(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3222887&forum_id=2Reputation#30476155)

Social scientists became obsessed with demonstrating their work to be rigorous and ‘scientific’ to a point at which they arguably became more concerned with method than with good thought and scholarship itself, or, perhaps more precisely, to a point at which they equated analytical rigor with good scholarship.

Until the mid-20th century or so theory informed and motivated method across the social sciences. Analytical utilitarianism of the sort done by the old Chicago school is seen by many as shallow, but there is at least a coherent and defensible philosophy behind it for those who take the time to understand it. But physics envy and insecurity regarding the rigor of their work drove social scientists to fetishize empiricism and positivism for their own sake.

Method is now the standard by which work is judged to some extent rather than a tool by which to develop theory. There are very few material unifying theories motivating thought in the social sciences today because nobody thinks it worthwhile to think broadly and ‘philosophically’ (broadly speaking) about society. Little of the analytical work done today is driven by incisive and substantive theories of society. It is enough for them to build a clever regression to win the respect of their peers.

The vast majority of the social sciences have thus been split between liberal ideologues writing Slate articles in slightly fancier language and applied statisticians who are better at playing with their models than they are thinking seriously about the world. Where scholars were once concerned with developing coherent and insightful social theories there is now a void.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3222887&forum_id=2Reputation#30476203)

The greatest problem with modern empiricism is that the empirics are often not used to make an argument, so to speak, nor to prove or disprove a theory. Empirics can be constructive when used to confirm or deny a hypothesis. “Analytical” work in the social sciences should be in the practice of developing ideas as to how various aspects of society function, developing models by which to test them, and evaluating the results. Instead, a significant amount of statistical work in these fields simply deals in regression-running. The researcher finds a data set, thinks about what variables might be related, and runs some clever regressions to look for evidence of causality. If he finds some, he has a paper.

And in his paper he’ll throw into his conclusion some ideas as to why the observed relationship might exist. But by providing explanations and theories as to why society might function in a certain way *after* observing the evidence, rather than before, he makes it very easy for himself to push his pet beliefs. Such analytical work doesn’t put his ideas to the test, as would be the case if he developed his theory beforehand and then constructed ways to test his ideas specifically. Instead, he simply fishes for analytical relationships with whatever datasets he can get his hands on and rationalizes the results with his prior beliefs without subjecting those beliefs to critical analysis (or without even trying to develop meaningful theories of society in the first place, as with the lazier researchers).

This is the sense in which empirical methods can be used to support most any ideology or theory, as MIG suggested above. Regressions are run, and the results, when convenient, are rationalized to conform to the researcher’s priors. This is not ‘rigorous’ scholarship, however ‘analytical’ it might be.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3222887&forum_id=2Reputation#30479219)

And even where theories are less concrete, I think, scholarship can be of value. Locke’s work on property is quite valuable in a modern setting. There is no absolute and verifiable ‘truth’ to be discovered through his work, perhaps, but philosophical frameworks through which to understand society are valuable regardless – often vital.

I worry that, between liberal ideologues and applied statisticians, not enough attention is given to this latter point today in the social sciences.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3222887&forum_id=2Reputation#30479438)

100%.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3222887&forum_id=2Reputation#30479326)

How the fuck is that not perfectly rigorous and undeniably clear?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3222887&forum_id=2Reputation#30476223)

it's not that they have made shit up, exactly, but social science "experiments" often rely on "effects" which are inferred from fairly thin evidence, and thus become more like some researcher's just-so pet theory rather than a rigorous inquiry into reality.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3222887&forum_id=2Reputation#30479017)