In defence of the humanities...

[Adora]

I was having a conversation with someone in Infidel IRC yesterday and a conversation about... something I can't remember eventually came around to the issue of "Hard"/"Higher" sciences vs The Humanities/ "Soft" sciences.

Of course, all the science monkeys in the room jumped up and down defending their passion, barely letting me get a word in edgewise to defend the humanities or actually stimulate intelligent discussion about the topic. The whole thing went to hell when some real asshole turned up and I left because I to do RL shit, but it got me thinking.

Why is there such a perceived binary opposition between the two? Why are the humanities looked down upon by so many? Why is "science" held up on such a pedestal in society? Why does science project an ideology of objectivism that it regularly lacks due to too narrow fields of vision?

Now, I'm not arguing that science is a load of shit and its all lies and that only the truth lies in the humanities or something. I'd never say that at all. I love science. Science is cool. I could have been a scientist of some sort, if I hadn't been such a lazy cunt. And as for the humanities, they have their pros and cons as well, along the same lines. They can be narrow-visioned, they can promote false objectivism, and they can be put up on a pedestal in some areas of society which results in negative impacts.

BUT, I think a few things need to be addressed on the issue.

First of all, I wonder what you would find if you weighed up the entire funding that goes into the two schools. I would predict that you would find that there has been by far more funding go into scientific discourses such as medicine (which is a borderline between the two anyway), astrophysics and space exploration, astronomy, chemistry, and even things like geology, than there ever has been put into the "soft" sciences and humanities like psychology, sociology, anthropology, archaeology, ethnography, etc etc. I don't know if this is true, though, but I'm just making predictions.

I'd also say that compared to working out messy, chaotic, wonderfully fucked-up human beings, figuring out the atomic secrets of the universe are a cinche. For a lot of reasons. Human beings are, as mentioned, very chaotic. We're beautiful in that way. Also, it's hard to argue "objectivity" when you're a human studying a human, because of basic human social responses, desires, relationships yadda yadda yadda. So it loses that great pillar of the "hard" sciences by closeness of subject. Sciences that do study humans are therefore more likely to be negatively biased or influenced because of basic human prejudices or social mores. Also, people have hangups about investigating humans too closely, because it will reveal things about themselves and things they hold sacred they may not like. So there's that investment in it too.

I'd question the promoted objectivism of science many times as well. Studies such as those that say "boys develop X brain parts that makes them more aggressive" and "girls develop Y brain parts that make them more verbally adept" always make me ask the question, "Yes, that's nice. But does it happen because of internal bodily factors working on the brain, or external stimulation or social relationships on the brain?". I think because science is so focused on making the parts fit the sum, they forget other more complex factors in society that can cause the brain to develop certain ways. The basic argument here is the old Left hand/ambidextrous/Right hand thing - many people are born with the potential of lefthandedness or ambidextrous hands, but it does not develop because of a dominant right-hand environment, and they are environmentally "trained" (to use such a term) to be right handed instead.

So whenever I see findings such as this that seek to explain social (and very often, cultural) human factors in society with science, I am always incredibly sceptical, because, as we know, there are societies in which these kinds of facets of the genders, for instance, have not always been the case.

Also, I think there's a "scientific" consensus that we are the sum of our parts, and nothing more. I disagree. However, I am no way arguing for the existence of the supernatural powers promoted by spiritual groups in society. I simply think that there are certain things fundamental to humanity - society in general, relationships, culture, etc - that cannot be known simply by such goals as mapping the human brain or such. I am a strong believer (yes, evil words, I know) in the philosophy that we are not defined by what we are (ie- the sum of our parts), but by our relationships to other things, people, ideas, objects, etc (I don't know how you would describe this any other way).

I think this is another reason the humanities get the sniff- they exist to study these relationships, society, culture, the way humans interact with the universe around them, and the way the universe interacts with them. It's difficult to study, even if you could have the billions of dollars pumped into the "hard" sciences each year at your disposal.

Perhaps, and this is a big fucking perhaps, if you had an omni-science, that at the same time as it studied the exact atomic movements of the universe, also observed and recorded the reactions of billions of different humans in millions of different societies, you might find some answers. Because you'd be creating as many differing factors as you could and observing as many factors as you could, and you'd basically be observing the relationships between humans and the universe. I say many societies in this because I think there is a great myth of homogenisation promoted across the world in regards to human biological discoveries in Western humans and their application to the rest of the world. A very basic one I remember is the "Right brain/Left brain" rubbish, which only applies to right-handed Westerners, and then only very vaguely and in not-very-concrete ways.

So anyway, this is a very roundabout way of saying 'Don't diss the humanities so much'. Comments? Counter-arguments? Cookies?

[wade-w]

I'm probably wasting my time by responding, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

I was having a conversation with someone in Infidel IRC yesterday and a conversation about... something I can't remember eventually came around to the issue of "Hard"/"Higher" sciences vs The Humanities/ "Soft" sciences.


First, I don't generally think of the "soft" sciences and the humanities as being synonymous. To me, "humanities" generally means the liberal arts; traditionally this does not include psychology or sociology et al, but does include mathematics.



Why is there such a perceived binary opposition between the two? Why are the humanities looked down upon by so many? Why is "science" held up on such a pedestal in society? Why does science project an ideology of objectivism that it regularly lacks due to too narrow fields of vision?


I think the opposition you perceive is due in large part to methodological differences. The "hard" sciences are driven by quantative analysis, while the "soft" sciences are usually seen as much more qualitative in nature. This is not to say that quantative methods are not employed in the "soft" sciences, but when I was studying anthropology at university, many of my fellow students were in those courses because they felt they couldn't handle the math required for the "hard" sciences. Indeed, the very terms "hard" vs "soft" come from this difference.

