Back when I was a physics student in the late 1970s, my physics teachers were pretty unified in and explicit about their dislike for so-called social “sciences.” Not only is there no science there, they said, there is no useful knowledge of any sort – it was all “pseudo” science as useless as astrology. Lots of “hard” scientists are taught to think pretty much the same thing today, but since our world is so much more politically sensitive, they also know to avoid saying so directly.
> Today’s science fiction authors also know better than to say such things directly, but it is really what many of them think: our tech future is predictable, but our social future is not, because physical science exists and social science does not.
At the risk of being extremely late to the party: isn't it true that our tech future is much more predictable than our social future?
Consider the hypothetical that Adolf Hitler or Lenin died in 1901; the history of the 20th century would look vastly different, with incomprehensible numbers of ripple effects on the present. Whereas, if Einstein or Bessemer had never been born, it is hard to believe that we would never have hit upon general relativity or the mass production of steel.
The social future is, in fact, difficult to predict because of chaos theory. Which individuals live or die and at what times is effectively randomly distributed, but individuals can have enormous impact on the future. The technological future is difficult to predict too, but more because it contains problems without known solutions - e.g. how to physically construct a space elevator, or how to construct a theory that accurately merges quantum mechanics and general relativity - rather than because of small changes in initial conditions leading to increasingly large and unpredictable changes.
Look, I think the other greatest SF writer in the world had it right in some senses (OK, probably more than some, but I'll digress). Remember way back in the foundation series, Lije Bailey goes off world and immediately asks to see a Socialolgist. THere isn't one, but there's an amateur who's making his own science as he goes along, but Lije, a simple policeman no less, is accustomed to sociaologists having verifyable scientifically deduced and statistically validated emprical evidence about why folk do stuff. Psychology also in Lije's Caves of Steel home town is indeed considered a very "hard" science with massive mathematical constructions explaing pretty well everything, Daneel eventually helps Harry Seldon come up with Psychohistory a mthematical model for predicting the future in large groups very precisely. I think we are that the point that the off-world amateur was at now, these sciences still seem "soft" to physicists etc, but due to the increasing pressure to be properly scientific they are evolving, and none of them have fundamentally undone their own existance in the process, the rise of psychology , anthopology etc in the world of business proves their Darwinian survival value, and I think in time (though I may seem cynical) people will prove a lot easier to predict and explain than all that wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff the physics and quantum physics folk are trying to figure out now. Cos people are essentially quite simple and unchaging once you understand their origins and thus their logic chains, but I feel a digression in the wings and I'm hungry.. Plus I think it's time to re-read caves of steel. Where did I put that.....
A version of the _Foundation_ trilogy where Hari Seldon is just a conventional macroeconomist (well, market monetarist) and the Empire is collapsing due to deflation and software patents, with John Galt as the evil Austrian economist threatening the nascent Foundation from within.
The post is about physical sciences and social sciences, not exact sciences and inexact sciences. The distinctions overlap but they are fundamentally different.
Asimov said he thinks it'd be a good idea if humans had some sort of science that studied aggregate human behavior, implying that he was was either unaware of macroeconomics, sociology, marketing science, et al., or skeptical of their value way back in 1987. Either way, I think his answer supports Robin's argument.
Alternatively, we hold predictions about our social future to a higher standard than predictions about our tech future. A tech futurist can provide a low-detail account of future tech and still be judged prescient, but a social futurist must tell us what clothes we'll be wearing and how we'll impress each other before his prediction even merits a response. It isn't that we don't believe the social sciences exist, it's that they aren't specific enough about our social future to be interesting.
I consider this more likely for two reasons: a) introspecting, my imagination asks far more specific questions about distant people than about distant gadgets, and; b) i find it implausible that a well-educated person today could sincerely believe the social sciences do not contain ''knowledge'' and cannot make general forecasts, i.e., they aren't sciences. I don't believe sci-fi authors or physical scientists are that obtuse or dismissive.
Lots of them think similarly, but know not to say so publicly.
They don't say it publicly because it violates a norm against deliberate attacks on the status of (some) other groups. This also partly explains why they think this way: self-serving bias. But why should physicists and engineers feel threatened by social scientists: status anxiety typically motivates such attacks.
Physical science has higher status than social science because of the success of physics and, particularly, the demonstrated power over nature. But the physical sciences don't hold all the status cards; the social sciences and philosophy have the status advantage of being far-mode, a characteristic that is then attacked by physical scientists. The dominant party in the status war still resents the strengths of its rivals, a common way for a subculture to negate the status claims of other subcultures or the dominant culture being to invert status values.
Today’sscience fiction authors also know better than to say such thingsdirectly, but it is really what many of them think: our tech future ispredictable, but our social future is not, because physical scienceexists and social science does not.
That may be true, but it makes you an exception to the rule, since the assumption about your em-world that engineers seem to find most questionable is that mind-transfer technology is imminent.
> Today’s science fiction authors also know better than to say such things directly, but it is really what many of them think: our tech future is predictable, but our social future is not, because physical science exists and social science does not.
At the risk of being extremely late to the party: isn't it true that our tech future is much more predictable than our social future?
