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throwaway69123

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That's a big loss indeed...

Speaking of which, what have social scientists done recently?

They’re a support framework for macro decision making.

All those economics papers you read, all those studies on lifestyle and integration and the effects of migration etc; all come from social sciences.

Economics is a social science.

Just to add a few from a very quick Wikipedia search: > In addition to sociology, it now encompasses a wide array of academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, management, communication studies, psychology, culturology and political science.[1]

[1]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-science

I'm not entirely sure that for the purposes of funding it is. Typically it exists in the Business school/faculty as opposed to arts in NZ.

It's not going really well, is it? It looks like that every political election in the West is a gigantic plea to end or reduce illegal immigration, yet pretty much every study I see about the correlation between illegal immigrants and crime says that yes, illegal immigrants are overrepresented in crime statistics (mainly an effect of them being younger, male and poorer / less educated in average), but somehow crime rates are unaffected by illegal immigration, and never try to explain the "somehow" (the answer is probably that more crimes go unreported and illegal immigrants are not enough yet to tip the global crime scale). The impression is that investigating these topics in too much detail is frown upon (as in: not good for your career) in academia, and it's always more politically prudent to gloss over them.

(see for example: https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.38.1.181)

Apparently in the US, illegal immigrants have a lower crime rate. https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/undocumented-immigrant-o...

Not sure if it's not good for a scientist's career to study this, seeing as we both just cited a study with minimum effort.

At any rate, New Zealand is not interested in this or any other research, apparently. Which is definitely political-induced blindfolding of society.

Also bad for a scientist's career: when there is zero funding.

The link I posted found illegal immigrants over-represented in crime stats. Again, it can be that some crimes are so widespread that they don't get reported anymore (shoplifting, littering or breach of peace for example).

I mean, it's not a very interesting research topic? People who are poor and young commit certain categories of crime more often. That has nothing to do with immigration or race or whatever.

It has everything to do with illegal immigration because illegal immigration is a constant influx of people that are within the "right" demographics for crime (young, male, less educated, less wealthy etc). If you change the demographics of a country to add poor young people every year, you get a higher incidence of crime by definition.

exactly and it’s fantastic that we have social sciences to prove that there is a correlation between poverty and crime.

otherwise, misrepresentations of issues (like the parents) would be over-represented publicly and not refuted.

(which is important, because tackling crime is only possible if you understand the actual causes themselves.)

I mean, it is? It's the most divisive political topic at the moment and the reason why populisms are on the rise? If anything, I'd expect more and more detailed studies on that?

Trying to prove correlations between race and crime is literally the historical basis of criminology as a discipline. They failed, it's stupid, and now people know better.

You can commission as many studies as you like on astrology, and they'll all be meaningless.

If you read the thread, you will find that this is not about the correlation between race and crime, but about the correlation between illegal immigration and crime.

A Colorado university recently proved that lying is a good political strategy because candidates who lie to their voters do not lose support even if caught and proven to be spreading falsehoods. Not really sure if that really contributed to humanity but here you go.

https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/03/new-study-finds-voters-ok-wit...

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Somehow this brings to mind the passage on a philosopher's strike from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

A sudden commotion destroyed the moment: the door flew open and two angry men wearing the coarse faded-blue robes and belts of the Cruxwan University burst into the room, thrusting aside the ineffectual flunkies who tried to bar their way. "We demand admission!" shouted the younger of the two men elbowing a pretty young secretary in the throat.

"Come on," shouted the older one, "you can't keep us out!" He pushed a junior programmer back through the door.

"We demand that you can't keep us out!" bawled the younger one, though he was now firmly inside the room and no further attempts were being made to stop him.

"Who are you?" said Lunkwill, rising angrily from his seat. "What do you want?"

"I am Majikthise!" announced the older one.

"And I demand that I am Vroomfondel!" shouted the younger one.

Majikthise turned on Vroomfondel. "It's alright," he explained angrily, "you don't need to demand that."

"Alright!" bawled Vroomfondel banging on an nearby desk. "I am Vroomfondel, and that is not a demand, that is a solid fact! What we demand is solid facts!"

"No we don't!" exclaimed Majikthise in irritation. "That is precisely what we don't demand!"

Scarcely pausing for breath, Vroomfondel shouted, "We don't demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!"

"But who the devil are you?" exclaimed an outraged Fook.

"We," said Majikthise, "are Philosophers."

"Though we may not be," said Vroomfondel waving a warning finger at the programmers.

"Yes we are," insisted Majikthise. "We are quite definitely here as representatives of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons, and we want this machine off, and we want it off now!"

"What's the problem?" said Lunkwill.

"I'll tell you what the problem is mate," said Majikthise, "demarcation, that's the problem!"

"We demand," yelled Vroomfondel, "that demarcation may or may not be the problem!"

"You just let the machines get on with the adding up," warned Majikthise, "and we'll take care of the eternal verities thank you very much. You want to check your legal position you do mate. Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we're straight out of a job aren't we? I mean what's the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives us his bleeding phone number the next morning?"

"That's right!" shouted Vroomfondel, "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

Suddenly a stentorian voice boomed across the room. "Might I make an observation at this point?" inquired Deep Thought.

"We'll go on strike!" yelled Vroomfondel.

"That's right!" agreed Majikthise. "You'll have a national Philosopher's strike on your hands!"

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