As for '"science" being held up on such a pedestal in society, I think it has to do with modern technology. What is really held in such high esteem is engineering and technology, not science itself. In some parts of the US "science" is almost a dirty word.

Science does not project anything, much less any ideology. Some people do, however, perpetuate such an attitude. But I think you'll find that most who do so are not themselves actual scientists. And the degree to which a science is actually objective varies. Of course, the theory ladeness of terms prevents any science from being truly objective, but this is less obvious in physics than it is in biology, I think. Scientists in general strive for objectivity. It's a worthy goal, even if it isn't actually obtainable.


Now, I'm not arguing that science is a load of shit and its all lies and that only the truth lies in the humanities or something. I'd never say that at all. I love science. Science is cool. I could have been a scientist of some sort, if I hadn't been such a lazy cunt. And as for the humanities, they have their pros and cons as well, along the same lines. They can be narrow-visioned, they can promote false objectivism, and they can be put up on a pedestal in some areas of society which results in negative impacts.


I'll take your word for this. I had the distinct impression from some of your other posts that you despised science in general.


BUT, I think a few things need to be addressed on the issue.

First of all, I wonder what you would find if you weighed up the entire funding that goes into the two schools. I would predict that you would find that there has been by far more funding go into scientific discourses such as medicine (which is a borderline between the two anyway), astrophysics and space exploration, astronomy, chemistry, and even things like geology, than there ever has been put into the "soft" sciences and humanities like psychology, sociology, anthropology, archaeology, ethnography, etc etc. I don't know if this is true, though, but I'm just making predictions.


I would be surprised if you were wrong about this. As an aside, archaeology and ethnography are generally considered sub-disciplines of anthropology.


I'd also say that compared to working out messy, chaotic, wonderfully fucked-up human beings, figuring out the atomic secrets of the universe are a cinche. For a lot of reasons. Human beings are, as mentioned, very chaotic. We're beautiful in that way. Also, it's hard to argue "objectivity" when you're a human studying a human, because of basic human social responses, desires, relationships yadda yadda yadda. So it loses that great pillar of the "hard" sciences by closeness of subject. Sciences that do study humans are therefore more likely to be negatively biased or influenced because of basic human prejudices or social mores. Also, people have hangups about investigating humans too closely, because it will reveal things about themselves and things they hold sacred they may not like. So there's that investment in it too.


Yup. By the very nature of it's subject matter, the "soft" sciences are much more difficult. Another factor here is ethics. Many experiments that could potentially yield tons of data would be unethical in the extreme. On the other hand, by comparison, physics is relatively easy, chemistry is a bit more difficult because it's a bit more messy, and of all of the "hard" sciences, biology is the most difficult, since it's pretty chaotic.


I'd question the promoted objectivism of science many times as well. Studies such as those that say "boys develop X brain parts that makes them more aggressive" and "girls develop Y brain parts that make them more verbally adept" always make me ask the question, "Yes, that's nice. But does it happen because of internal bodily factors working on the brain, or external stimulation or social relationships on the brain?". I think because science is so focused on making the parts fit the sum, they forget other more complex factors in society that can cause the brain to develop certain ways. The basic argument here is the old Left hand/ambidextrous/Right hand thing - many people are born with the potential of lefthandedness or ambidextrous hands, but it does not develop because of a dominant right-hand environment, and they are environmentally "trained" (to use such a term) to be right handed instead.


I think you're missing an important point here. That's actually a very good question, but the first experiment needs to be verified and well established before we can start investigating why the brain might develop in such a manner. Ya have to answer one question before you can think about the next one.


So whenever I see findings such as this that seek to explain social (and very often, cultural) human factors in society with science, I am always incredibly sceptical, because, as we know, there are societies in which these kinds of facets of the genders, for instance, have not always been the case.

Also, I think there's a "scientific" consensus that we are the sum of our parts, and nothing more. I disagree. However, I am no way arguing for the existence of the supernatural powers promoted by spiritual groups in society. I simply think that there are certain things fundamental to humanity - society in general, relationships, culture, etc - that cannot be known simply by such goals as mapping the human brain or such. I am a strong believer (yes, evil words, I know) in the philosophy that we are not defined by what we are (ie- the sum of our parts), but by our relationships to other things, people, ideas, objects, etc (I don't know how you would describe this any other way).


I don't think there is any such consensus. I don't think consciousness can be explained by a mere "sum of the parts" argument. I personally feel that we need to look at both what we are and what our relationships to other things are. And were is the line drawn?


I think this is another reason the humanities get the sniff- they exist to study these relationships, society, culture, the way humans interact with the universe around them, and the way the universe interacts with them. It's difficult to study, even if you could have the billions of dollars pumped into the "hard" sciences each year at your disposal.


Yes, most definitely. As I said, by it's very nature this study is far more difficult than physics.


Perhaps, and this is a big fucking perhaps, if you had an omni-science, that at the same time as it studied the exact atomic movements of the universe, also observed and recorded the reactions of billions of different humans in millions of different societies, you might find some answers. Because you'd be creating as many differing factors as you could and observing as many factors as you could, and you'd basically be observing the relationships between humans and the universe. I say many societies in this because I think there is a great myth of homogenisation promoted across the world in regards to human biological discoveries in Western humans and their application to the rest of the world. A very basic one I remember is the "Right brain/Left brain" rubbish, which only applies to right-handed Westerners, and then only very vaguely and in not-very-concrete ways.

