You got trolledFollow

Hungry mice?

Boxcar Children.

Oh. And almost no one would call B.F. Skinner a sociologist. Sociology utilizes concepts from Psychology, but they are different disciplines. Psychology deals with individuals, their choices, behavior, motivations, etc. Sociology deals with groups, institutions, cultures, etc. There's some overlap, of course, but Skinner is an incredibly poor choice in this context. Marx is a better example of a well known sociologist.

Do you have your invention exchange ready?

Social science is hard - WAY harder than math or physics.

I was just happy to get a compliment.

Not all research scientists though. Sorry...

Some != "small amount", but yeah. There's "some overlap". Similarly to how there is "some overlap" between math and physics. Yet, shockingly, we don't assume that a mathematician must also be a physicist.



And? I'm reasonably sure that absent trigonometry, calculating planetary motion would be quite difficult. Yet, again, we don't assume everyone involved in the development of that particular form of math were all astrophysicists.


Again, ask people to name off fields which they most associate with very intelligent people and see how long it takes someone to think of sociology (if ever). Pretty much only people in or involved in the field of sociology actually think those who work in it are very intelligent or capable. Outside that bubble? I once had a conversation with a group of post graduate friends of mine (in a variety of fields) and the topic of sociology came up. The general first reaction was to laugh about the field. Followed with a general consensus that it was more or less the science of stating the obvious in new ways so as to make it seem as though you came up with something new. It's a self serving field full of people who can't perform in other fields, but have big egos which need protecting, so they hide in sociology where they know that they wont have to actually produce verifiable results for anything, so they will never have to face the reality of just how wrong they are about whatever the hell it is they're talking about.


In most other fields, if you're wrong, you're wrong. It's easily determined, you all laugh about the mistake, and you move on. But sociology is a science that's actually designed to make it nearly impossible to prove anything (right or wrong). It's entirely about the opinions of those in the field. Right and wrong isn't based on any form of empirical testing, but which groups of adherents within the field have the greatest standing at the moment and can browbeat the rest into agreeing with them. Truth, for a sociologist, is about what the group agrees on, not what is actually true.


So yeah. Forgive me while I laugh at the entire field. It's a joke science. It's always been a joke science. It will always be a joke science. It only exists and has any weight at all because it's lack of falsifiability makes it an ideal science to use to convince masses of people to follow completely ridiculous and repeatably failed political ideologies. Hence, folks like Marx and folks who follow Marx love it. Modern western Liberals love it. It's where they can go to get a bunch of "experts" to tell them that even though their social agenda has resulted in increased crime, worse sub group alienation, more class stratification, and a large increase in hopelessness and despair within the society itself, that all doesn't matter because according to their models, it's a proven success! See, it doesn't matter what the actual results are. For sociologists, it's just what they say will happen that matters. No point in allowing facts to get in the way of theory, right?


If you can't tell, I really do have very close to zero respect for that field. It's just produced so many bad ideas and so few good ones, that it's hard to noodle out why anyone puts any weight in it at all. How long does an entire field of study have to be so consistently wrong about everything before you realize that maybe there's some fundamental problem with how the field generates conclusions?

Edited, Jan 17th 2014 3:48pm by gbaji

The GOP isn't a field of study. It's a state of mind.

Why "opposed"? I suppose both could be joke sciences. to be fair though, economics does tend to do a much better job at predicting outcomes than sociology. Although that can also depend on which school you adhere too. But yeah, my statement wasn't meant to exclude other fields being jokes too.

Just because you don't understand how they work doesn't make them joke sciences. Nor does the fact that there are idiots in the field. There are idiots in all field. There is good research and poorly done research; the good research helps generate useful theoretical frameworks that provide societal value. If you want some specific implementations of sociological research because you think the field consists of undergrads going out drinking, here's a few:

Optimal Traffic ticketing procedures to maximize reduction in vehicular homicides while minimizing police resource outlays
Anti-terror domestic social controls theory
Social aspects of discontinuous economic market theory
(Social underpinnings of market failure, containment, propagation & resolution, studies in cooperation with Economic research)
Various social organization theories (Private social networking organization fund a fair bit of this)

etc. etc.

So is "vegetable."

Well, if it makes you feel any worse, I think most of us got it pretty much instantly.

I didn't laugh, but the corner of my mouth did twitch briefly upwards. A young lady opposite saw and started geysering sexual fluids, flying around the cafe like an untied balloon. When the police asked who was to blame, I gave them your name. I hope you don't mind.