>> ^imstellar28:
>> ^mauz15:
Ever heard of that thing called psychology?

You mean the social science? With like the citations, and rigorous double-blind experiments? I've heard of it, but I don't see any trace of it here; all I see is old-fashioned, egocentric mysticism in a reactionary medium.
I'm citing 500,000 years of evolutionary success; those here are content to cite old wives tales.


Yeah that one. The one that deals with things like how the brain reacts and could even change during high levels of stress, the one that studies phobias, which are very common even with our successful evolution, the one that happens to study how a kid that age is quite undeveloped and highly dependent on the parents despite the many successful adaptations the kid will learn to use and whose brain will polish as the kid grows. To bring the premise that the kid will be fine due to evolutionary excellence without considering the kid's cognitive state at that age nor any psychological factors is equivalent to speculating. I'm not saying the kid will be traumatized, most likely he won't be. But you do not know if the kid will be fine either simply because we have been successful in terms of evolution. The way the parents handle the kid's fearful experiences plays a major role too. None of this can be seen in the video so you cannot claim he will be fine, in the same way that I cannot and will not claim he will have long term damage.

>> ^mauz15:
Ever heard of that thing called psychology?


You mean the social science? With like the citations, and rigorous double-blind experiments? I've heard of it, but I don't see any trace of it here; all I see is old-fashioned, egocentric mysticism in a reactionary medium.

I'm citing 500,000 years of evolutionary success; those here are content to cite old wives tales.

I don't doubt his message about widespread incompetence, but for someone lecturing on incompetence, he should probably be more careful about what he actually knows, and what he only thinks he knows .

http://www.videosift.com/video/Richard-Feynman-on-Social-Sciences

The number of people who have jobs, how much they make on average, the change in prices over time, how much the government taxes or spends; these are all objective, scientific measurements that occur independent of capitalism, socialism, or any other political, economic, or cultural system.

"Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services."

"The social sciences comprise academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups and individuals including anthropology, communication studies, economics, human geography, history, political science, psychology and sociology."

"science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research."

If you wish to re-define English words, then that is your prerogative, but it serves no purpose in this thread.

The debunk is that "Atheists are immoral, because they are atheists"
Ethics are social science.

>> ^bluecliff:
you cant debunk a statement of moral proposition for Christs sake. I mean wtf, are you insane?
you can't produce evidence for ethical conduct, if you could do that ethics would be science and it isn't.

i care not for the method, only for the results. i don't have anymore devotion to the mises school than i do to chocolate ice cream. i support their theory, like any other in science, because, from what i have seen, it best fits the empirical data, and consistently makes the best predictions.

the theory of gravity as postulated by newton was wrong . as of 2009, the human race still does not understand why or how gravity works.


In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
Well I would say you are mistaken then, economics is a social science not science like physics.

The theory of gravity is absolute because it produces consistent results in accordance to the theory, in keeping with newtons laws of gravity. This is not the same case in economic theory, where new theories are constantly presented, refuted and reassembled because one theory does not always produce consistent predictable results when applied to different economies.

Apply BWF so widely makes just as much sense as saying cutting taxes right now will create stimulus in consumer spending. That is completely out of touch with current economic situation.

Look you are an acolyte of the Mises Insitute so you will agree with pretty much anything they say.

In reply to this comment by imstellar28:
In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:

theories are judged not only by their absolute truthiness, but in their ability to make accurate predictions. gravity, for example, is not understood by a single person on this planet yet we gladly utilize newton's laws to make reasonable predictions. even if a theory is seen as accurate, it is often too unwieldy to use for macro examples (see quantum mechanics).

given that, i think it is reasonable to apply the BWF to large-scale action like the governmental stimulus -- even if its not "fully" correct, it makes very accurate predictions

Pfffft. Social sciences aren't called a "science" due to the certainty of it's theories. They're sciences because one applies the use of the "scientific method" when studying and exploring it's theories. That's what differentiates something like psychology from say, astrology.

Science is not just about defining what is concrete and true and what is not. It's about making an effort to increase human understanding of the universe we live in.

He was talking about "organic foods" too, not just social sciences. And I study humanities, and it's basically all bullshit. Lots of theories, but no concrete evidence in any direction. This is what makes it different from, ahem, "real" science, where there are actual objective truths that can be found.