So anyway, this is a very roundabout way of saying 'Don't diss the humanities so much'. Comments? Counter-arguments? Cookies?

For good or ill, our society is very "results" oriented. The "hard" sciences are still in their infancy in terms of human history, but as seen in the context of technology, they have been very successful. The "soft" sciences, by contrast, are not just in their infancy, but are in what might be called a neo-natal stage. As they mature, I'm confident that they will become more respected in general, and more successful as well. To be honest, I'm not very sanguine about the answers being generated to date, but just asking the questions are very important in and of themselves.

[Roland98]

Well, I am admittedly a science monkey, though I don't think I do a whole lot of jumping around, but I don't really see the dichotomy. I agree with a lot of your points, and I also suspect that "hard" sciences and medicine get a lot more money than humanities research receives. Some of that is probably just because it's easier to see tangible gains in these areas: new technologies to use, new drugs to treat ailments, new vaccines, etc. I think another reason for this is exactly what you say:

It's difficult to study, even if you could have the billions of dollars pumped into the "hard" sciences each year at your disposal.

It is tough to study. And what may be true of one population often is not generalizable to humanity at large, as a genome sequence or an understanding of brain "wiring" may be. It's just a harder sell for funding.

I also think you're underestimating the work of many "hard" scientists. I, for one, have no interest (or ability) in finding out the atomic secrets of the universe. However, I study bacteria, and it is impossible to do so and get to many meaningful answers without examining also their environment, and their interaction with each other and with other organisms in the ecosystem. This is true of a lot of science; so while our "messy and chaotic" may be different than yours, it still is, well, messy and chaotic, just in different ways, and on different levels than human culture and relationships are messy and chaotic.

I also agree wholeheartedly with this:

So whenever I see findings such as this that seek to explain social (and very often, cultural) human factors in society with science, I am always incredibly sceptical, because, as we know, there are societies in which these kinds of facets of the genders, for instance, have not always been the case.

And again, I agree, and of course this affects many areas of study. Which is why I wish more scientists in vastly different fields would collaborate, because it generally heightens each other's awareness of features that we might be missing by limiting ourselves to our own little niche.

However, I disagree with you here:

Also, I think there's a "scientific" consensus that we are the sum of our parts, and nothing more. I disagree. However, I am no way arguing for the existence of the supernatural powers promoted by spiritual groups in society. I simply think that there are certain things fundamental to humanity - society in general, relationships, culture, etc - that cannot be known simply by such goals as mapping the human brain or such. I am a strong believer (yes, evil words, I know) in the philosophy that we are not defined by what we are (ie- the sum of our parts), but by our relationships to other things, people, ideas, objects, etc (I don't know how you would describe this any other way).

I think this is kind of a strawman. I agree that there probably are some scientists who think that way, but I'd guess they are in the vast minority. Yes, they may write papers or grants that suggest this kind of thing, but well, that's to get published and to get funded--generally we realize nothing is that simple. (Or, if you're in science, at least you should realize that. ;) ) Most of us realize that whatever we study is only one small facet of the Big Picture.

Anyway, I do think collaboration is the key, and I hope to get some more "humanities" folk involved in my research in the future (and ideally, lend my expertise to theirs). In my current research group (which focuses mostly on studying infectious diseases), we meet with mathematicians, physicists, MD's, evolutionary biologists, biostatisticians, epidemiologists, historians, anthropologists, and a few other random humanities folk in order to try to get the most out of what we are studying; to see it from more angles than our own. I think it's an excellent model and there are a lot of areas where this cross-disciplinary approach can work wonders.

[The Lone Ranger]

I'm a "hard" scientist, so perhaps I can offer some insights.

One of the key factors that makes a discipline a science, I think, is that there's a central organizing theory. As Darwin pointed out, observations by themselves are useless -- you need some sort of theory to make sense of them. You derive the organizing theory (or theories) from careful observation, of course, so observation and theory are certainly interrelated.

Now, what I'm proposing is that for the most part, the Humanities are not science as "hard" scientists understand and use the term, because they lack central organizing theories, and because they often fail to use the scientific method that is such an integral part of the way "hard" science is done. Now don't get me wrong: no one actually sits down and consciously employs the "scientific method" when designing and implementing an experiment and then attempting to interpret the results; I'm talking in broader terms, such as peer review, and how the experiment and its results must be carefully and critically examined before they'll be accepted by the scientific community at large. (Nor am I implying that scientists are anything less than human -- some results are definitely more welcome than others, and so less-likely to face sufficiently harsh scrutiny.)

Take Biology: before Darwin and Wallace (and perhaps Lamarck, even though he turned out to be wrong), it would have been absolutely correct to say that Biology wasn't a science, because it had no central organizing theory. Because of this, biologists could only point at the results of their investigations and say something along the lines of: "We've discovered this interesting phenomenon, but we have no idea why it's so." By providing an organizing theory (Evolution through Natural Selection), Darwin and Wallace transformed Biology into a science in the "true" sense of the term.

The problem with fields like Psychology (to a lesser degree), Cultural Anthropology, and especially Sociology, is that they lack central organizing theories, and so their investigations almost always take the form of: "We've discovered 'X', but don't really know what it signifies" or worse, they simply make up some ad hoc "explanation." To a biologist, chemist, physicist, geologist, etc., reading a journal of Sociology is a mystifying experience, because we can't help but wonder why in the world they call what they're doing "science," since it's most-certainly not science as we understand the term.

You'll note that I'm not saying Sociology or other such Humanities don't provide useful information, or that they don't conduct careful and sometimes even ingenious investigations.

