How to do Social Science 1.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. What it is and how it's acquired. Scientific Epistemology is the study of scientific knowledge. Once such a simple concept is clarified, it is obvious the Scientific Epistemology includes the analysis of the scientific method.

It was clear to me that you epistemology was not your strong suit. It never occurred to me until now that I needed to provide a definition. But I have provided one (brief and schematic, but good enough to respond to your statement) above.

You are trying to run before you have even began to learn to crawl. Kant, Descartes, Galileo, Witgenstein, Oldenberg, Russell, Hume, Chomsky ... Aristotle... And, of course, Popper and Khun. And, of course, the most prominent scientists. As well as many others have all contributed to what the Scientific Method is today. But it is not how any single one of them describes it. What the Scientific Method is today is based on a simpler precept: what works, and what doesn't! And scientists and epidemiologists alike have unanimously (well... there is no poll, so I don't know if there is some obscure dissenter/s out there) learned that peer-review, both pre-publication and post publication, are indispensable to produce useful knowledge with the highest level of accuracy possible.

There are, of course, disadvantages to peer-review. The cost, is a major one. And the impact on researchers early in their career. So in non-controversial matters that are not considered ground-breaking or of major importance within the field, peer review is more relaxed. But you would need to show a quote from anybody of consequence that indicates that peer-review is not necessary within the scientific process (method)

Well... you're not contributing much to this one either. At least not yet. Kuhn is one of the many epidemiologists (as mentioned above) who have contributed to the development of Epistemology. But not mainly on developing the Scientific Method itself. More in the area of describing how sciences evolve (or shift). Popper has contributed more to the method itself as we apply it today.

Allow me to clarify: Early in my career, I taught Epistemology at a University level. And participated in the evaluation of research projects for funding. That was a long time ago, and I didn't stay at it long because... I needed to make a living (it was fun and interesting, but didn't pay much). But the fundamentals are clear in my mind. And I have tried to stay abreast of at least the major changes and controversies in the field.

Only reason I state that is so in the future you don't believe it necessary to lecture me on the standard literature.

Huh? I read the link. Everybody disagrees with you! How about that...

Science is a matter of fact! Peer-review is not about evaluating the facts. It's about evaluating the methodology, the assumptions, the raw data, ... and other similar aspects.

Peer review does not contribute to falsifiability. But it does evaluate if the methodology used could potentially falsify the hypothesis. Understand! Peer-review is about evaluating the methodology used in the research study, as a whole. Not a guide to how to perform the research. Or to evaluate either the results of any testing or the validity of the conclusion itself.

Nor am I. You need me to explain to you what science and technology are? Or is this just a strawman? "Technology", in a nutshell, is the practical application of scientific knowledge. But I'm not going to elaborate because, if you don't know that you shouldn't be trying to even discuss this.

When we participate on a forum like this, one has to make the assumption that everybody understands the basic concept. Otherwise, the posts would be humongous. Like this one is. But only because you force me to make clarifications like this one on aspects that are obvious.

Phew! I'm glad you decided not to pursue your impulse to derail by demanding obvious definitions.

I didn't say law was a Social Science (though I have seen some try to debate that one way or the other. I have no position on that myself at this point). I said History was. And simply gave a particular example of how it can be used in practical matters.

They claimed both. But that's moot given that we have agreed (I believe) that so-called "Scientific Socialism" is a pseudo-science.

 

Nonresponsive to my very clear comments about epistemology and the differences between the philosophy and process of science, not surprised. Where the post is responsive, it is patently, repetitively dishonest as your posts usually are. Stopped reading there. You are seriously out of your depth and I'll just stick with what I've already posted because you aren't directly addressing any of it. Same old same old.

Your purpose here is not to discuss politics but to favorably position threads on the first page and crowd others out with noise. It's transparent. One of you is apparently gone from here these days, and that's one too few.

 

You mention Popper without quoting him. And when I quote him, you call it "crap"

Maybe it's true what you say, that I don't "win" many debates. But this one, I have definitely won.

Therefore, Sigmund Freud is not Science. Scientific Socialism is not Science either. Nor are Von Daniken or David Irwin. But to assume that all Social Sciences are Sigmund Freud or Marx or... any of those.. is nonsense of the worst kind.

Margaret Mead is Science. Arnold Toynbee is Science. Noam Chomsky, Max Webber, ... All of which have worked with falsifiable theories.

 

This is a perfect example of your nonsensical musings.

I specifically did NOT call his quotes crap. I called the implication that you were deriving from those quotes to not be legitimate.

For instance, you declared.....:"Popper never thought of them as pseudoscience, That is your claim"......you then followed that with a Popper quote as if that somehow supported your above claim. That quote was.....

