Comment by nilirl
7 hours ago
Maybe they've been more consistent but the strength of their position is not measured by my inconsistency.
Look at how much "trust me, I've got training, I know what's good, I know what's already right" is in their argument.
What is their actual point? That we can say across the board that good research must have easy-to-control experimentation and guarantee novelty?
Good research is field dependent; some fields are younger than others, some fields have an easier time controlling experiments than others.
I'm saying what matters is what people care about. My point about stances being political is because what gets funded is what people care about, not what can guarantee the highest confidence using research design.
My point is that their stance is political too, because it says 'I don't care about this like how they care about this, so I think it should get cut'.
Their position is not some innocent defense of empiricism, it's a political stance that says "these questions don't matter, I already know how the world works."
> That we can say across the board that good research must have easy-to-control experimentation and guarantee novelty?
That is not my point, but it is a true statement, yes [1]. Science without controls is not science. Science without novelty is called an undergraduate lab exercise.
> Good research is field dependent
Controls and novelty and rigor are not field-dependent. If you want that, go do English Literature or Philosophy or something. They love to entertain unresolvable debates about post-modernism.
[1] Modulo the "easy" part. I feel like you put this in as some kind of emergency exit slide from the debate, so I'll just say up front that good science doesn't have to have "easy" controls. It must have controls.
I may have moved some of the goal posts but you refuse to engage with your own bias. I think we can move on.
> Look at how much "trust me, I've got training, I know what's good, I know what's already right" is in their argument.
I mean, isn't that what we're supposed to do in science? Listen to the folks who have the expertise? Like sure, don't believe that they have the expertise or whatever, but ask for proof of the expertise, don't just handwave it away because you don't agree with the expert. Nothing that they've said has appeared to be inconsistent with their claim of expertise, however.
So... maybe trust the person with the experience? Or, if you have a contrasting experience, present that instead. But this is not what you're doing.
> What is their actual point? That we can say across the board that good research must have easy-to-control experimentation and guarantee novelty?
My read is something like this: Their point is that the scientific method (aka "science") is fundamentally about rigor. If some science doesn't have rigor, it's fair to question its quality, because without rigor, you can't trust any of the results. There's too much possibility for error. The social sciences are notorious for lacking rigor. It's part of the reason there's a repeatability crisis in the field.
> My point is that their stance is political too, because it says 'I don't care about this like how they care about this, so I think it should get cut'.
That's really not what they're saying at all. You keep trying to spin it that way, but I haven't seen that indication of that particular intent.
> Their position is not some innocent defense of empiricism, it's a political stance that says "these questions don't matter, I already know how the world works."
No! They're not saying "these questions don't matter", they're saying "the people doing the science to 'answer these questions' are doing it badly, because they know what good science looks like, and that ain't it."
> isn't that what we're supposed to do in science? Listen to the folks who have the expertise?
No. We look at the best model that explains and predicts the most observations.
> Nothing that they've said has appeared to be inconsistent with their claim of expertise, however.
What expertise have they shown? How did you determine they're an expert? This is what they said in their original post: "if it leads to a more focused funding of actual, legitimate science, I'm largely in favor"
That has no expertise required. That's a political stance of what "actual, legitimate science" is.
> If some science doesn't have rigor, it's fair to question its quality
Yes, and I'm saying rigor should be pragmatically determined by operating conditions. All fields cannot instantly achieve the same level of rigor; instrumentation and methodologies need to develop over time. It's fine to say there's a problem with repeatability, it's not fine to say the researchers are illegitimate. Mine is a political stance as well.
> You keep trying to spin it that way, but I haven't seen that indication of that particular intent.
Our interpretation is at odds. You have not argued against it either. What makes their stance apolitical?
> the people doing the science to 'answer these questions' are doing it badly
And I'm saying that's in the nature of tough problems. Do you want to study tribal behavior? Culture? How nation states interact? How slavery has ripple effects across centuries? Tough shit, experimentation is hard. That doesn't make it bad science. That framing is thoughtless.