One of the reasons that the Humanities lack clear organizing theories is precisely because the behaviors of individual humans -- much less societies -- are a great deal more complex and less predictable than the behavior of subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, etc. Even ethologists (students of animal behavior from an evolutionary perspective) can only work in general terms -- no one in the field would be foolish-enough to think that it's ever feasible to gain a sufficiently complete understanding of any animal's genetic background and personal history to explain and predict its behavior in anything other than general terms. So, we're stuck with explaining patterns of behavior and looking for their causes, while acknowledging that the details are effectively too complex to deal with.


No one of my acquaintance thinks that the Humanities are in any way "worthless," but maybe I hang with the wrong crowd. On the other hand, I don't think that Sociology, for example, can be honestly called a "science" in the same way that Physics is. They approach their subject matters in quite different ways.


One of my pet peeves is that there's such a mania for specialization in the sciences that people don't communicate across disciplines as much as they should. I think that such communication can be quite helpful. I'll give an example. A few years ago, I was teaching a course on animal behavior. As it happened, I chanced across an article in the New York Times announcing that sociologists had discovered a clear pattern in the way that grandparents relate to their grandchildren. Before continuing with the article, I thought to myself, "Well duh! Your maternal grandmother should be most interested in your welfare, and your paternal grandfather the least." I continued with the article, which went on to say that the "strange and unexplainable pattern" [my emphasis] was that people's maternal grandmothers tended to be most concerned with their welfare (and thus devoted the most time and attention to their grandkids), while their paternal grandfathers tended to be least concerned with their welfare (and so devoted the least time and attention to their grandkids). The article went on to point out that the researchers could offer no explanation whatsoever for this curious pattern, and were completely baffled.

By then, I was ready to tear my hair out; "Haven't any of these guys taken a course in Animal Behavior, or at least an Introductory Biology course in which the basics of natural selection were explained to them? The answer's perfectly obvious!"

Out of curiosity, I took the article to class the next day and told the students that researchers had discovered a pattern in how much attention grandparents pay to their grandkids. I asked them to tell me what the pattern was. The discussed it for a bit, and within 30 seconds they reached the consensus opinion that your maternal grandmother should be most interested in your welfare, and your paternal grandfather the least.

This is exactly the pattern that any student of evolution -- especially as it applies to animal behavior -- would have expected and predicted. Had the researchers thought to open a textbook on animal behavior or asked the opinion of the Friendly Neighborhood Evolutionary Biologist, they would have had their explanation, and quite a nice insight into an interesting aspect of human behavior. [N.B. We're talking about trends, of course; it's not like everyone's maternal grandmother is doting and their paternal grandfather couldn't care less about them.]

[For those who're curious, an explanation will be given below.]



Also, I think there's a "scientific" consensus that we are the sum of our parts, and nothing more.

Depending upon exactly what you mean by that, I'd challenge you to find even one physicist, chemist, or especially biologist who actually believes that. We are the sum of our parts in the sense that there's nothing "extra" added in other than matter and energy -- but hydrogen and oxygen are gases; combine them and you get water, a liquid. Complex systems often behave in ways that are not readily predictable from a detailed analysis of the individual opponents. They exhibit what are known as "emergent properties," and this is quite well-known within the "hard" sciences. Every working physicist, chemist, and especially biologist deals with the phenomenon of emergent properties on a daily basis.


I am a strong believer (yes, evil words, I know) in the philosophy that we are not defined by what we are (ie- the sum of our parts), but by our relationships to other things, people, ideas, objects, etc (I don't know how you would describe this any other way).

That's perhaps a bit more stridently-worded than you intended. What we are very much influences how we relate to other things. Rocks most assuredly relate to other things differently than do water molecules, which in turn relate to things quite differently than do baboons, which in turn, relate to things somewhat differently than do human beings, and so forth.



Cheers,

Michael

[Clutch Munny]

Among many other things that could be said, here's one: At western universities, the sciences are unified disciplines with tightly constrained course programs to a much greater extent than the arts or humanities. I took courses in nine different departments during my undergrad alone; many students pursuing science degrees take a grand total of one or two courses outside those required (or a tightly constrained and specified set of permitted electives) by the program during their entire university career, even if it extends to graduate study.

Now, this predictably creates a pretty insular community: group-belonging via contempt for The Other, and all that. Belittling the Humanities can be a unifying theme and rite of passage.

Here's another thing: Science students may correctly perceive that you can get by on waayyyy less work in a humanities degree. Simple truth. Some science or engineering programs have single classes involving more hours per week than some C+ arts students will put in with their whole weekly schedule, including reading. Often it's just different kinds of work, making the straight-up comparison meaningless, but that doesn't change the fact that you're working your tail off for the same grades that someone no smarter than you is getting on one-tenth the time. That'll inspire some disdain.

And here's another thing: The fact that science students frequently get their arts or humanities requirement out of the way by taking trivial bird courses can amount to a
confirmation bias (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/article.php?a=9). Believing humanities to be pointless and easy, they treat the requirement as a hoop to be jumped and select a particularly pointless and easy course. Alternatively, they remain committed to the idea that the course is pointless and easy even if it isn't; so the sins of the humanities are then further compounded by the stupidity of the professors -- the only acceptable explanation when the "pointless and easy" course results in a grade of 67%. Either way the students return to the fold of their home program confirmed in their belief that their detour through the humanities was a waste of time.

I'll stop there.

