How reliable is science? --Anthropology (The limitations of science)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, April 15, 2012, 13:22 (4386 days ago) @ David Turell


> > Anthropology, sociology, and psychology are all areas that like to call themselves "science," but when so often what they study are the truly "human" and changeable properties--culture, language, and thought patterns...
> > 
> > I have a hard time taking them too seriously. 
> > 
> > One learns more about human nature from a study of economics than from a class on psychology.
> 
> I keep saying follow the money. From the old song: money makes he world go 'round. It is all part of my peer review complaint.-Well, I honestly think in most of these cases it has MUCH more to do with pride than money. -By the time you reach the level of PHD in any field, you're usually dealing with really smart people who have a pretty healthy ego. And in the PHD world, the PHD means that you're literally the world-reknowed expert on what ever tiny little sliver of your subject you're studying. When you also couple that with the fact that there is NO training for team-driven collaboration, you get a ton of little silos (each person with a PHD) of egoists that feel compelled to combat each other. -You spend 20 years building your research programme and suddenly, some upstart 28 year old kid who has barely finished his PHD is challenging your body of work that you've built... what the hell does he know? -I'm not trying to overly downplay money--it's always a powerful driver, but watching the people that are in grad school with me... they're not money grubbing assholes. -I'm also not trying to write off what "bad" scientists are doing, but I totally understand why things like this happen.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"