Feynman on the social sciences

[scar]

Bro Feynman low-key predicated the replication crisis in psychology

[ZeroG]

He saw wokeism coming without even knowing it

[THEShogunBallistic]

Lol tell that to psyops and social engineering. Tell that to consensus manufacture and behavioral modification

[stuffgotreal]

Kind of dumb to expect the social fields (what with their fuzzier, more multivariable subject matter -- i.e. humans) to adhere to that level of mathematical modelling and theory building. They will always remain probabilistic. And they do a pretty solid job of it if you take the time to actually understand them and their methods and results instead of projecting personal politics and BS.

Overall, a disappointingly stupid comment from someone was, objectively, a genius (in his own realm, at least).

(I'm a physics major btw!)

[eddiewillers]

Bless his heart. Other than the genius part, we think alike.

[bdstudios]

He looked like Charlie Sheen.
I agree that social science is driven by agenda, and not always rigorous in its process. I would hope at least Psychology is more sound by now. Studying humans is always going to be complex, and it might not even be possible to do it scientifically, but people are trying.
Feynman was an honest man.

[saulorocha]

Feynman was fantastic, never would put agendas before his reasonings integrity. Not many like him sadly.

[danielyouth]

As someone who studies anthropology I can say I partially agree with this guy. Although we have tried to formulate laws that are universally applicable, there has been no succes on that regard. Culture and society seem to operate differently than the natural world. Thus our epistemological presupositions and methodological approaches are different. As for the science thing, we have had that discussion ourselfes. Let's say there are some who don't think we should call what we do science and some others that think that we're scientists. However, that's not to say that there's no value in the knowledge we produce. I would also like to say that natural scientists are often blinded by their claims of impartiality that they ignore their own cultural and political biases. Said biases have ultimately had an effect on the knowledge they produce; shall we remember: eugenics, polygenism, race-based medicine, the myth of the "missing link", women missdiagnosed with "hysteria", among many others embarrassing memories of the natural sciences.

[goodname]

"it is not man's irreducibility, what is designated as his invincible transcendence, nor even his excessively great complexity, that prevents him from becoming an object of science. Western culture has constituted, under the name of man, a being who, by one and the same interplay of reasons, must be a positive domain of *knowledge* and cannot be an object of *science* "
- The order of things, M. Foucault, 1965

[refatrayhan]

God, I am crying! Why did he have to die?!!

[sonohead]

curious what your thoughts are on medical epistemology or more broadly the philosophy of science. I don’t think what feynman says here is necessarily disharmonious with what a lot of “post-modernist” thinkers put forward. he is justifiably calling out a scientism (specifically the Mechanical Turk that is social ‘science’)

[LNVACVAC]

Well, Psychology was not supposed to be a social science nor focused on transforming culture. William James addresses this conflict very well in "The Meaning of Truth". But once Marxists (lacanians) and Utopian behaviourists took control of it there was no turning back.
The same happened to medicine and now most people and medics can't differentiate Medicine from Health Policy.

[RobertSmith-gjmv]

unbelievably unfathomably incredibly based

[zuLess]

I tried anyway. Many many years later I have come to much of the same conclusions, but I dont think the effort isnt worth it because we still have terribly damaging power conflicts, self-denial, environmental problems that is endangering the basis for liberal democracies etc. ... who knows, maybe this is just me further delving into the sunk cost fallacy, but I havent seen any engineering feat that can survive a pernicious ideology.

[optimusprimum]

I remember thinking a lot of psychology was pure bullshit and mental manipulation. Then again, behavior has patterns.

[SimonJeppesen]

It is really hard understanding real science and a few do. It is really easy to understand social science theory and many do.

[barashah]

i dont know the world very well....says the man who knew more than most men in the history of humanity..

[michaelwright]

I prefer social sciences as they deal with things I can understand and therefore I can have more confidence in what social scientists research. I have more confidence in research that seeks understand what humans do than in research on qunatum mechanics because one deals with the world i live in and one deals with something I can't understand.

[Nai-qkvp]

Lesson number one. Just because you're good at x don't mean you know jack about y.
Feynman was simply ignorant on this matter.

[Hamheel]

What a cop out. There's a classic cartoon strip. A man walks down the street one night and loses his keys in the dark. But he refuses to search for his keys anywhere but under the street lights...because it's easier to see.

Shall we endeavor to study the things that lend themselves to easy measurement and abide by simple mathematical structures, or shall we study what is important to advance our species?

I do not mean "easy" in terms of being intellectually challenging. I mean easy relative to the socio-behavioral sciences because of the complexity of studying human beings...the interactions of 100 billion neurons per brain, interacting with hundreds of millions of brains. And easier because of the ethical considerations of studying life versus inanimate objects and forces.

No doubt the social-behavioral sciences are less precise and lend themselves more poorly to empirical and theoretical research methods. But because something is more challenging, and will involve more error along the way, does not mean we should limit our searching to under the street lights.