[The Lone Ranger]

Why your paternal grandfather probably invests less time in energy in your welfare than does your maternal grandmother (and why the other two probably fall somewhere in-between):

[N.B.: We're talking about on average here -- not absolutes! Depending on the nature of the culture in question, it's even entirely possible for these "natural" tendencies to be completely overridden by "outside" factors.]


First of all, in most vertebrates, and especially in mammals, it's a brute fact that females invest much more in offspring than do males. Consequently, it's predicted that females should be more concerned with the welfare of offspring than males, since males invest much less energy in the production of any given offspring. (Note that this is actually much less true of humans than it is of most mammals -- in most mammal species, the male's contribution is limited to sperm donation; but human children are so dependent that the father has a far greater genetic "incentive" to help raise them, since it's unlikely that the mother alone could successfully do so.) If an offspring dies, this is much less of a loss to a father (who can easily inseminate another female in just a few moments' time) than it is to a mother (who has probably spent months or even years gestating it, then providing it with food and protection after it's born).

So, the expectation it that mothers will be more concerned with the welfare of offspring than fathers, and this is precisely what you see throughout the animal kingdom. The exceptions that prove the rule are those rare species in which males contribute as much or more to the production of offspring as do females. In those species, the pattern is reversed, and males are the ones that tend to be much more protective of the offspring.

So, follow this pattern for two generations: a mother is expected to be more interested in the well-being of offspring than is a father, and so a mother's mother is expected to be more interested in grandkids than is a mother's father. The flip side is that a father is expected to be less interested in the welfare of kids than is a father, so a father's father is expected to be less interested in the welfare of grandkids than is a father's mother, much less a mother's father, or especially a mother's mother.

In other words, if you rank them, the investment that each grandparent has in you should correspond with how concerned they are for your welfare. The investment pattern is this: maternal grandmother (most), maternal grandfather & paternal grandmother (more or less equal to each other, but less than maternal grandmother), and paternal grandfather (least).


The other factor is "parental certainty." According to this theory, the amount of time and attention an animal invests in its supposed offspring should be directly related to how certain he/she is that the offspring in question is his/hers.

A mother can be absolutely certain that any child she produces is hers. Similarly, your mother's mother can be absolutely certain that you really are her grandchild. A father can't be absolutely certain that you're really his offspring, and your father's father can be even less certain that you're "really" his descendant.

Don't laugh. Studies going back to the 1940s have shown that something like 20% of the children born in New York and London hospitals were not sired by the men married to the mothers. Presumably, this has always been a factor in human history.



Once again, let me stress that we're only talking about general trends here, but any student of animal behavior would have expected such a trend in humans, no less than in any other mammal species.

None of this implies that it's "right" or "proper" that this should be true -- only that it's explainable. Those who "waste" time and energy taking care of offspring that probably aren't theirs don't go on to father lots of offspring of their own.

Cheers,

Michael

[Adora]

I'm talking in broader terms, such as peer review, and how the experiment and its results must be carefully and critically examined before they'll be accepted by the scientific community at large.
See, I hear this a lot, but from my experience, it isn't true. There are a very popular and vocal group of philosophical theorists who play a large part in certain branches of the humanities, but peer review is an integral part of any school of study, and is as prevalent in the humanities as anywhere else. Just ask anyone who has had material published in a journal, and received the mass-replies that always occur in such situations.

There are also parts of the humanities that do focus on what is basic "experimentation", and application of theories, but I think they find it difficult to become a powerful force because of the funding and "messy humans" problems of the area. Also, you tend to find many of their actual findings go against popular opinion in the mainstream society, so they simply don't get publicity.

...since it's most-certainly not science as we understand the term.
I find this interesting, because in all the definitions of science I've heard, I've never heard that a science specifically requires a unifying theory for it to be a "real science". *shrgus* Perhaps that's just my lack of experience though. Can I just ask out of curiosity then, what would be the "unifying theories" for something like chemistry? Newton's laws?

By then, I was ready to tear my hair out; "Haven't any of these guys taken a course in Animal Behavior, or at least an Introductory Biology course in which the basics of natural selection were explained to them? The answer's perfectly obvious!"
And see, if I had been reading it, I'd be instantly asking "Where did they conduct the survey, how big was the surveyed group, what kind of society was it, what socio-economic groups did they cover, what culture did the study reside in, yadda yadda yadda." Because I always ask annoying questions like that. And if you took the same article to, say, a gender studies class, the basic consensus would be the socialisation of nurtuing qualities in the different genders & basic family structures and work scheduels that divide up the time spent with whatever grandparent. *shrugs* I see what you mean though, and do agree that there are biological factors that influence it as well. In my case, that makes me giggle, cos my Paternal grandfather died before I was 3, and the only reason my Maternal grandmother had such a big influence on my early life was due to the simple fact she lived closer than other relations.

What we are very much influences how we relate to other things.
I agree. And how things relate with us also greatly influenes what we are.

At western universities, the sciences are unified disciplines with tightly constrained course programs to a much greater extent than the arts or humanities.
Hmm, I never noticed that, but yeah, that's definitely true in my case. I've taken subjects from... *counts* at least 7 different schools (though some are in the same departments).

[wade-w]

I'm talking in broader terms, such as peer review, and how the experiment and its results must be carefully and critically examined before they'll be accepted by the scientific community at large.
See, I hear this a lot, but from my experience, it isn't true. There are a very popular and vocal group of philosophical theorists who play a large part in certain branches of the humanities, but peer review is an integral part of any school of study, and is as prevalent in the humanities as anywhere else. Just ask anyone who has had material published in a journal, and received the mass-replies that always occur in such situations.