Consider the hypothetical that Adolf Hitler or Lenin died in 1901; the history of the 20th century would look vastly different, with incomprehensible numbers of ripple effects on the present. Whereas, if Einstein or Bessemer had never been born, it is hard to believe that we would never have hit upon general relativity or the mass production of steel.
The social future is, in fact, difficult to predict because of chaos theory. Which individuals live or die and at what times is effectively randomly distributed, but individuals can have enormous impact on the future. The technological future is difficult to predict too, but more because it contains problems without known solutions - e.g. how to physically construct a space elevator, or how to construct a theory that accurately merges quantum mechanics and general relativity - rather than because of small changes in initial conditions leading to increasingly large and unpredictable changes.
Look, I think the other greatest SF writer in the world had it right in some senses (OK, probably more than some, but I'll digress). Remember way back in the foundation series, Lije Bailey goes off world and immediately asks to see a Socialolgist. THere isn't one, but there's an amateur who's making his own science as he goes along, but Lije, a simple policeman no less, is accustomed to sociaologists having verifyable scientifically deduced and statistically validated emprical evidence about why folk do stuff. Psychology also in Lije's Caves of Steel home town is indeed considered a very "hard" science with massive mathematical constructions explaing pretty well everything, Daneel eventually helps Harry Seldon come up with Psychohistory a mthematical model for predicting the future in large groups very precisely. I think we are that the point that the off-world amateur was at now, these sciences still seem "soft" to physicists etc, but due to the increasing pressure to be properly scientific they are evolving, and none of them have fundamentally undone their own existance in the process, the rise of psychology , anthopology etc in the world of business proves their Darwinian survival value, and I think in time (though I may seem cynical) people will prove a lot easier to predict and explain than all that wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff the physics and quantum physics folk are trying to figure out now. Cos people are essentially quite simple and unchaging once you understand their origins and thus their logic chains, but I feel a digression in the wings and I'm hungry.. Plus I think it's time to re-read caves of steel. Where did I put that.....
Freud → Venusian Level Greenhouse Effect
That escalated quickly.
Not for economics, the main social science on offer here.
#ThingsIMustNotWrite:
A version of the _Foundation_ trilogy where Hari Seldon is just a conventional macroeconomist (well, market monetarist) and the Empire is collapsing due to deflation and software patents, with John Galt as the evil Austrian economist threatening the nascent Foundation from within.
"may not be" isn't the strongest of propositions. Thanks for the data!
Facts disagree with you.
http://orgtheory.wordpress....
Science means using the scientific method. Climate 'science' and social 'sciences' fail on that account.
"implying that he was was either unaware of macroeconomics, sociology, marketing science,"
Or implying that he thought at least some of those did not meet his criteria (and he had good reasons to think like that).
The post is about physical sciences and social sciences, not exact sciences and inexact sciences. The distinctions overlap but they are fundamentally different.
Asimov said he thinks it'd be a good idea if humans had some sort of science that studied aggregate human behavior, implying that he was was either unaware of macroeconomics, sociology, marketing science, et al., or skeptical of their value way back in 1987. Either way, I think his answer supports Robin's argument.
Alternatively, we hold predictions about our social future to a higher standard than predictions about our tech future. A tech futurist can provide a low-detail account of future tech and still be judged prescient, but a social futurist must tell us what clothes we'll be wearing and how we'll impress each other before his prediction even merits a response. It isn't that we don't believe the social sciences exist, it's that they aren't specific enough about our social future to be interesting.
I consider this more likely for two reasons: a) introspecting, my imagination asks far more specific questions about distant people than about distant gadgets, and; b) i find it implausible that a well-educated person today could sincerely believe the social sciences do not contain ''knowledge'' and cannot make general forecasts, i.e., they aren't sciences. I don't believe sci-fi authors or physical scientists are that obtuse or dismissive.
Russia today has 100 billionairs and 300k millionairs with a population of 120m. 60% of people are earning the same or less than they were in 1980.
You can imagine how this average dollars are spread out. The reason is severe corruption on every goverment level.
I live in Russia so it's a sore subject for me...
Lots of them think similarly, but know not to say so publicly.
They don't say it publicly because it violates a norm against deliberate attacks on the status of (some) other groups. This also partly explains why they think this way: self-serving bias. But why should physicists and engineers feel threatened by social scientists: status anxiety typically motivates such attacks.
Physical science has higher status than social science because of the success of physics and, particularly, the demonstrated power over nature. But the physical sciences don't hold all the status cards; the social sciences and philosophy have the status advantage of being far-mode, a characteristic that is then attacked by physical scientists. The dominant party in the status war still resents the strengths of its rivals, a common way for a subculture to negate the status claims of other subcultures or the dominant culture being to invert status values.
But it does mean that it isn't real science. Just like 'social science' is not real science.
Today’sscience fiction authors also know better than to say such thingsdirectly, but it is really what many of them think: our tech future ispredictable, but our social future is not, because physical scienceexists and social science does not.
That may be true, but it makes you an exception to the rule, since the assumption about your em-world that engineers seem to find most questionable is that mind-transfer technology is imminent.