""The method of the social sciences, like that of the natural sciences, consists in trying out tentative solutions to those problems from which our investigations start. Solutions are proposed and criticized. If a proposed solution is not open to objective criticism, then it is excluded as unscientific." (p. 66)"

Now when you look at your declaration that Popper never thought of them as pseudoscience, and then look at the quote provided, it does not one thing to back up your previous assertion. It in no way excludes social science from being a pseudoscience. It is not an all encompassing sentence. It is not intended to be so, yet that is what you are bogusly trying to imply that it is. That quote of his in now way was intended to be all inclusive regarding everything that he does or does not consider to be pseudoscientific.

In truth, this is so incredibly petty, that I dont feel the need to bother refuting it. It is nonsensical. Which is precisely why I say that you never seem to prove a point, you only outlast others. At some point, conversing with you gets tiring because it goes nowhere, Nothing is ever accomplished. You will focus on some mundane mostly irrelevant detail, and you want to argue it out to the death.

This conversation is boring. I have made my point. You clearly feel that you have made yours. Lets move on.

 

Agree. People can call themselves whatever they want. It's when they don't act accordingly that it becomes comedy.

War on Christmas? What's that? We don't have anything like that here. We've never been ashamed or afraid to call it what it is, and openly display our Christmas spirit (if we're in possession of it). Try calling Christmas the awful generic 'holiday' here, and see what happens. It's not pretty.

It was a case in point about Progressives being the least tolerant, while claiming to be the most. Like I said - comedy!

 

And you shouldn't be... because it's nonsense! The process of science (i.e. the scientific method) is not Science. It's philosophy!

It's hilarious that you don't know this, given that even in the links you send explain this.

The problem I'm having is that I keep assuming that you know more than you know. But you keep asking for definitions of terms that... anybody with even a vague understanding of the matter knows. And I also assume that, at a minimum, you read the links that you yourself post. The paragraph quoted above alone proves that you don't.

Thanks for playing...

 

No, it is not.

But keep repeating yourself and digging the hole deeper, strokes my confirmation bias.

 

Yes you did! What I posted were quotes from Popper. No other reference to them.

Yes it does!

"I found that those of my friends who were admirers of Marx, Freud, and Adler, were impressed by a number of points common to these theories, and especially by their apparent explanatory power. These theories appeared to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. "
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This is a reference I found doing a quick search. But anybody who has ever read Popper knows that he meant by the term "pseudoscience." And it is NOT that "...If a proposed solution is not open to objective criticism, then it is excluded as unscientific."

Let's do this... if you have any doubt, you quote Popper indicating that he believed that social sciences were pseudo science. Or, at a minimum, one quote of him defining what pseudo-science is, and another where he shows that all Social Sciences meet that definition.

That should be easy. You see... up to this point I quote Popper, and you just "say" that Popper says... this or that. Time for you to start quoting. If you're up to it. Though I have a feeling you're not up to it.

You stated that Social Sciences are pseudo-science. And at this point, other than naming Popper (though not presenting any significant or relevant quotes).. you have done absolutely nothing to support this statement. Which is usually customary when you make an accusation like that.

 

...and those quotes from Popper did not support the notion that you said they supported. Yeesh...how did you not get that from my response? How do you keep responding to things other than what I actually said? You are exhausting. Just stop.

 

As one who applies science to engineering problems, I think the value of scientific thought is its usefulness. Faulty and pseudo science are not useful because they result in unusable knowledge. The social sciences have done much to understand human behavior. This understanding is what marketing is based upon. If the social sciences were just opinion, as many conservatives, really libertarians and evangelicals claim, marketers would not spend so much money on the research and knowledge they get out of it.

 

A lot of science works off of statistics. In the social sciences, ie the study of human behavior, isn’t all that predictive of individual behavior but rather quite predictive of crowd behavior.

 

Hah! Then what is it?

1- There are three general areas of knowledge: Science, Philosophy and Religion. If you're going to say that the Scientific Method is Science or Religion... don't bother

2- Your own links... say that it's philosophy.

That's how it always ends when somebody gets into these debates and fail to read my sig.

 

But you can't demonstrate it. And you can't show any quotes to the contrary, despite the fact that you brought up Popper.

Anyway... anybody reading this discussion understands who presented quotes, facts, references... and who believes that repeating "No no no" over and over is some sort of ... "argument"

My job is done.

 

Exactly. Of course there are special limitations in the Social Sciences. We're still awaiting the birth of Hari Seldon.

 

JFC.

No, science is not a process of philosophy, specifically not of epistemology, which is the philosophical inquiry into what can and cannot be known and especially to what degree of certainty can we know anything about anything? This has already been explained and utterly ignored by you in the Kant v Kuhn example I posted earlier. Philosophical inquiry can be useful in understanding science and scientific history, but the scientific process as embodied in its method is -not- itself philosophy or epistemology.