*promote

Science is the best way to get knowledge. The reason history, philosophy and any social sciences have any results (knowledge) is because the scientific knowledge is applied to them. There is no empirical evidence at all in metaphysical claims, and thus they can easily be dismissed as false.

*books for writers.

Ahaaaa!:)
I think every sifter should be allowed to have a secondary lurk account for social science research, just to promote such endeavours as yours and social science as a whole!

BTW Next time don't make me think of McLuhan when I have to type answers of questionnaires, better name your sockpuppet "neutral" or something..
he has m(e/a)ss(ag)ed my brain enough already, thank you;)

It's totally bogus that Halloween is about giving corn syrup wrapped in plastic. Meh. Home cookin' is always better.

By the way--
Who Spoiled Halloween?

In the 1960s and 1970s, the tradition of Halloween trick-or-treating came under attack. Rumors circulated about Halloween sadists who put razor blades in apples and booby-trapped pieces of candy. The rumors affected the Halloween tradition nationwide. Parents carefully examined their children's candy bags. Schools opened their doors at night so that kids could trick-or-treat in a safe environment. Hospitals volunteered to X-ray candy bags.

In 1985, an ABC News poll showed that 60 percent of parents worried that their children might be victimized. To this day, many parents warn their children not to eat any snacks that aren't prepackaged. This is a sad story: a family holiday sullied by bad people who, inexplicably, wish to harm children. But in 1985 the story took a strange twist. Researchers discovered something shocking about the candy-tampering epidemic: It was a myth.

The researchers, sociologists Joel Best and Gerald Horiuchi, studied every reported Halloween incident since 1958. They found no instances where strangers caused children life-threatening harm on Halloween by tampering with their candy.

Two children did die on Halloween, but their deaths weren't caused by strangers. A five-year-old boy found his uncle's heroin stash and overdosed. His relatives initially tried to cover their tracks by sprinkling heroin on his candy. In another case, a father, hoping to collect on an insurance settlement, caused the death of his own son by contaminating his candy with cyanide.

In other words, the best social science evidence reveals that taking candy from strangers is perfectly okay. It's your family you should worry about.

The candy-tampering story has changed the behavior of millions of parents over the past thirty years. Sadly, it has made neighbors suspicious of neighbors. It has even changed the laws of this country: Both California and New Jersey passed laws that carry special penalties for candy-tamperers. Why was this idea so successful?

http://www.madetostick.com/excerpts/

Re: evidence against God:
Well, obviously this is a tough one, because you can never prove a negative. The problem is you cannot prove it positively either. Or rather, no one has. We can prove that zebras exist, because there are pictures/videos, many, many people have seen zebras and the thought "makes sense" to us. While I have not seen a zebra, I take it faith, for lack of a better word, that they exist and that it is not an elaborate scheme or conspiracy. It is also relatively easy to verify the theory of a zebra at any given time. It is not all that easy to verify a proof of God, because all the "evidence" are aberrations: Jesus in a can of beans, someone being healed of some disease or being awed by nature. Do you see my point?
To be able to dispute a claim of God, I have to have a definition to go on. Many times when someone disproves a definition, people go "well, but that's not my God". If you make a hypothesis of your God, I'll do my best to disprove that hypothesis.

The Christian Creation theory is not just illogical it is blatantly false and foolish. Creation makes very definite claims, for instance young earth Creationism (earth <10.000 years old) is provably false, the claim that God made all species they way they are now with no transitions is provably false. When a religious doctrine makes such definite claims about our natural world the scientific method has crushed them every time. God seems to retreat into more muddy waters every time science proves him wrong; "God in the gaps".

Re: faith and logic
Your argument that you are able to correlate your faith and logic is more indicative of your ability to overlook some scripture and accept other parts. To make the Bible, for instance, cover the world as we see it now, we have to pick-and-choose which parts we really want to follow and which parts are just gibberish. I think this is a wrong way to go about it. There is a reason the Bible is as it is, you have to either accept it or not. Christianity as an idea is also "evolved" over time, into the many, many variations we see now. Some differences are greater than others, and some are minute. I am troubled by the pick-and-choosing, because that is not the way we learn things about the world. I view the Bible as the evidence that Christians use, and in that case you have to be able to fit everything into your theory, if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. Or make a new theory.

