Why are so many social scientists left-liberal?

Potatoeman · 13-02-2015 2:02pm

Jon Stark wrote: »

The article raises a fair point in regards to research and people manipulating their data to suit a result they wanted from the beginning, but I think it's a little unfair to level that specifically at social science. It's generally a problem across all academia.

Its particuarly bad in that field with new research referencing debunked studies. There seems to be an echochamber mindset with not enough discussion and those that speak out even targeted which ultimately damages those fields credibility.

KomradeBishop · 13-02-2015 2:41pm

bnt wrote: »

Haven't read the whole thread - I would need to be a social scientist myself to care that much - but it does seem to me that being "liberal" is correlated with liking people in general. If, on the other hand, you have more experience of people and have seen "the evil that men do", then you tend towards the "conservative" side of the political spectrum. It's not a coincidence that people tend (statistically) to become more "conservative" as they grow older.

That's false - people actually become more liberal as they get older:
http://www.livescience.com/2360-busting-myth-people-turn-liberal-age.html

EDIT: Ah, beaten to it :pac:

conorhal · 13-02-2015 2:50pm

shruikan2553 wrote: »

Which is exactly my point. Everything you said can switched around or directly applied to the right.

As an example. one of the popular arguments against SSM is that they just dont agree with it, falling into you "This is why 'feelings' and 'sensitivity' have replaced hard facts and responsibility in our society. Emotional drivel now comes first." which would be a more popular opinion on the right.

Being left or right doesnt make you a special snowflake, just 2 different borg collectives.

I suspect that the reason for this is down to the dissolution of the traditional concepts of left and right.
At some point not long after Thatcher declared that ‘there was no such thing as society, only individual men and women’ the power balance on the right began to shift away from classical conservatism towards neo-con libertarianism and in that regard the ‘right’ pretty much aligned with a similar core value shift that was taking place on the ‘left’.
Both the left and right effectively realigned their values to place the primacy of the individual at their core and both regarded the whole notion of society as defunct.
Both left and right today promote, not social contracts, but social division. They practice no ideology other than mé féin-ism and the only real difference between them comes down to who they think should pay for their rank sense of entitlement to do whatever they want, when they want, society doesn’t even figure into it.
In that regard neither is a political ideology, merely two groups of vultures fighting over the carcass of society for the best pickings.

KomradeBishop · 13-02-2015 3:02pm

Anyway - the whole premise of this thread was debunked early on: Economists are social scientists, and by and large, the economics profession is dominated by neoclassical economics (which is inherently very right-wing); which, much like Feynman describes, has extremely poor standards as a field of study, and has some of the most batshít/insane (and in many cases, just plain wrong) theories underpinning it (like the idea that people are all rational human beings - fitting a very narrow definition of 'rational' - and can be modelled as such on the scale of an entire economy, as having near-identical attitudes/preferences/behaviours - this is a part of mainstream economic modelling).

That's the state of economics as a field of study today - so it's no wonder practically none of them saw the economic crisis coming (despite only needing a graph of 'private debt to GDP' to see it), and are keeping us in this mess for a prolonged (probably permanent now, as there's no change in sight) time period, through bad policy - it's known as the 'dismal science' for good reason, and it negatively affects every single persons life through bad policy.

There are some who did predict (even model) the crisis before it happened, and who have a coherent theory of how economic crisis like that develop, and who are experts on ways to resolve the crisis - who are also pushing to reform economic education - but the whole field is resistant to change (it took more than 70-80 years for the reality that banks give loans by creating money from nothing, without reserves being a limit, to displace the idea that banks loan using deposits/savings), so resistant that it will probably take decades before it stops indoctrinating people into holding economic views, that lead to bad policy.

Manic Moran · 13-02-2015 5:40pm

Venus In Furs wrote: »

And he uses the term "liberal-left" which puts me off straightaway. As opposed to... "liberal-right"?

In fairness, not too many Libertarians in social sciences either, I would wager. Political views tend to be a two-axis spectrum despite the crass linear view of "left=liberal / right = conservative.