This is a persistent pattern with you repeated in your posts, you toss in terms without definition (in this case "epistemology"), accuse others of not understanding them, then you completely ignore points you can't answer, ask and re-ask fallacious questions that have already been directly addressed, and finally in bad faith refer to either "giving someone another chance" or circle back to "you obviously have no understanding of..." Do you think you are fooling anyone? Or just annoying everyone?

Science is the pragmatic, concrete application of a specific, rule-based, structured process towards explaining the physical world in a way not concerning "certainty," but usefulness and consistency. Whatever philosophy can be said to be, it's not that.

This is High School stuff, not even undergraduate.

"It took me a long time to research the validity of my arguments..." what a ****ing farce.

EDIT: Almost forgot, "religion" is one of the three "general areas of knowledge?" ROFLMFAOLOLOLOL

 

....sure thing Tiger. Now give it a rest please.

 

Science and philosophy are kind of the same thing. Originally scientists were called natural philosophers. Both are concerned with gaining an understanding of the world around us.

 

No, science and philosophy are not "kind of the same thing." Science is the proceeds of the application of a specific, rule-based method of testing hypotheses towards understanding and predicting the world. Philosophy is precedent to science and is what helps to determine which rules and processes to adopt in conducting science.

Science is and always has been downstream from philosophical inquiry, e.g. what are the limits of what we can know? what if anything exists beyond the measurable or observable? what are the rules of reason? what is the meaning of being? what should man do? As you can see, none of those philosophical questions are also scientific questions. Science derives from an amalgam of different types of philosophical inquiry but is not itself philosophical inquiry.

 

The word Science refers to two things. The scientific method, and the knowledge obtained using the scientific method.

The process by which we obtain the knowledge known as Science is the scientific method.

The description of science is epistemology. Including what it is, how scientific knowledge is acquired (i.e. the scientific method) the methodology in each particular scientific .... and other aspects of science such as its history and more...

I don't know what you're trying to say here. But if you realized that the process of science known as the Scientific Method is philosophy, and not science... the we are in agreement. If you don't agree that it's philosophy, you need to explain what it is.

Oh God! You have soooo much to learn before you can be taken seriously in a serious discussion.

Yes!!!! Religion is one of the three areas of knowledge. Religion is knowledge. It may be uncertain knowledge which can be accepted only using something called "faith"... and not in the ways the other two areas use (Science uses the scientific method, and philosophy use logic) but it's knowledge. I am an atheist and don't have this property called "faith". But that only means that I don't think that religious dogma is factual. Not that it doesn't exist.

If you think it's something else, then you need say what. You're even mentioning Kant, who believed that the other areas of knowledge would not exist if Religion didn't exist. Which goes to show that throwing in names of authors you have never read is never a good idea because the lacking will be exposed as you keep talking.

 

Science is not epistemology, I have already clearly defined what science and epistemology in fact are, and as usual you ignore that utterly and try to spin ever more and more tangents and red herrings instead. You are an open book.

Religion is not one of the "three areas of knowledge." That sounds like something out of a 12 step program, Hmm.

You are out of your depth as usual, nonresponsive also.

There is one thing to be learned from you, or relearned, I learned it decades ago about you and yours:

ALWAYS have a WRITTEN RECORD of ANY discussion attempted with a Leftist.

 

You have officially obliterated thousands of years of evolution in Science, Philosophy, Relilgion, logic and.... human knowledge

So easy to do.... all you need is somebody who opines about something they know absolutely nothing about.

Thanks for playing....

 

Epistemology is a science.

 

There is no scientific method, per se. More like scientific methods. A lot of scientific discovery has been accidental. It is kind of the beauty of science, it allows for a great deal of creativity. Basically science is evidence based, and as such repeatable, and demonstratable, however, how one gets there is wide open.

In physics, a lot of ideas came out just from someone playing with equations and trying to make sense of certain results. Thus mathematics have predicted results that no one had thought of. And, I'm sure, as AI becomes more wide spread, more surprising results will pop up. After all, a key skill of high functioning intellects is the ability to quickly see patterns, even those not evident to most. And nature isn't anything if it isn't a whole lot of repeating patterns.

 

I do admire your and Golem's ability to make things up, to completely and utterly fabricate alternate realities to the reality that in fact is, to ignore even the most fundamental grammar school understanding of basics like the scientific method, which though refined and improved over the millenia, is more similar than not to Aristotle's. I am unable to do that myself, too much blush response I guess.

What follows is no more accurate than the first howler of a claim, so won't bother further.

 

It is kind of funny how you keep trying to tell me that my world is other than it is. It is even interesting, the doubling down and all, just as the science predicts.