I respect your reverence of your parents, but they can be wrong too. Not that you should questions everything they say, but my point is that they may not really have the answer you are looking for.

The Scientific method is not well equipped to handle moral or ethical questions, because they are not (yet, anyway) a countable, measurable thing. We can't observe moral in its pure form, only the effects it has on people. It is possible to form theories about how it has originated through social sciences and anthropology, but "hard science" has trouble with it. Concerning philosophical questions, it really depends on what kind of philosophical question it is. Some are surprisingly easily bounded in biological evidence, while others are more ethereal.

If God chose to reveal himself, he would manifest in our natural world and thus the scientific method would suddenly apply to at least that avatar in our world. We could then do tests and gather evidence on this manifestation and, at least, get some ideas of how he exists. The fact that this has never happened, does seem to show a tendency.

Re: Existence of the universe
You're just throwing curve balls, aren't you?

Your third possible answer is the same as number two or one. The unmoved mover would need an origin too, and either he has his own 3 or he came from nothing or he always existed.

The problem with inserting God in that theory is that it can never explain anything. You enter into an infinite regress, that goes: "Us <-- God <-- superGod <-- supersuperGod" and so on (<-- "made by").
We have very little scientific evidence that shows the origin of the universe, but that does not mean that we should insert a prime mover into the equation, because that does not logically add up.

I will submit that the nature of the universe may be more mysterious than we think now and that the three possibilities does not adequately cover what "really" happened. Time could be cyclical, or something entirely different from a different point of view than our 3 dimensional world. I'm inclined to that the universe always existed in some form or another, but I have no scientific basis for that thought.

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Okay what about military spending then? How does one justify the spending of millions of dollars on a single fighter plane, that then has to be maintained? Especially if its with weapon manufactures who lobbied for these contracts?

Am really surprised that you would think that Economics is really an art form at all, lets remember that this social science is still in it's infancy most of its laws and views have been changed over year on year because while it does have some absolutes its been confronted with new information over and over again from the great depression, to military spending, to protectionist trade.

I studied economics for 4 years in University and all I can say that 90% of it is following market trends, and absolute evaluations only can occur years later after all the data has been divulged.

>> ^Throbbin:
As one who studies and will one day practice Political Science, I'm offended. I can tell you about the conditions and prerequesites for the development of democratic institutions with the same certainty that a biologist can tell you about the conditions and prerequesites for bacterial growth to take place.


Both of my degrees are in social sciences (they're multidisciplinary degrees so I dabble in economics, psychology, sociology, demographics, politics and anthropology) and for the most part I agree with him. The more you learn and the more you try to understand with the social sciences the less that you can be certain of.

Let me take your example: you say you understand the prerequisites for the development of democratic institutions, but do you really? I'm sure that you understand how democracy evolved in the U.S and other Western nations, but other states take different paths to democracy. And the institutions that result often look and act different from those of other places. Political scientists can try to quantify what was the underlying cause for a move towards democracy, using the forms and the statistics of scientific method, but they don't arrive at a firm conclusion.

It is in this way that the 'pseudo-science' can become dangerous. It is why Western institutions tried to spread democracy by advocating economic liberalization and symbolic elections throughout the 1990's and today, often resulting in ruined economies, failed and collapsed states, and further conflict. Political scientists arrive with their detailed studies and impose their institutional design on another culture because they believe they have the science to prove that they know best.

In many ways, it is because the hard sciences don't have to account for the unpredictable behavior of humans that they can arrive at any conclusions. Social sciences have no underlying laws and theories because people are necessarily ineffable.

"'It's like this: when mathematicians began fooling around with things like the square root of negative one, and quaternions, then they were no longer dealing with things that you could translate into sticks and bottlecaps. And yet they were still getting sound results.'

'Or at least internally consistent results,' Rudy said.

'Okay. Meaning that math was more than a physics of bottlecaps.'

'It appeared that way, Lawrence, but this raised the question of was mathematics really TRUE or was it just a game played with symbols? In other words--are we discovering Truth, or just wanking?'"

- © Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

my point being that the rigour and internal consistency is not enough, the connection to the real world is essential for it to be called a science... And a lot of the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences or whatever, deny this real world, and just think up thought experiments - they might as well be studying Klingon.

(PS: the taxonomies of disciplines is different from place ot place, so what i'm critisizing is not a certain discipline, but an attitude)