KomradeBishop · 13-02-2015 5:44pm

Manic Moran wrote: »

In fairness, not too many Libertarians in social sciences either, I would wager. Political views tend to be a two-axis spectrum despite the crass linear view of "left=liberal / right = conservative.

? Austrian economists (so frequently Libertarian, that it's almost synonymous with Libertarianism).

Manic Moran · 13-02-2015 6:35pm

Venus In Furs wrote: »

Well analysis of how a society works, its nuances, grassroots and so on, is pretty left-wing in and of itself isn't it?
I mean, to give an example: when some kid commits an awful violent crime, the left wants to examine their background and what factors led to them turning out the way they did, whereas the right prefers to focus on the here and now and deems examination of the background to be making excuses, whereas it's not to make excuses - it's very valuable to address what factors lead to such problems, in order to prevent same recurring.
(Obviously I only mean very generally speaking).

I think this may be suffering from the same group-think which the original article is cautioning about in the first place (and the problems of a homogenous group dealing with a problem are well known). I can see a number of fallacies in the hypothesis. If you will forgive my doing some stereotyping of my own below to illustrate the point.

1) Combining ethics with cause. There is a spectrum of ethics, you can't really say that Kant is any more or less correct than Hegel, though they are fundamentally quite different. In the context of the above, the 'left' side may think that the situation explained the crime (In the classical ethics example: A man steals to feed his family), whereas the 'right' may believe that the correct response to the situation should have been under no circumstances to break the law and that the solution should lie elsewhere. After all, regardless of background, an individual still has freedom of choice for any individual action (which results in any individual crime). (The reality, of course, is that any useful ethical model today is a blend) This is different from the larger social factors, which brings us to '2'.

2). Presuming that the right don't care about the larger social factors. This is untrue. Both left and right acknowledge that, for example, poverty, low education levels etc are problems in today's society and there is a correlation with crime and low standards of living. Both believe that the solution is to raise education levels, raise economic standards etc. The difference, in the current American simplistic left/right spectrum isn't over the factors themselves, the difference is the opinion on how to deal with them. An American 'left-ist' may believe in raising taxes and providing free universal education, or allowing everyone to have healthcare by subsidising people to be able to afford healthcare costs. Whereas an American 'right-ist', will believe in making education opportunities available to all by providing assistance to those who need it (eg student loans), and allowing everyone to afford healthcare by reducing the cost of healthcare to begin with. The philosophies of policy are extremely different, just look at the austerity vs spend theories of economic recovery, but those are differences in methods to achieve the same goals.

There is no reason why a 'left' viewpoint or a 'right' viewpoint is inherently better or worse for addressing social sciences, though yes, I will fully accept that there will be significant differences of opinion about the methods of application. I agree with the earlier poster that given that we have freedom of choice as to which career field we will pursue, and that people of a certain mindset will want to pursue a career in the social sciences field. I certainly don't agree with the poster who said that those on the right only care about themselves, given that police, firefighters, combat soldiers etc, who tend 'right', are putting themselves at risk for society. The difference is simply the manner in which they choose to devote themselves to public service and that in itself may be a reflection of the nature of the job: The professions which 'left'ists seem to go for seem to deal with abstract thought (journalist, professor, software developer) while professions which seem to appeal to the 'right' seem more based in the tangible (farmer, police, miner).

Wibbs · 13-02-2015 6:38pm

TheBeardedLady wrote: »

Are you basing that on the false Winston Churchill quote?

The opposite has been proven, actually:

Oh I'm bucking that trend tBL. My 25 year old self would view me now as a high ranking member of the Nazi party. :pac: Now I never went full hippie, you must never go full hippie, but I would have been pretty leftie liberal alright(minus the outrage seeking). These days on a few issues I'd most certainly be much further right of centre. As I'd never go full hippie, I'd never go full right libertarian either. I find both live in cloud cuckoo land on a few levels. Seems sensible at first then you look closer and the WTF's come thick and fast.

As for the social sciences? I suspect it's an area of study that attracts the left liberal personality in the first place and that's self regulating. You see this very strongly in US universities where it's all about equalism, but it's their version and if any dissent crops up they tend to throw the toys outa the pram.

