Mathimatization of the Social Sciences?

[Anonymous No.7158277]

So /sci/, any social science majors\minors?
Share stories and opinions on the subject of the social sciences, that are in my opinion purely humane subjects, try to use mathematical methodology and terminology in research and general definitions?
Why is that?

[Anonymous No.7158286]

>>7158277
if you aren't in STEM you should just off yourself and be done with it...
even biology would work, and anyone can do biology! even womyn!

[Anonymous No.7158297]

>>7158286
Well, im minoring in social sciences, and the attempt to make the field look mathematical is cringe worthy, its not an exact field of knowledge, i dont know why the have to try and portray it as one..

[Anonymous No.7158304]

>>7158297
because they know of how little value they are compared to any STEM

[Anonymous No.7158327]

>>7158297
Any quantitative study of a social science will ultimately boil down to doing statistics.

The mathematical derivations are exercises in model building, which is an important part of the statistical learning paradigm:

1. Collect data (observations)
2. Look at data (exploratory data analysis)
3. Build models to explain data
4. Perform statistical tests to validate model
5. If model is OK, use it to make predictions
6. Compare predictions against actual outcome to validate model
7. Repeat 5-6

Though any social science curriculum that's permanently stuck in Stage 3 is objectively useless.
The biggest warning sign is a complete absence of statistics or probability.

[Anonymous No.7158346]

I'm studying economics. As somebody else mentioned, most social sciences use statistics, but economics employs quite a bit of math too.

A straightforward example would be General Equilibrium models (e.g. https://web.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Econ%20202/General%20Equilibrium.pdf ) which use some fixed point theorem to prove some welfare properties of something (it's been a while).

You also have dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models that extend the aforementioned general equilibrium model to the macroeconomy and are quite useful in forecasting.

[Anonymous No.7158358]

>>7158277
They do use mathematics and scientific method, however they simply can't control enough variables to get a reliable result.

In fundamental physics there we have found practical ways to control most the variables we know about, so the results are robust.

However as the systems you study get note complex the practicality of controlling variables gets harder. The less control, the higher the error in the mathematics. You get to the point where anecdote is almost as reliable.

[Anonymous No.7158364]

>>7158327
>social science studies
OMG A STUDY FINDS THAT WHITE MEN AND WOMEN BEHAVE DIFFERENTLY*

*study performed among 74 American male and female middle-class university students between the ages of 18 and 26 (R^2 = 0.155)

[Anonymous No.7158975]

>>7158327

Two guys are hunting and a statistician is their spotter. A duck takes off, he nudges them and they fire. One fires a foot to the left and misses while the other fires a foot to the right and also misses.

The statistician shouts out: "Yep! We got her!"

Statistics are fine, but profound insights into social and ideological structures as well as psychological conditions cannot boil down to statistics alone. That's why disciplines of so called "humanities" also require a knowledge and understanding of the universals in the human condition which can be observed through history culture, philosophy and art.

And the STEMfags who are denying this simple and rational truth because they've been indoctrinated by the anglophone analytic philosophies- which I find extremely ironic because, yeah, you've guessed it, it's also just the result of British empiricist philosophies by men like Hobbes or Locke (which, in turn, are also just utterances of social conditions and historical context: religious conflicts and political revolutions).

Not only that, but they're also rejecting the most contemporary and sound academic principle of the interdisciplinary approach in favor of some misguided elitism. Instead of approaching the matter academically and scientifically as in: "What can the other academic disciplines add to my findings about this topic?" they revert to a truly 4Chan like stance of: "Benis. I'm smart lel. Fag humanities a shit. Top kek."

[Anonymous No.7158985]

>>7158364
>OMG A STUDY FINDS THAT WHITE MEN AND WOMEN BEHAVE DIFFERENTLY

>Journalism

[Anonymous No.7158998]

>>7158975
You only find these STEMfags on 4chan where people never did anything beyond undergrad crap and think they're hot shit because they've just found out about formal logic. "OMG WHAT IF I CAN PROVE EVERYTHING RATIONALLY I AM LE BEING OF PURE REASON" etc. Having known many people like that, I can tell you people eventually grow out of it, the same way they grow out of 4chan. Where I live STEM students tend to hook up with humanities students because of the imbalance of sexes in both fields.

[Anonymous No.7159004]

>>7158998
>not many people like that, I can tell you people eventually grow out of it, the same way they grow out of 4chan. Where I live STEM students tend to hook up with humanities students because of the imbalance of sexes in both fields.


Yes, yes, that's very true. Thanks anon, I am well aware of this fact myself and am in no need of comforting nor have I fallen to pessimism about STEM attitudes to humanities.
( :


I myself mostly hang out with STEM students because I find my humanities colleagues mostly insufferable because they take it to the other extreme- what we may call being a "humanityfag" or "philosophag" and holding humane cognition superior to the scientific one.

As for dating, yea, I guess on that field I'd be more interested in the opposite field as well.
That's inderdisciplinarity for you. And I can tell you it's much more productive than circle-jerking. I like discussing philosophical topics with STEM students and they like discussing scientific issues with me. Sure there's some elitism left- but at this point it's mostly banter which both sides keep up just to make it interesting.

[Anonymous No.7159061]

>>7158975

wtf.

Did I just read an intelligent post on /sci/ ?

Not sure what to make of this event. Have a picture.

[Anonymous No.7159081]

>>7159061
>>7158975
true, it's a nice read - but why does it matter at all?? What's the question here?

