Comment by adamsea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by adamsea | Hacker News Reader

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Hmmm I do not know about that, the test real, meaningful control would be who gets the funding, no?

Social sciences is nowhere near the top of this list.

https://nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/report/sections/aca...

Overall my understanding is that it is harder to be an academic in almost any field these days, but especially the humanities - social sciences are an in-between zone, but I doubt the universities cutting language and history programs consider the social sciences more 'science' than 'humanities.

Seems to me that there is a stigma around social sciences - both for legitimate reasons, and because, like anything which shines a light on the uncomfortable (systemic bias, racism, capitalism, etc) people get defensive and afraid and reactive and concoct conspiracy theories.

>> The social sciences have gained an incredible amount of control over academia. Why would they allow the current system, which works very well for them, to be "fixed"?

> Hmmm I do not know about that, the test real, meaningful control would be who gets the funding, no?

It may be that social science can exert control, but can't use that control to enrich itself. In that case, scientists who don't conform to the proper norms will suffer from a lack of funding, but the social sciences may not get increased funding.

Sadly, this is a much more difficult case to measure.

> Hmmm I do not know about that, the test real, meaningful control would be who gets the funding, no?

Well no. That's arguably showing what politicians perceive the value of each department to be. But it doesn't say anything about power on campus.

The test of control should probably be what the undergrad degrees of the administrators and deans are.

I’m not sure how that’s a good control. Certain academic paths lead to much more lucrative private employment than others, so the degree holders have a huge incentive to go there instead of academic administration.

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