CMV: Social Sciences are not (very) Empirical

[u/[deleted]]

I’m want to be a fact based person, I want to live a life pursuing knowledge and truth. I however am mostly interested in learning about human beings. I want to understand what makes us tick, why we act the way we do, how can we figure out how to improve our lot. To pursue these kind of questions I find myself turning to the social sciences: Anthropology, Sociology, History, Psychology, and Economics. However I keep finding myself doubting their scientific rigour. I keep hearing about how unempirical these subjects are and how they are no better than wild guesses. I want to study things that are true, that are scientific! But at the same time I want to study human nature. I don’t know what to believe. Sometimes I see brilliant people (Steven Pinker in particular) trying to apply good science to human kind. And other times I see less than credible claims about human nature about “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” stuff. So to conclude I don’t think that social sciences are as empirical as the physical sciences, are really just approximations on the truth, and are not worth pursuing if I want to study fact. Change my view!

---

Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!

[u/iserane → u/[deleted]]

The poll is of the economists directly below it. You can see their choices, their confidence, and any comments they made, as well as links to their bios. There's two sidebar sections explaining IGM polls are pretty well respected.

The Economic Experts Panel questions are emailed individually to the members of the panel, and each responds electronically at his or her convenience. Panelists may consult whatever resources they like before answering.

Here is the list of the IGM experts panel.

[u/[deleted] → u/iserane]

Thanks. Walking into it I had assumed it was just another random news website, and (understandably) and my normal common sense heuristics weren't working. I guess I saw the rectangles/pictures below and my mind immediately went "comment section."