What's hot or not in academia, what's been studied, is either driven by politics or history - I see no point in not just accepting the reality. Don't act upon the flow, there's no point, just frustration if you try.

[Anonymous No.7159116]

>>7158975
You're right. 4chan is full of elitism that's almost entirely undeserved and that's really unfortunate.

But, on the other hand, social sciences and humanities will never really be understood without analytic philosophy. Statistics aren't the problem. The problem is that there is no way to conduct a controlled experiment the same way you can in physics or chemistry. Until we have some way of doing that, we're doing the best we can and quite frankly (compared to other, computationally easier sciences like physics or chemistry), that doesn't produce very enlightening results.

[Anonymous No.7159150]

>>7159116

A few questions:
1)Why is the experiment a superior method of cognition? I see many flaws with it: mainly that many things cannot be replicated in a controlled environment and that will never change.
2)Why do you think humanities and soc sciences do not produce "enlightening results"? Is it because it is in their very nature never to give finite answers to questions? Because do natural sciences not work on this same principle? Sure natural science can give definitive answers and establish rules that are simply true- but each rule established poses a dozen other questions which need to be answered. Laws of gravity explain the movement of planets but pose a question about the fabric of space and the nature of physical forces. And this, in turn, allows for even more valuable cognition. And this is the true value of any science- be it natural or social- perpetually seeking new answers.

[Anonymous No.7159151]

>>7158277
You know, this thread reminds me of a story I'd like to get off my chest about the arrogance of STEM people.

I was happily walking across campus towards our massive new shiny, glass walled multi-million dollar government funded cheme laboratory when I realized I need to take piss. And what would other building than the the Visual Art department happened to be the nearest? So I was walking through the old building noticing that even though they haven't seen funding for renovation in decades, they seem to have done a good job preserving and what they do have, it felt very cosy. The bathroom was kind of nice clean and the halls were quiet.

On my way out I happened to see an active lecture hall, the lecturer was quietly helping one student at the front while the rest worked so it seemed somewhat akin to a tutorial session. Everyone there seemed pretty relaxed and as if they actually had enough time to properly wash and get well dressed this morning, they put a clear effort into their appearance. I had a minute so I stopped to glance at some work the students were producing.

This experience made me realize 3 things:
>This lecture hall is filled with complete and utter fucking plebs.
>I could draw geometric shapes by hand better and more accurately after my 1st semester tech comm. class than half the hacks and idiots in this class who can barely draw a straight line.
>Our arrogance is completely justified, fuck these tards, arts should not be a real university degree in the 21st century, keep your hobbies outside academia.

[Anonymous No.7159187]

>>7159151

>lurking behind glass while taking a piss
>enough to build a definitive opinion on an entire branch of academic study

Have you tried, you know...talking to them? Because that's like...the scientific approach. Of course liberal arts fields do allow more crawlspace for people to slip through without achieving excellence- but that doesn't mean there are no standards of excellence and that they don't strive to reach them

Anyway, nice creepypasta greentext story without much greentext.

[Anonymous No.7159197]

>>7159150
The fact that today, we cannot do experiments that clearlly shows results in social sciences doesn't make it flawed the same way that today methods on social sciences aren't flawed because they aren't strictly scientific.

However, in the end, the line of separation between social sciences and natural sciences is just the human factor. What makes us human so special from all the other things. This is simply our brain which indicates everything on human behavior, collective or individual. Which by the advances of neuroscience, we understand far better, and before you say na a it isn't understood, the mechanism behind how the brain works is clearly understood while mapping all neural processes is still beyond many capabilities. We can also then link to evolutionary biology and ecology to predict certain things about us.

It will still be quite a time before the social sciences can be explained scientifically, so they are not useless or whatever the meme is here, however, if the oportunity of making it formal arises, then I belive it will by adopting the natural science doctrine.

[Anonymous No.7159200]

>>7159004
>Sure there's some elitism left- but at this point it's mostly banter which both sides keep up just to make it interesting.
I think most of the elitism on the ol' 'chin is this as well, and just a few edgelords who cannot into irony think it's real and just joint in to belong. And, of course, the more people bait the more fishers will come. Case in point:

>do engineers suck more at math or at each others cocks?

[Anonymous No.7159252]

>>7159150
Enlightening results are ones that you can do something cool will. Newtonian gravitation (and GR in some circumstances) explain movement of planets, which is nice, but you kind of have it backwards. The cool thing isn't that we can explain why the planets do what they do, the cool thing is that we can set up any system of massive objects (above a certain size, quantum gravity isn't done yet) and know how they move. That's what it means to understand something. That's what's really cool. The planets are not there to be explained by science, they're there help us find a general law which describes all similar systems.

A theory must explain the data, that's important for a theory to do, but it's not why the theory is important. It's important because now you can apply it to any arbitrary system and basically predict the future.

Scientific advance is really expanding the domain where we can run a simulation and be reasonably sure they reflects what would actually happen or is happening in the universe.

The social sciences and the humanities don't really have this sort of predictive quality in the same way other sciences do, at least not until somebody can simulate a human brain... Really the social sciences are biting off more than they can chew, they are trying to study systems that are so complex we can't even store their initial conditions let alone compute how they change over time.

That doesn't stop social sciences from trying though, and it's good that they are, they're generating results and coming up with broad predictive theories which, most of the time, are congruent with the universe, but they're not bound as tightly to what's going on as the theories are in physical sciences. I haven't really backed up this last point, but it has something to do with how theories from physical sciences can be used to axiomatically come up with new theories which can be experimentally verified rather than just building up a theory from experiment every time.