I'd be very surprised to find that the humanities do not use peer review, but this does not refer to reviews after publication. What The Lone Ranger means here by "peer review" is part of the screening process used to evaluate submitted papers prior to publication.

[The Lone Ranger]

I'd be very surprised to find that the humanities do not use peer review, but this does not refer to reviews after publication. What The Lone Ranger means here by "peer review" is part of the screening process used to evaluate submitted papers prior to publication.

Precisely. Before your study gets published (at least in any respectable journal), you must first convince your peers that you were honest and competent in setting up your study, and that the results of your study are sufficiently interesting and important as to be worthy of precious journal space.


I find this interesting, because in all the definitions of science I've heard, I've never heard that a science specifically requires a unifying theory for it to be a "real science". *shrgus* Perhaps that's just my lack of experience though. Can I just ask out of curiosity then, what would be the "unifying theories" for something like chemistry? Newton's laws?

That's precisely why many a person has commented that before Darwin and Wallace, Biology was just "stamp collecting," not an actual science. Science isn't a collection of facts, but a way of interpreting "facts." Absent that conceptual framework for interpreting the data you've gathered, what one is doing can't be called "science" in the same way that those in the "hard sciences" generally use the term.

Chemistry is united by atomic theory and interaction theories. Underlying those are quantum mechanics.

Newton's laws are observations about how things seem to work, not a branch of science. Modern physics is united by the theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity, in particular.


Cheers,

Michael

[Adora]

Precisely. Before your study gets published (at least in any respectable journal), you must first convince your peers that you were honest and competent in setting up your study, and that the results of your study are sufficiently interesting and important as to be worthy of precious journal space.
I see now. I honestly don't know if the humanities use it or not. I think for things such as psychological reasearch and sociological findings, there would be a good chance of it happening, because of past fucks-ups such as Frederic Wertham. For the far more theoretical and more recently established humanities, I don't think this would be the case though.

See, there's another thing. It's only quite recently that discussion of phenomenon such as sexuality, politics, morality, ethics, entertainment and other social discourses have moved away from being discussed exclusively in relation to religion, and instead into the realm of "culture". It's almost like there's an age-hierarchy, in a way, even within the humanities themselves (and hell, didn't I pick the youngest and most derided ones to study :D ).

[livius drusus]

It seems to me that this thread itself is something of an example of the perspective differences between science and the humanities. The scientists who have posted here point to differences in methodology and overall approach to explain the perceived binary opposition, while the more humanities inclined folk offer contextual explanations.

Needless to say, I tend more towards the latter, so Clutch's post, for instance, immediately clicked with me in a way that, say, wade's or Michael's did not. The differences in the disciplines, although they are significant at this point in time and place, are not sufficient explanation to me of what can sometimes be a very hostile opposition. I need more history, more sociology, more context for it to make sense to me.

In other words, we all need each other, man. :hippie:

Okay. Sorry about that. I know this is a meager post, but I wanted to jot down the niggling thing in my head before I lost it on the way to work.

Very interesting thread, Adora. Thanks for scaring it up.

[JoeP]

*shrgus*(Is that anything like SHRDLU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHRDLU)?)

Most of the answers I'd give have been made: the perception of a lack of organising theory, of a lack of focus (taking multiple classes, being "easy"), etc.

But one more occurred to me: predictive power. The hard scientists would claim their theories have strong predictive power, and even the outdated ones like newtonian mechanics have strong predictive power within the domains where they approximate the better theories.

Soft sciences have less predictive power, or at least any predictions are set about with so many conditions and fuzziness they sometimes seem little more than guesses. Do humanities even attempt to predict? History and geography surely do, but what's the predictive point of deconstructionism in literature? :popcorn:

joe

[Clutch Munny]

Yikes.

Let's just say that nobody should be offering very confident opinions about the humanities if they don't know that journal publication is blind peer-reviewed for virtually every academic discipline.

It's the core publication standard.

[wade-w]

It seems to me that this thread itself is something of an example of the perspective differences between science and the humanities. The scientists who have posted here point to differences in methodology and overall approach to explain the perceived binary opposition, while the more humanities inclined folk offer contextual explanations.

Needless to say, I tend more towards the latter, so Clutch's post, for instance, immediately clicked with me in a way that, say, wade's or Michael's did not. The differences in the disciplines, although they are significant at this point in time and place, are not sufficient explanation to me of what can sometimes be a very hostile opposition. I need more history, more sociology, more context for it to make sense to me.


It's interesting that you include me as one of the "scientists" that responded. Now, you are correct in that I chose to take the same approach to the question as Roland98 and The Lone Ranger. However, I am in no way a scientist. In college, my major was Mathematics, which is traditionally considered one of the Liberal Arts. Regardless of how it may be seen by people in the Humanities, Math is most definitely not a science; it's more closely allied with philosophy than any other discipline. I minored in Anthropology, which was classified in Adora's OP as being in the humanities.

I considered touching on some of the points that Clutch mentioned, but decided not to, since I was afraid they'd be considered confrontational. And actually The Lone Ranger did come close in a tangential way. Most scientists do not view the social sciences as science at all. I've heard them refered to as the "fuzzy" subjects. They are looked down upon for what is perceived to be a lack of rigor, and many wonder "How can they get away with calling that science?" So while there may be disdain on the part of the sciences to the humanities at times, I think I've seen far more outright hostility and misunderstanding going in the other direction.

[Clutch Munny]

It seems to me that this thread itself is something of an example of the perspective differences between science and the humanities. The scientists who have posted here point to differences in methodology and overall approach to explain the perceived binary opposition, while the more humanities inclined folk offer contextual explanations.