PopePalpatine · 13-02-2015 6:41pm

Venus In Furs wrote: »

So far, kings and a bishop have posted. I await pawns, queens, knights and rooks.

Dammit, no room for Popes.

KomradeBishop · 13-02-2015 6:55pm

Manic Moran wrote: »

2). Presuming that the right don't care about the larger social factors. This is untrue. Both left and right acknowledge that, for example, poverty, low education levels etc are problems in today's society and there is a correlation with crime and low standards of living. Both believe that the solution is to raise education levels, raise economic standards etc. The difference, in the current American simplistic left/right spectrum isn't over the factors themselves, the difference is the opinion on how to deal with them. An American 'left-ist' may believe in raising taxes and providing free universal education, or allowing everyone to have healthcare by subsidising people to be able to afford healthcare costs. Whereas an American 'right-ist', will believe in making education opportunities available to all by providing assistance to those who need it (eg student loans), and allowing everyone to afford healthcare by reducing the cost of healthcare to begin with. The philosophies of policy are extremely different, just look at the austerity vs spend theories of economic recovery, but those are differences in methods to achieve the same goals.

One of the most useful ways of distinguishing people from left/right economically, that I've heard is:
Economically, a right-leaning person will believe that the limit to this spending should be a Balanced Budget (taxes = spending) or surplus, even if the economy is heading into deflation - so a lot of 'left-wing' people, are actually pretty much on the right economically - whereas an economically left-leaning person will believe this spending should be limited by hitting Inflation of around 2-4% (this includes funding using government debt), gradually solving both aggregate demand and deflation problems.

Bizarre monetary unions like the Euro though, have made the latter politically impossible, because funding the spending using debt, can only be done centrally at an EU level - otherwise the interest rates are prohibitive for many countries (unless you're Germany).

Eugene Norman · 14-02-2015 2:23am

KomradeBishop wrote: »

At 1% it would take 900 years for the earth to reach boiling point - not that great a difference, on the grand scale of things - it still signifies that it is physically impossible to avoid.

At 0.1%, it would take 9000 years - and humans have been around for at least that long, no reason to think we won't be around then - it's still physically impossible to keep growth in energy use going like that, so he's not really misusing extrapolation.

At 0.1% growth, you'd practically already be within reach of a steady state economy anyway, and you wouldn't have much room for expanding economic growth (certainly not enough, to avoid constant economic crisis, due to how the monetary system and buildup of debt works - I think I elaborated on that in the Humanities thread).

It takes energy to produce goods (many of which the US gets from China these days, so it's not going to show in US energy usage charts) - economic growth comes from an increase in production of goods and provision of services; it all requires energy.

Here is the worldwide increase in energy production over the last 200 years (averaging more than 2.5% per year increase since WWII, using 6x more energy since then):

The 2.3% is incorrect - as I've shown, it's actually >2.5%!

Yes, he's not talking about carbon, he's talking about just energy production - it does not matter if that energy is from the sun: All energy conversions are subject to the laws of thermodynamics, and produce waste heat.

Even if you can efficiently use up all the energy the Sun sends the Earth's way, that only buys you time (and not that much, when you consider that the growth is exponential - at 2.3%, Earth itself would put out as much energy as the Sun, after 1400 years) - so it's still physically impossible to go on with neverending growth.

The point is: Growth will have to be finite (which I don't think you disagree with?) - current mainstream economic theory, most especially due to the way the monetary system works, depends upon it being effectively infinite.

The past involved a transition to technological societies and higher population growth. It's a major error to extrapolate. All western countries have seen increases in GDP per capita and reductions in the oil equivalent per capita in the last 20 years and that's without really trying. And future population growth is going to be much lower than the last 200 years or even 60 years. Your previous 2.5% includes population growth and technological transitions.

you are still not getting the first law of thermodynamics with regards the boiling point ( you are right about if the 2.5% were correct there would be a limit *for renewable energy* equal to the Suns energy hitting the earth but it's not likely).

