #119

rdcurd wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most, if not all self-respecting social science scholars would resent being lumped in with economists

Which fields are you referring to? I think of psychology as perhaps more rigorous, but none of the others (sociology, anthropology, political science).

FWIW experimental economics results seem to be more reproducible than psychology.[1] Though this is a bit of a pot-kettle blackness contest.

[1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6280/1433

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

#227

Post by alexashka » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 9:34 AM UTC

shash wrote: post #223

alexashka wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> What you said is not even an argument - it is just an expression of personal preference towards specific actions. Which is the whole point. Eugenics is “fiction masquerading as fact”, as you put it. The core hypothesis (selective breeding works) is sound, but the traits that historical Eugenicists were trying to breed into the populace were all subjective, fictional correlates of what they thought were desirable. I…

This 'everything is subjective' non-sense is fiction masquerading as fact of the highest calibre.

People liking water and not liking dying of thirst is not subjective.

You're using 'everything is subjective' to defend 'I don't have the faith in humanity to not fuck it up' and you cannot do that because everything is subjective is a non-sensical claim. What you're really expressing is deep pessimism, which I happen to share :)

What I think we should say is, eugenics is an excellent idea, but the current ruling elite is too infantile to implement it in a way that wouldn't lead to a dystopia of one type or another.

---

Another interesting thought is to contemplate that we already enable some to breed and raise children in far better circumstances than other people, by design. Is that not eugenics? We're doing selective breeding and providing selective advantages and we always have. Is that not eugenics?

If you ask me, I'd rather we go extinct because of a scientific experiment of immense beauty, than the usual petty fight for limited resources where the rich sit back and watch, while the innocent slaughter each other by the millions.

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

#228

Post by Argasm » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 12:01 PM UTC

burfog wrote: post #50

ojnabieoot wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because music, history, and literature are just as important to human society as math, computer science, and physics. This unthinking disrespect for the humanities is embarrassing.

Unthinking respect for the humanities is embarrassing. Exactly why do they deserve respect? (hint: they don't)

Maybe because the actual meaning of science was forged by philosophers ans "sociologists" ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Comte#Comte's_positivi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper

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

#229

Post by villahousut » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 2:47 PM UTC

amatic wrote: post #203

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…

> Shall we start psychological therapies just because someone thought it sounded good, instead of measuring if it works? Yup. All psychotherapies were started just because someone thought they sounded good; and are still being practiced because they sound good. There are hundreds of different schools of psychotherapy today. There is a movement toward testing the effectiveness of therapies, but they just show whicheve…

That's incorrect. Meta-analyses show all widely accepted therapies are efficient exactly because public health authorities only fund and support scientific therapies. There are plenty of great-sounding therapies which are not effective and thus not widely used.

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

#230

Post by noema » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #180

rnikander wrote: post #77

Some people submitted nonsense papers (for example: rape culture at dog parks, and an excerpt from Mein Kampf), and they were accepted for publication. https://www.timesofisrael.com/duped-academic-journal-publish...

They have a book coming out soon titled “Cynical Race Theory” which is a critique of the 40 years of academic thought that has gone from fringe to mainstream (And applied like the Inquisition mashed up with Maoist techniques like Struggle Sessions) and we are seeing played out unwittingly by the media, tech companies, and the tokenizing social media chatter class.

Looked this up and saw the promos. Anything endorsed by both Steven Pinker and Alan Sokal is bound to be bad faith, intellectually dishonest hackery.