“Sociology is pseudoscience.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes. It is pseudoscience. But not in the way you interpret the word ‘pseudoscience’. No, Sociology isn’t the same as atrology. Sociology uses scientific methods, it uses data analysis, and various forms of epistemology to make sense of society. Make no mistake, I’m not dismissing the entire field of Sociology.”
“All Sociology is pseudoscience. But only some parts of it. Got it. Nice backtracking.”
“It’s not backtracking. Look, I’m studying Business Management. I also consider it a form of pseudoscience. But you need to stop being so literal in the way you read me. There are degrees of ‘pseudoscience’. It’s not a binary.”
After attempting to make my point, and being attacked many times, I blocked that person on Discord.
People want a 5 sentence explanation of things. Some things are more complex. Some things are difficult to communicate, and require a less literal interpretation of words.
Using Sociology again as the example. Am I saying it’s wrong to collect data via surveys? Am I saying it’s wrong to normalize said data? Am I saying it’s wrong to use statistics and thematic analysis to interpret the data, and connecting it with the conclusions of similar studies? No specific tool or activity here is necessarily wrong.
But I identify as an empiricist. I believe that our attempts to make theoretical models of Reality, our attempts to quantify certain things, that is too reductive. It’s not that it’s “wrong”, but rather “limited”. And the whole enterprise of science in general, the way institutions operate, the way peer review is performed, the way people quickly dismiss someone’s findings, because they don’t have a Phd, or the right Phd, or from the right university. The way people take a sample size of 500, and make inferences about a population of 10 million… There’s something a little bit “woo” here.
I was working on my thesis in Business Management the other day. I was writing the Analysis and Discussion chapter, working on correlation matrices. One would think Maths, of all the subjects, is the most objective. And a correlation matrix, surely that has little room for bias, little room for subjectivity. But as I looked at it, something felt off. I felt I was basically doing witchcraft. Not the magical kind, the kind that uses voodoo dolls and incense. It feels wrong to use Maths in order to make inferences on good business management practices. I would much rather listen to someone who has tested those practices, and given me a casual opinion on the topic, than look at correlation matrices.
The thing that scientists and academics seem to understand is that Reality is empirical. Yes, it’s perfectly valid to use Maths to test hypothesis, and to read articles on any given topic, in order to understand it better. It’s valid, it’s logical. But what it isn’t, is empirical.
I’m no philosopher. I’m not here to advocate for some radical version of Empiricism. And I’m not interested in philosophising over this topic.
It’s not necessarily that I’ve lost trust in the scientific method. But there have been instances in the past when I saw a scientific article or study, and completely disagreed with it.
“Do you trust the data source?”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust the data collection methods?”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust the methodology?”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust the interpretation?”
“Yes.”
“Do you agree with the conclusion of the study?”
“No. It’s 100% wrong.”
I know it sounds silly. It sounds like mental gymnastics, if not downright denial of science. But some things, some findings of some studies, simply contradict my direct lived experience. This hasn’t happened a couple of times. It’s happened many, many, many times.
I’m not saying those studies are all wrong, and that I’m right. That my view on the topic is more accurate than those folks with Phd’s who do research for a living, on that particular topic. My point is that they trust their methods too much. The overall scientific endeavor, it comes across to me as arrogant. And studies, the more abstract they are, the more they relate to certain topics like identity or politics or culture, to me they are exceptionally biased. And exceptionally “woo”. Many of their studies aren’t wrong necessarily, but very incomplete. They offer a limited, reductive, caricature version of Reality.
Reality is so rich in its variations. Culture is so rich. Human beings are shockingly rich. You can find 100 individuals, who supposedly belong in the same “demographic”, put them all in a room, and each and every one of them is unique. Each individual there has a very unique experience and perception of the world. Each of them has something different from the norm. Something idiosyncratic. Don’t tell me that just because they are all from the same country, or from the same ethnicity, or have the same gender, or the same age, or even a combination of all of these, that your studies are reliable. I would rather meet these individuals, and get to know them myself.
That is the biggest flaw in science. That is the worst of its crimes. It’s its excessive confidence, that it can reduce a horrific and beautiful Reality such as ours, into independent and dependent variables.