"Waste heat" is a largely nonsensical term. If we got all our energy from renewables we would generate no extra energy than we get from the Sun, no more energy than is already there because that's the fundamental law of physics. Turn wind energy into the energy which powers Las Vegas and the wind cedes some energy to turbines which create electricity etc. Net extra energy on earth is the same as if Las Vegas were dark.

KomradeBishop · 14-02-2015 10:45am

Eugene Norman wrote: »

The past involved a transition to technological societies and higher population growth. It's a major error to extrapolate. All western countries have seen increases in GDP per capita and reductions in the oil equivalent per capita in the last 20 years and that's without really trying. And future population growth is going to be much lower than the last 200 years or even 60 years. Your previous 2.5% includes population growth and technological transitions.

Ya but you're extrapolating an increase in energy efficiency there, which has to become exponential to keep up with growth - that won't happen.

You have to look at world energy use, not western countries - which have exported much of their industry to the third world effectively (importing the resulting products); world energy use per capita is on a steady rise (may need to adjust starting year on graph):
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/world/energy-use-kg-of-oil-equivalent-per-capita-wb-data.html

Population may stabilize at some point - but then you're going to have to do away with growth, because it's unlikely you can have neverending economic growth with the same population size.

Eugene Norman wrote: »

you are still not getting the first law of thermodynamics with regards the boiling point ( you are right about if the 2.5% were correct there would be a limit *for renewable energy* equal to the Suns energy hitting the earth but it's not likely).

"Waste heat" is a largely nonsensical term. If we got all our energy from renewables we would generate no extra energy than we get from the Sun, no more energy than is already there because that's the fundamental law of physics. Turn wind energy into the energy which powers Las Vegas and the wind cedes some energy to turbines which create electricity etc. Net extra energy on earth is the same as if Las Vegas were dark.

You haven't made any point referencing the law of thermodynamics? His point is very simple: Energy production (i.e. energy conversion) can not be 100% efficient, so there will be some waste heat generated and released into the environment.

Despite wildly optimistic predictions, we are unlikely to get all our energy from renewables anytime in the foreseeable future - and it costs energy to manufacture/setup renewable energy capture, such that their 'Energy Returned on Energy Invested' is still not that impressive (except hydro), especially when you factor in infrastructure required to handle variable energy by storing lots of energy.

At 2.5% increase, we'd be using up all the suns energy hitting earth in 1,200 years anyway - and that's assuming 100% efficiency - hitting the waste heat problem again; so neverending growth is still impossible, and is still subject to the same thermodynamic limits I mentioned (the only factors that change, are timing - and timing changes very little, on the grand scale of things).

PopePalpatine · 17-02-2015 5:14pm

Eramen wrote: »

Bet you never thought you'd even be saying that on boards? The leftist Borg 'opinion-monopoly' is now over.

The whimpering, self-abasing guilt-complex that is leftism just ain't sexy and everyone knows it. The New Right is where it's at - Booh-Yeah! :cool:

By any chance, would this be propped up Jobbik/FN-style by Putin?

DavidRamsay99 · 17-02-2015 5:38pm

Most social scientists are left liberals who think that if data can be collected about the inequities in society they can use that data to socially engineer those problems away.
Left liberals believe humans are born good and made bad by environment.
Conservatives who are religious believe humanity is born with original sin and is personally responsible for his/her actions and his fate good or bad is his/her hands.
Scientists who are not weighed down by ideology and can look at the facts of human beings know that human behavior like that of other animals is governed by genes and inherited ingrained instincts and how they interact with the environment.
The economic system of capitalism which is the latest form of dog eat dog survival of the fittest, the hierarchical form of government, tribalism, racism, sexism, violence and crime are features of humanity because they are rooted in our animal nature.
Our primate cousins display forms of behavior that appear to show the primitive origins of modern human behavior owe much to genetics and are not entirely environmental.
Studies of the brains of criminals, psychopaths and the mentally ill appear to show physical features of their brains play a major role in their behavior.
Scientists are coming closer and closer to being able to model and predict what the personalities of people will be like when they are merely embryos by mapping their genes.
Ideologically inflexible left wingers in the social sciences seem to cherry pick evidence that supports their pseudo scientific views while rejecting evidence that demolishes it.
They believe in progressive politics and progressive policy despite evidence that shows ingrained human behavior cannot be legislated or trained away.

