[ExI] weirdos

William Flynn Wallace foozler83 at gmail.com
Wed Jul 20 14:53:21 UTC 2016


On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 9:13 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> Fun article on why everything we think we know on sociology is messed up.
> Reason: far too many theories are based on the behavior of Enslish-speaking
> undergrads, a dataset far from representative of humanity.
>
>
>
>
> https://aeon.co/essays/american-undergrads-are-too-weird-to-stand-for-all-humanity?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ddf0988c9c-Daily_Newsletter_20_July_20167_20_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-ddf0988c9c-68957125
>
>
>
> I often wonder about us, those who are reading this now.  We are all far
> more alike than we are different.
>
>
>
> spike
>
> ​Behaviorists did research with the typical white rats and assumed that
the principles of learning they discovered were universal.  Then some guys
caught some wild rats and tested them with the same mazes, etc.  Completely
different results.

Keep in mind:  every generalization from a sample to a population is an
assumption and often invalid.  But no reputable researcher would claim that
their results are facts without testing on different samples.

(How many times did the physicists repeat the experiment that found the
Higgs boson?)

Many researchers in my areas like personality and moral behavior, have
networks worldwide that repeat the studies with subjects in different
countries.

So it's not like the problem is unknown.​

​ But sociology is the least scientific of all behavioral sciences.
Unless you count economics.

bill w​

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