Needless to say, I tend more towards the latter, so Clutch's post, for instance, immediately clicked with me in a way that, say, wade's or Michael's did not. The differences in the disciplines, although they are significant at this point in time and place, are not sufficient explanation to me of what can sometimes be a very hostile opposition. I need more history, more sociology, more context for it to make sense to me.


It's interesting that you include me as one of the "scientists" that responded. Now, you are correct in that I chose to take the same approach to the question as Roland98 and The Lone Ranger. However, I am in no way a scientist. In college, my major was Mathematics, which is traditionally considered one of the Liberal Arts. Regardless of how it may be seen by people in the Humanities, Math is most definitely not a science; it's more closely allied with philosophy than any other discipline. I minored in Anthropology, which was classified in Adora's OP as being in the humanities.

I considered touching on some of the points that Clutch mentioned, but decided not to, since I was afraid they'd be considered confrontational. And actually The Lone Ranger did come close in a tangential way. Most scientists do not view the social sciences as science at all. I've heard them refered to as the "fuzzy" subjects. They are looked down upon for what is perceived to be a lack of rigor, and many wonder "How can they get away with calling that science?" So while there may be disdain on the part of the sciences to the humanities at times, I think I've seen far more outright hostility and misunderstanding going in the other direction.


Wade, do you mean "the other direction"? It sounds like you're describing more internal disputes among scientists of different stripes as to what really constitutes science. Depends on where one places the so-called social sciences. For my part, I see (eg) strands of the social sciences as embodying the most self-aware attention to, and genius for, scientific methodology. They have to be -- the problem of confounds is so serious that researchers (and reviewers!) have to pay a kind of extravagant attention to ruling them out via experimental design and/or analysis of contextual variables.

If you did mean "the other direction" as alluding to the way that those studying the Arts regard the Sciences, though, I can only say that I concur. I was addressing Adora's question. But many of the phenomena one might note in answering that question have analogues in the way that humanities/arts students and faculty regard the sciences. Confirmation biases are as active on that side of the fence; armed with the belief that scientists are uncreative and unimaginative, for example, one can easily troll through the data and find plenty of evidence lending a spurious support to the belief.

[wade-w]

If you did mean "the other direction" as alluding to the way that those studying the Arts regard the Sciences, though, I can only say that I concur. I was addressing Adora's question. But many of the phenomena one might note in answering that question have analogues in the way that humanities/arts students and faculty regard the sciences. Confirmation biases are as active on that side of the fence; armed with the belief that scientists are uncreative and unimaginative, for example, one can easily troll through the data and find plenty of evidence lending a spurious support to the belief.

This is what I meant.

[Roland98]

It seems to me that this thread itself is something of an example of the perspective differences between science and the humanities. The scientists who have posted here point to differences in methodology and overall approach to explain the perceived binary opposition, while the more humanities inclined folk offer contextual explanations.

Needless to say, I tend more towards the latter, so Clutch's post, for instance, immediately clicked with me in a way that, say, wade's or Michael's did not. The differences in the disciplines, although they are significant at this point in time and place, are not sufficient explanation to me of what can sometimes be a very hostile opposition. I need more history, more sociology, more context for it to make sense to me.


It's interesting that you include me as one of the "scientists" that responded. Now, you are correct in that I chose to take the same approach to the question as Roland98 and The Lone Ranger. However, I am in no way a scientist. In college, my major was Mathematics, which is traditionally considered one of the Liberal Arts. Regardless of how it may be seen by people in the Humanities, Math is most definitely not a science; it's more closely allied with philosophy than any other discipline. I minored in Anthropology, which was classified in Adora's OP as being in the humanities.

And I actually don't 100% endorse Michael's post, actually, and am not sure if I'd align myself with it or not.

I'm kind of in a strange place as a scientist, I guess; I don't really fit in anywhere. Though I use a lot of evolutionary principles in my work, I'm certainly not an evolutionary biologist. And while a number of human behaviors affect the spread of diseases I study, I'm certainly no anthropologist. And even though I study bacteria, I don't have a lot of interest in many of the areas most microbiologists find essential to their discipline. And I'm not statistics-oriented enough to be a true epidemiologist. So I am at a crossroads of all of these, without really being in any one field.

I also took a lot of anthropology courses in college, and a number of history ones (history of medicine is a particular interest of mine, and medical anthropology fits in nicely with that as well). There are a lot of areas here that the "hard scientists" researching many diseases could benefit from knowing (and vice versa, as in Michael's example of animal behavior). I guess I see them more as complimentary areas, rather than opposing forces, but maybe that's just because I'm at such an interface of a bunch of different areas that it's easy for me to see connections between, say, physics and sociology (and one of our researchers works in exactly that; he's a physicist who studies similarities between social contact patterns and, um, some kind of other physics-y network. :) )

[Clutch Munny]

If you did mean "the other direction" as alluding to the way that those studying the Arts regard the Sciences, though, I can only say that I concur. I was addressing Adora's question. But many of the phenomena one might note in answering that question have analogues in the way that humanities/arts students and faculty regard the sciences. Confirmation biases are as active on that side of the fence; armed with the belief that scientists are uncreative and unimaginative, for example, one can easily troll through the data and find plenty of evidence lending a spurious support to the belief.

This is what I meant.

I have wondered more than once whether I waste more time arguing fruitlessly with humanists about their unwarranted prejudices towards the sciences, or with scientists about their unwarranted prejudices towards the humanities. I suppose that if each group thinks I'm an apologist for the other, I'm where I want to be. The crowning achievement, I hope, will be to get grants from both SSHRCC (http://www.sshrc.ca/web/home_e.asp) (fittingly, pronounced "shirk") and NSERC (http://www.nserc.gc.ca/index.htm)!

