First, no commentator in this venue is a leading researcher in sociology or anthropology, so anything said is incredibly weak evidence for your strong claim that researchers / academics “who are currently in [those fields] are more interested in pursuing a political agenda than truth seeking.”
Second, you have not stated what evidence you could see that would make you believe the sociological / anthropological theories are true. An outside observer could think that your assertions about misconduct in these fields exist to justify your disbelief in the substantive results. If Omega (who is always right) told you that anthropology is not more politically driven than physics, would you accept anthropological theories?
First, no commentator in this venue is an leading researcher in sociology or anthropology, so anything said is incredibly weak evidence for your strong claim that researchers / academics “who are currently in [those fields] are more interested in pursuing a political agenda than truth seeking.”
FWIW, I recently saw the thesis talks of a few graduands in social psychology, and they seemed to me qualitatively different from those of physicists: in the former, the professor who introduces the graduand to the audience will spew out lots of applause lights (e.g. “Ms So-and-so is going to speak about $topic, which is such a big problem nowadays that affects so many people”), professors will occasionally interrupt the graduand with comments like “yes, this is a great idea, I hope to see more of this in the next years”, and after the talk they will ask stuff like “why did you choose this particular topic” (trying to elicit applause lights from the graduand themselves); in the latter, the introduction will be limited to “Mr So-and-so is going to speak about $topic”, full stop (even when they could in principle mention how graphene is such a revolutionary material or whatever—they just don’t), no-one will interrupt the graduand unless they say something unclear, questions at the end will be strictly technical (or occasionally “what applications can this have”), and there are hardly any applause lights except trivial ones such as “thank you for your attention”.
BTW, while I’m not familiar with linguistics except through the internet, ISTM that it is seen as a hard science (for the purposes of what’s being discussed in this subthread) by insiders but as a soft science by most outsiders, and as a result once in a while a non-linguist will be disappointed when a linguist refuses to espouse boo lights about non-standard language usage (e.g.).
Just to confirm: you’re proposing that when linguists refuse to condemn non-standard language usage, that’s an expression of different cultural norms between the hard-science and soft-science communities regarding the use of boo-lights, rather than an expression of linguists not negatively valuing non-standard language usage?
Not quite—more like, what the linguists say is “an expression of linguists not negatively valuing non-standard language usage”, but what the non-linguists asked them and what they will think when they hear the answer is “an expression of different cultural norms between the hard-science and soft-science communities regarding the use of boo-lights” to some extent—but for some reason I don’t terribly like this way of putting it.
WRT the second quote… in what way do you dislike it? E.g., does it seem that I’ve factually misrepresented the position, or that I’ve framed it negatively, or...?
Second, you have not stated what evidence you could see that would make you believe the sociological / anthropological theories are true.
Consilience, i.e., independent verification of their claims by people from other fields and few instances of refutations of their claims.
If Omega (who is always right) told you that anthropology is not more politically driven than physics, would you accept anthropological theories?
I would mostly update in the direction of him not being Omega. Now if he made a claim that was at least plausible, like anthropological theories having some political drivers but not enough to overwhelm the science that would be another story.
I don’t expect every claim to be independently verified. What I do look for is that the claims that can be independently tested will be confirmed rather than refuted.
I wonder how much difference the grammar/typographical error made to perceptions of this comment. For some reason that trivial little ‘n’ acts like a speed bump/interrupt for my brain and it kicks me out of the flow of the argument.
First, no commentator in this venue is a leading researcher in sociology or anthropology, so anything said is incredibly weak evidence for your strong claim that researchers / academics “who are currently in [those fields] are more interested in pursuing a political agenda than truth seeking.”
Second, you have not stated what evidence you could see that would make you believe the sociological / anthropological theories are true. An outside observer could think that your assertions about misconduct in these fields exist to justify your disbelief in the substantive results. If Omega (who is always right) told you that anthropology is not more politically driven than physics, would you accept anthropological theories?
FWIW, I recently saw the thesis talks of a few graduands in social psychology, and they seemed to me qualitatively different from those of physicists: in the former, the professor who introduces the graduand to the audience will spew out lots of applause lights (e.g. “Ms So-and-so is going to speak about $topic, which is such a big problem nowadays that affects so many people”), professors will occasionally interrupt the graduand with comments like “yes, this is a great idea, I hope to see more of this in the next years”, and after the talk they will ask stuff like “why did you choose this particular topic” (trying to elicit applause lights from the graduand themselves); in the latter, the introduction will be limited to “Mr So-and-so is going to speak about $topic”, full stop (even when they could in principle mention how graphene is such a revolutionary material or whatever—they just don’t), no-one will interrupt the graduand unless they say something unclear, questions at the end will be strictly technical (or occasionally “what applications can this have”), and there are hardly any applause lights except trivial ones such as “thank you for your attention”.
BTW, while I’m not familiar with linguistics except through the internet, ISTM that it is seen as a hard science (for the purposes of what’s being discussed in this subthread) by insiders but as a soft science by most outsiders, and as a result once in a while a non-linguist will be disappointed when a linguist refuses to espouse boo lights about non-standard language usage (e.g.).
Just to confirm: you’re proposing that when linguists refuse to condemn non-standard language usage, that’s an expression of different cultural norms between the hard-science and soft-science communities regarding the use of boo-lights, rather than an expression of linguists not negatively valuing non-standard language usage?
Not quite—more like, what the linguists say is “an expression of linguists not negatively valuing non-standard language usage”, but what the non-linguists asked them and what they will think when they hear the answer is “an expression of different cultural norms between the hard-science and soft-science communities regarding the use of boo-lights” to some extent—but for some reason I don’t terribly like this way of putting it.
Ah, OK. Thanks for clarifying.
WRT the second quote… in what way do you dislike it? E.g., does it seem that I’ve factually misrepresented the position, or that I’ve framed it negatively, or...?
Weird… On reading it again it no longer sounds that bad to me, and I can’t quite remember why it did.
If you have any insights as to what caused either the initial reaction or its termination, I’m interested.
I think I might have been primed to think of the phrase “boo light” as a boo light. My inner Hofstadter is laughing.
Consilience, i.e., independent verification of their claims by people from other fields and few instances of refutations of their claims.
I would mostly update in the direction of him not being Omega. Now if he made a claim that was at least plausible, like anthropological theories having some political drivers but not enough to overwhelm the science that would be another story.
Er… why? You wouldn’t expect the proof of the Poincaré conjecture to be independently verified by phoneticians, would you?
I don’t expect every claim to be independently verified. What I do look for is that the claims that can be independently tested will be confirmed rather than refuted.
I wonder how much difference the grammar/typographical error made to perceptions of this comment. For some reason that trivial little ‘n’ acts like a speed bump/interrupt for my brain and it kicks me out of the flow of the argument.
Edited, thanks.
It’s interesting the different tolerances various folks have to typographical mistakes.