Comment by archi42

Since I expressed negative feelings, my thoughts on this:

I wouldn't say I hate social science, that's much too strong. The rampant fraud and poor method in several of the fields just means that I put less value in peoples' academic achievements than they deserve - which I don't like, because many surely sincerely tried to do good science and spent years on getting there, but I can't filter a priori in which camp a person belongs. They should not be defunded or stuff like that, but they need to get their act together. Somehow. I suspect a lot of this is driven by extrinsics (publish or perish; need an advanced degree to get a job, but the advanced degree is actually pointless for the job; probably more things I don't think of now), and those need to change to allow for good science.

Take for example the department I mentioned above, that's essentially commiting fraud. Word is, the professor running it is actually pretty damn good at what they do. They have an accepted grant application framed on the wall: "I need 2000 bucks. Signed Professor Foobar" (like 5000$ in today's money); times surely changed for the worse for them. And I pity that, since we're often (but not always of course) talking peanuts in many of those fields. Especially for Masters level research, or for a single paper.

But I judge people in my life by their competence and character anyway, not by their degree. So politely ignoring their degree has little to no adverse effect on how I interact with them.