Jordan Peterson - 80% of Humanities Papers aren't Cited Once

80% of Humanities papers are not cited once.

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[DarkHorizon]

I think the problem is in fields such as chemistry, engineering and physics through experimentation it is easy to determine if an idea is correct or wrong is useful or worthless. However in fields such as sociology and humanities it is very difficult to measure with certainty any of the ideas therefore there may be more papers that are published that shouldn't be published

[OriginalRaveParty]

Can we all just admit that the bigger picture in life is becoming exactly the same. It's information overload. A million new songs are written every day. Some could be better than the best known songs to date, and they will still never be heard or appreciated by anyone. The same is true for so many areas.

[markotuna]

Hah, too late Bite sized philosophy, for I have already watched the full 2 hour video! :DD

[RanjitKrishnanNair]

Where is he pulling this figure of 80% from? Any citations...

[theculturedjinni]

I still think the humanities has value and that they can be returned to their former glory.

[jeanqnguyen]

..so a citation from a published source is more or less a' LIKE' on Facebook ey

[michaelthinkingoutloud]

I’m a fan and follower of JBP but I always thought this claim was poorly substantiated. Good to hear him elaborate. My university gave a major research award this year to a paper on “intersectionality”, which I will now read in detail.

[GetLostInTheSauce]

Researchgate helps solve some of that problem.

[jamesboyd]

Why does everyone keep saying 420 what does that mean is it a pot thing?

[mohamedbenabderrahmane]

How we could evaluate those hierarchies in term of justice

[EverGreenElephant]

Without doubt, papers in the humanities are not that often cited as in STEM disciplines. I see a few reasons for that.
1. The academic culture is different to STEM disciplines. The academic discourse is not that, let's call it "vivid".
2. Findings in the humanities may be more sustainable, whereas in the STEM fields paper might be outdated more quickly. As a consequence, the academic discourse focuses much more on recent papers. In contrary, a paper/monography from the 50s might be a reliable source in the humanities.
3. The Humanities produce a value that can't be capitalized by companies, conversely in computer sciences, physics and so on which might be one reason for the different academic culture.

[latinhero]

I wonder to what extent this problem is happening in the harder sciences?

[alextilson]

Can someone provide a citation for this statistic? I know of a couple of papers from a few decades ago, but I'd really like to read up more on this 80% figure.

[robbieharris]

By using the tool (Price's Law) to critisies those advocating for economic policies that help redistribute wealth by insinuating that Price's Law is an almost natural law of human creativity and endeavour and then applying the same critique to the undertaking of the social sciences seems somewhat cynical and hypocritical.

[krobros]

I am a Grad student in a counseling program at a Jesuit University and it is as woke as any liberal arts college in the country.

[annabeatrizmarques]

Somebody know papers that sustain this 80% lack of citations...or low citations in humanaties?

[krypticvoyce]

I think people would cite more if the format required for citing was less intrusive to the work being written. APA is horse crap if someone would to explain a legit reason for psychiatric interference in grammar and rhetoric.

[ramonbril]

The humanities died the moment that they allowed motivations and values to be denied through nihilistic rhetoric of modernism. Those that kept screaming in agony because of their low status and wretched lives to misuse this absence of directed thought to push through the scandalous motivations of a group of people that Jordan calls neo-marxists. But I think even this classification is too shallow. This is a group that would make use of a power vacuum in any time period. From a meta perspective, our culture has broken loose from strong leaders through the fear they brought along with them. In that vacuum, the weak and angry can play a game that leads us nowhere.

Our culture is still dying by lousy criticism of a very aggressive human past - not only Nazism, but also the wars that went before it. Instead of acceptance that Hitler, Stalin and Mao were just as human as we are, we made them more evil than the devil. But by cowering we only made out position worse - we do not understand what happened or why it happened, nor did we learn anything useful from these times. Escapism is dangerous for this reason - it takes you away from the dragon, but the dragon will chase you. If we take away the developments that have been made by the natural sciences and technology, how void of useful culture are our modern lives? When do we finally renounce the humanities, so that we may build them up again? Everyone knows that the only worthwhile study at the moment are the natural sciences, which is a putrid fact. There is no denying in that, even if I wish too.

But how can that be? In any well designed world, studying yourself before your external world would come first. In a world where people use their brains, it would be the humanities that would be seen as the basis of any and all further development and thought. I would, as a natural scientist, be humble and respectful to the study of knowing ourselves. But sadly, in this world, the humanities have been the cause of more pain and damage than Stalin could ever dream of. Go to Africa and / or read Martin Meredith on the subject if you want an example of this, but in doing so you will find yourself on a path of hardship as you come to understand the monstrous mistakes that have been made by modern leadership through the ill understanding of our own humanity - and the even more painful reality that has been produced by this.

[hywelthomas]

Is that just Canadian papers or worldwide?

[theprevailingorthodoxy]

Not that I'm defending the Humanities but isn't this simply the Pareto principle at work?