My new YouTube video about atheism

[GrandizerII]

That doesn't make the research less scientific.

But it does. Scientific methods that are a normal thing in natural sciences are rarely applied in social sciences. In physics, any experimental result has a p-value, usually on the order of magnitude of one over a million. In linguistics, p-value is rarely calculated. And when it is, it's usually on the order of one over hundred or so.

Science isn't just about experiments. Science also involves theorizing based on the repeated observations made in nature or the results of prior studies. Einstein wasn't doing any experiments when he came up with the idea of relativity. And in fact, there are certain fields in physics that don't generally involve experiments, such as theoretical physics. It's something similar with social science.

We definitely do have something called the p-value in experimental psychology as well. Just so you know. Sometimes, depending on how cautious we need to be, it's 1/100. Sure it's not as extreme as 1/1000000 but that's more a difference in degree really. Again, science doesn't operate on absolute certainty.

Usually, whenever I hear someone say that the social sciences aren't really science, it's often said in a prejudiced way as a means to diminish the quality of contributions made in these fields, similar to how philosophy is also derided as something that's quite useless. It's a prejudiced stance borne out of ignorance not of facts.

And some of these trials, believe it or not, are true experiments.

I am not saying it's never possible to make systematic observations or controlled experiments in social sciences. I am saying it's usually not possible.

Which is also a problem in ... wait for it ... the field of medicine itself! Is medicine then not true science? Is health science in general not true science?

Polls predict the results of the elections no better than guessing.

Hahaha, oh boy. If only statisticians were around here to have a word with you.

And, when there are more rigorous forms of science, the results of surveys mostly prove to be wrong. Surveys found a huge correlation between brain tumors and cellphone usage, rigorous studies find no correlation whatsoever. Surveys found a significant negative correlation between vitamin E intake and lung cancer, rigorous studies found that vitamin E can even cause lung cancer. Surveys generally show calcium decreases the risk of heart diseases, rigorous studies tend to show it either makes no difference or actually increases the risk of heart disease.

Without the proper context, one cannot properly comment on this rambling you're doing here. Yes, studies may sometimes contradict one another in their results. Hence why the need for "further research". That's something you also see in "hardcore" sciences like physics.

And by the way, it's hard to come up with a rigorous study that can very confidently find some independent variable causing some dependent variable in fields like medicine and such. Why? Because you can't just manipulate independent variables however you want without violating certain ethical standards in those fields.

Social sciences generally rely on dumb luck for the hypotheses to be proven or disproven.

Sure, bud, lol.