Not usually my favorite scientist, I enjoyed Neil deGrasse Tyson interviewed by Ben Shapiro mostly because I agreed with Tyson and I was impressed with his engagement style as Shapiro baited him on genderism as a progressive cause. Shapiro wanted Tyson to say that subjective claims of gender identity are not scientific: sex is scientific; gender is based on sex. Tyson pointed to the objective reality of sociology which says that it is worthy of scientific study to discover what it is in a social context that people believe is true.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson - The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 72
835,919 views Oct 13, 2019 -- Neil deGrasse Tyson — renowned astrophysicist, host of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" on PBS, the "StarTalk Radio" podcast, and best-selling author of "Letters from an Astrophysicist" — joins Ben to discuss science, religion, morality, climate change, transgenderism, abortion, and much more. |
Yes, exactly, that was my point to jlc. Not alone here, she prides herself in having majored in “real” science, not social science. But “real” science is plagued with positivism and the eternal harvesting of one more data point in pursuit of inductive truth.
As I have pointed out, in the sociology classes I took while majoring in criminology, and finishing a masters in social science, we actually did study the scientific method, at every level, at least at the beginning of the semester. (In the world standard textbook by Sir Anthony Giddens (architect of “New Labour”), it is discussed twice, once at the outset and again with more detail at the end of the book.) Moreover, in sociology, we study the origins and development of the science, sometimes to our own dismay.
Many in sociology accept physics as the gold standard of science. They point out that you can find many recent social science papers that cite Max Weber but no one in Physics Letters A-G or Physics Today cites James Clerk Maxwell in support of an argument. Conversely, few sociology papers cite research less than five years old. Physics is always about citing the latest research in your paper.
But that speaks exactly to the point. We do not bury our story of development, the false paths, the overturned assumptions, the backpedaling and even the curious, if not hypocritical, yet highly rewarding research of Marxists who set up a consumer polling business. (Read Paul Lazarsfeld in Wikipedia.)
I had a 200-level class, required not only for sociology, but also for social workers in Research Methods. Every week, we chose and criticized two peer reviewed papers of our own selection. "Can undergraduates meaningfully criticize peer-reviewed papers?" I asked. “Start with the math,” the professor said. You don't get that in physics.
Social sciences obviously are plagued by many problems, fundamental conceptual problems. They appear as basic ideological problems. The reason that I did not pursue a master's in criminology was that there was nothing more to learn: race, gender, and capitalist oppression pretty much defined the sources of all of our problems. By choosing an open program in “social science” I put together an approved study of transnational white collar crime by taking graduate classes in criminology, U.S. foreign policy, economics, and geography.
But by then - as opposed to when I was first a freshman in 1967 - my understanding of Objectivism was better integrated.
[Edited for typography and spelling 7 September 2022.]
PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS
The Scientific Method Revisited
Sociology: A Defense and a Call for Reform
