Big gripe of mine is the distinction of “soft” and “hard” science. I’m a linguist and it surprises people that I had to take advanced statistics, set theory, know the basics of acoustics, and have an understanding of calculus. But just because a field requires nuance and observational data doesn’t mean it’s automatically less rigorous than a field that deals exclusively with numbers. Can’t exclusively rely on statistical models to draw conclusions about economic trends or linguistic phenomena because the economy and language don’t exist outside of human society
Exactly! So many people assume the science of economics is unfounded because of what some purported “economists” say online or because of some already-irrelevant methodologies the science has abandoned for years already…
The most egregious problem being assuming that the methodology isn’t sound and scientific, and that it instead depends on the whims of the researcher (here they would place researcher in quotation marks, I imagine).
I have had to do game theory, statistics, econometrics, data science (thanks to my chosen specialisation), a lot of math especially about optimisations and linear algebra… And the quality of the academic research is empirical. Rarely will you even find a paper that only uses qualitative data in economics, except maybe in the behavioural economics field. Most often we use natural experiments to replicate RCTs within a macro environment, or double-blind experiments to investigate an economic agent’s systemic preferences and responses within a micro environment…
People who complain about the superficiality of the “soft sciences” have never stepped foot in a class beyond the very basics of that subject taught in highschool. They therefore project their current knowledge on the entire field, marring it…
Big gripe of mine is the distinction of “soft” and “hard” science. I’m a linguist and it surprises people that I had to take advanced statistics, set theory, know the basics of acoustics, and have an understanding of calculus. But just because a field requires nuance and observational data doesn’t mean it’s automatically less rigorous than a field that deals exclusively with numbers. Can’t exclusively rely on statistical models to draw conclusions about economic trends or linguistic phenomena because the economy and language don’t exist outside of human society
Exactly! So many people assume the science of economics is unfounded because of what some purported “economists” say online or because of some already-irrelevant methodologies the science has abandoned for years already…
The most egregious problem being assuming that the methodology isn’t sound and scientific, and that it instead depends on the whims of the researcher (here they would place researcher in quotation marks, I imagine).
I have had to do game theory, statistics, econometrics, data science (thanks to my chosen specialisation), a lot of math especially about optimisations and linear algebra… And the quality of the academic research is empirical. Rarely will you even find a paper that only uses qualitative data in economics, except maybe in the behavioural economics field. Most often we use natural experiments to replicate RCTs within a macro environment, or double-blind experiments to investigate an economic agent’s systemic preferences and responses within a micro environment…
People who complain about the superficiality of the “soft sciences” have never stepped foot in a class beyond the very basics of that subject taught in highschool. They therefore project their current knowledge on the entire field, marring it…