[The Lone Ranger]

Don't get me wrong, I'd be the last person to say that the humanities or social sciences are in any way unworthy pursuit. I'd also agree that I've heard far more humanities types criticizing the "hard" sciences for their supposed lack of imagination and their "hard-nosed" approaches to problems than I've heard scientists criticizing the social sciences or humanities for lacking rigor. Maybe that's just a function of who I hang out with, though.

One of the things that I've frequently lamented is the fact that there's so little correspondance between disciplines nowadays. It's striking to go back and read the writings of scientists like Darwin and T. H. Huxley and compare them to the writings of most modern scientists. Not only would a passage from one of these 19th-century scientists often contain references to biology (obviously), but to physics and geology and astronomy as well -- but in addition, he'd think nothing of throwing in a reference to an economic theory or even Shakespeare or Greek mythology to clarify a point, if only through analogy.

It's scarcely possible to imagine such a thing in the writings of most modern scientists. (My advisor becomes rather annoyed at times with the "literary tendencies" of my writings, and insists that they all be cut out.)

I definitely think that people in the "hard" sciences, the "soft" sciences and the humanities could benefit from broadening their horizons.

Cheers,

Michael

[wade-w]

And I actually don't 100% endorse Michael's post, actually, and am not sure if I'd align myself with it or not.


Interesting. I actually agreed with both of you. I saw your position and The Lone Ranger's as being two sides of the same coin; you felt that biologists would benefit from a greater collaboration with the humanities, and TLR said that social scientists would benefit from a deeper knowlwdge of biology.

[wade-w]

I have wondered more than once whether I waste more time arguing fruitlessly with humanists about their unwarranted prejudices towards the sciences, or with scientists about their unwarranted prejudices towards the humanities. I suppose that if each group thinks I'm an apologist for the other, I'm where I want to be. The crowning achievement, I hope, will be to get grants from both SSHRCC (http://www.sshrc.ca/web/home_e.asp) (fittingly, pronounced "shirk") and NSERC (http://www.nserc.gc.ca/index.htm)!

Heh. Last week I got into an argument with a physics type over the "usefulness" of Philosophy. I think you'll be happy to learn that in the end I convinced him that it is indeed a worthwhile pursuit, and further that everyone should become acquainted with at least the basics.

[Roland98]

And I actually don't 100% endorse Michael's post, actually, and am not sure if I'd align myself with it or not.


Interesting. I actually agreed with both of you. I saw your position and The Lone Ranger's as being two sides of the same coin; you felt that biologists would benefit from a greater collaboration with the humanities, and TLR said that social scientists would benefit from a deeper knowlwdge of biology.

Yeah, I agreed with that part; the part I can't say I agree with was more in the first part, simply because I'm not well-versed enough in the humanities to really be able to either support or refute his assertions. Hence my uncertainty with endorsing it.

[The Lone Ranger]

One thing that's probably important to keep in mind is what we mean when we say that we can "explain" something.

In physics and to a lesser extent chemistry, you can pretty-much explain a lot of phenomena more or less completely. After all, one electron behaves like any other, so if you know how it behaves once under a given set of circumstances, you know how it'll behave the next time it's in those same circumstances. Granted, quantum-level effects guarantee that you can never be 100% sure, though. On the macroscopic level though, physicists can often make predictions with 100% accuracy. (Okay, 99.99999% accuracy.)

For living things, this isn't the case at all. It's not even remotely true when you're talking about the physiology or behavior of animals, and especially if the animals in question are humans.

So, when you're recording physiological or behavioral data and you want to explain it, one thing you absolutely have to do is say how much of the data your model explains. We're so used to the fact that we can't explain everything in the biological sciences that we never bother to point it out, because we expect it to be common knowledge. So, when we say that we can "explain" behavior 'X' no one in his/her right mind thinks that it can be completely explained.


Maybe an example will make it clearer. I did my master's work with Eastern Screech Owls. As it happens, this owl species has two different color forms -- a reddish-brown form and a gray form. What I discovered was that there are striking physiological differences between the red ones and the gray ones. On average.

The model I constructed was able to explain 77% of the variability in the data I'd collected. My advisor and I were ecstatic. We would have been thrilled if the model had explained 50% of the variability.

So, I could explain 77% of the variability in the owls' physiological responses, in theory. That's pretty darned good, and so I wrote it up: "This model I've constructed explains 77% of the variability in physiological response."

What about the other 23%? Don't have a clue. Could be genetic factors; could be environmental factors; could be random chance. Probably, it's a whole bunch of factors. I don't know, and I probably never will.


That's one of the reasons that cross-discipline collaboration can be a good thing, I think. Going back to the study regarding grandparents and how much attention they pay to their grandkids, any evolutionary theorist or student of animal behavior would have expected such a pattern to be true of humans, if for no other reason than that similar patterns are all but universal in mammal species. But how much of the variability in grandparental attentiveness can be explained this way? (And how do you quantify it in the first place?) 20%? 30%? Personally, I'd be quite surprised if it was even that much.

In short, you'd expect such a pattern to be there, but that in no way implies that cultural factors don't play as important a role as genetic factors -- in fact, my guess would be that they'd play a rather larger role. That's why a good study would involve biologists attempting to explain the overall pattern, while sociologists and anthropologists and psychologists search for factors to explain the range in variability. Such is my impression, anyway.

Cheers,

Michael

[Desert Dweller]

When science provides the framework it is literature which gives us the detail. :yup: