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Comment by remarkEon | Hacker News Reader

So your comment is (rightly) getting downvoted. I think readers here tend to reject anecdotal arguments and rely on data. The critiques of sociology and anthropology are legitimate: those fields are not like technical fields and they lend themselves to weird conclusions that don't get peer reviewed in a way that's different from, say, math or physics.

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Don't look at me when you say that. I have no problem with anecdotes; the problem I have is that some anecdotes are so readily considered more equal than others. We need not sidetrack ourselves into discussion of any direction we may observe this tropism to take, in order to recognize that no field may be reasonably regarded as rigorous which is so happy to discard those anecdotes which fail to conform with some apparently predetermined preference of narrative, and place value only on those anecdotes which support it.

A substantial amount of academic sociology is based on quantitative analyses of survey data. For example, here's an (open-access!) paper describing gender divides in US doctoral education: https://www.sociologicalscience.com/articles-v4-6-123/

Surveys are only useful for studying for what people believe, and only then what they're willing to admit. The discipline shouldn't make any claims about actual behavior when the only observations that could possibly support them aren't permitted.

I agree! People are very inconsistent. They change their beliefs, lie to people, are unsure about things, etc. A lot of sociologists would argue that this is a good reason to combine this kind of quantitative data with in-depth ethnographic observation of real behavior (e.g. https://shamuskhan.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/talk-is-cheap...). When we want to see how someone's opinion actually plays out in a real situation, that's usually our best tool.

Also, a lot of survey data captures demographic characteristics, not just individual beliefs-- think censuses. Surveys are generally considered a robust instrument for measuring things (like income, occupation, gender) that are relatively fixed over time.

that's because data isn't 100% appropriate for social sciences. you can't measure everything. shocking as it may be for STEM majors (full disclosure: i have a physics degree), people's feelings and subjective experiences matter, and forms of reason that are not-numerical (ie, philosophy, politics, law, etc) are rigorous and have value. it's weird that this is a radical perspective in this culture.

I'm not sure what the whole deal is about "STEM majors" and "computer science majors", but can it maybe not be such a thing? I don't see why it matters one way or another, and having never gone to school, I can't imagine how whatever intellectual canalization you seem to be hinting at would be applicable here in any case. It just seems to be adding a lot more heat than light, and I'm really not seeing what it brings to the conversation that makes that in any way worthwhile.

I was a STEM major (physics) and I work in tech. I'm attacking from inside, not outside. I think that there is a specific culture in STEM whereby white men who are incredibly gifted and successful in math/science/whatever think that their natural brilliance gives them the ability to speak on all social issues with authority, and that they can speak from a purely rational perspective. My point is that things like your upbringing, your social group, your race, gender, class, etc all have an important impact on how you think, and STEM people should keep that in mind. They should have more humility, and be more open to listening to the stories of people instead of just trying to think of things in terms of Numbers.

Stop mischaracterizing what I'm saying. I'm simply noting that biology is real, and informs a lot of what we do. I'm sorry, but "stories" don't mean anything to me, and again I think it's really strange that people who work in tech, who ostensibly should be more acquainted with data-based decision making, seem to use anecdotes to make what are basically political arguments.

I think I'm pretty much done with the Left at this point. I find this rejection of basic scientific inquiry to be really strange and dangerous.

> I think I'm pretty much done with the Left at this point. I find this rejection of basic scientific inquiry to be really strange and dangerous.

That's funny. I can totally see the same kind of comment in a thread about other topics that are unpopular in the Right.

Perhaps there is a pattern here.

>I'm sorry, but "stories" don't mean anything to me

are you human

Yes, and I'm a human who thinks that it's unwise to make policy based on anecdotes. A heretic, I am!

I mean I don't even know what you're attacking.

> They should have more humility, and be more open to listening to the stories of people instead of just trying to think of things in terms of Numbers.

Throughout my entire career, which now approaches the close of its second decade, I have known exactly one person who might even possibly match this description. Last week, he filed the initial paperwork to declare his candidacy for the House seat in his district, whose longstanding incumbent is probably going for a Senate seat next year. He's running as a Democrat, and his entire platform revolves around improving social welfare by eliminating inefficiencies without cutting benefits rolls - indeed, while expanding them. He's advocating a tax-neutral, net-positive-payout plan for a universal basic income!

He's doomed, of course. Even in Maryland - even in Baltimore, he doesn't stand a chance, because he is a man of unusual personality who does not make friends easily or quickly inspire confidence in strangers. But I love him for trying. And I have no idea in the world what you're talking about with this "numbers over people" culture among people in our field and those adjacent. I don't doubt your observations, although I do find them wildly at odds with my own experience. But my own observations do not in any sense bear out your analysis that is culture arises specifically from "STEM-ness" of people instead of some other quality, and I'm not interested in abandoning my observations for your own, either.

Are you sure that your analysis of this phenomenon's origin is not wildly off base? Because, you know, I think maybe your analysis of this phenomenon's origin might be wildly off base.

No, the critiques (at least that I've seen here) are ridiculous; HN is generally conservative STEM majors who have never studied anything seriously outside their tiny box of CS/engineering and possibly math/physics and think everything they don't understand is beneath them. It shows in this thread, it's almost painfully cringe-inducing to read. In order to make a reasonable critique of a field, you must first understand it, something which nearly zero HNers even make an attempt to do. They dismiss it out of hand without argument because it is not STEM and therefore not "rigorous" enough to even be considered by their superior STEM brains.

Are there problems in these fields? Sure, there are problems in every field. But I haven't seen a single reasonable point here or otherwise that provides a good reason for mistrusting the vast consensus among a wide variety of very smart people who have spent their entire lives studying these issues and instead trusting JavaProgrammer37 who stomps his feet and insists women just aren't smart like him, smart enough to write SQL queries.

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