PopePalpatine · 17-02-2015 5:46pm

DavidRamsay99 wrote: »

Studies of the brains of criminals, psychopaths and the mentally ill appear to show physical features of their brains play a major role in their behavior.
Scientists are coming closer and closer to being able to model and predict what the personalities of people will be like when they are merely embryos by mapping their genes.
Ideologically inflexible left wingers in the social sciences seem to cherry pick evidence that supports their pseudo scientific views while rejecting evidence that demolishes it.
They believe in progressive politics and progressive policy despite evidence that shows ingrained human behavior cannot be legislated or trained away.

Where are these studies you speak of?

Philo Beddoe · 17-02-2015 5:48pm

Maybe if you're either (a) stupid or (b) selfish, you don't become a social-scientist?

Tony EH · 17-02-2015 5:52pm

Because scientific progress is achieved with liberal and open minded thinking.

"Progress" and a "conservative" mind are not good bedfellows generally.

I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid, I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative.

John Stuart Mill

DavidRamsay99 · 17-02-2015 6:07pm

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Where are these studies you speak of?

Here are just 3 peer reviewed studies I could find with a quick google search that support genetic and physical causes for psychopathy:

"Evidence for substantial genetic risk for psychopathy in 7-year-olds", Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 46:6 (2005), pp 592–597

http://www.socialbehavior.uzh.ch/teaching/semsocialneurosciencews07/Vidingetal_2005JCPP.pdf

"Prefrontal structural and functional brain imaging findings in antisocial, violent, and psychopathic individuals: A meta-analysis" Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, Volume 174, Issue 2, 30 November 2009, Pages 81–88

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925492709000882

"A genetic factor explains most of the variation in the psychopathic personality." Larsson, Henrik; Andershed, Henrik; Lichtenstein, Paul
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol 115(2), May 2006, 221-230.

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/abn/115/2/221/

The is also evidence that autism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, altruism etc have genetic causes rather than purely environmental causes.

If extreme human behaviors are most likely genetic then why not "normal" human behavior?

Pseudo-scientific Marxist ideas about human behavior is dead wrong.

steddyeddy · 17-02-2015 6:36pm

Tony EH wrote: »

Because scientific progress is achieved with liberal and open minded thinking.

"Progress" and a "conservative" mind are not good bedfellows generally.

My thoughts exactly. Some of the rational used by conservatives is not conducive to scientific thinking.

reprise · 17-02-2015 8:46pm

steddyeddy wrote: »

My thoughts exactly. Some of the rational used by conservatives is not conducive to scientific thinking.

Any examples?

reprise · 17-02-2015 8:48pm

Tony EH wrote: »

Because scientific progress is achieved with liberal and open minded thinking.

"Progress" and a "conservative" mind are not good bedfellows generally.

Very sweeping statements. Any examples?

TheBeardedLady · 17-02-2015 8:57pm

reprise wrote: »

Very sweeping statements. Any examples?

Eh, the clue is in the name.

Conservatives are called so because they want to retain traditional social institutions in culture and civilisation. Progress and discovering new ways to see the world and of doing things is contrary to its very foundation.

Sand · 17-02-2015 9:03pm

Not sure there is any link between rationality and labels as broad as "conservative" and "not conservative".

There are plenty of examples of policies and ideas on the left which, as Orwell himself said are so stupid that only very intelligent people could believe in them.

reprise · 17-02-2015 9:28pm

TheBeardedLady wrote: »

Eh, the clue is in the name.

Conservatives are called so because they want to retain traditional social institutions in culture and civilisation. Progress and discovering new ways to see the world and of doing things is contrary to its very foundation.

We are talking about science. It doesn't matter how liberal I might like to think I am, the laws of gravity, thermodynamics and the speed of light won't be changing to suit trendy little me.

DavidRamsay99 · 17-02-2015 11:22pm

TheBeardedLady wrote: »

Eh, the clue is in the name.

Conservatives are called so because they want to retain traditional social institutions in culture and civilisation. Progress and discovering new ways to see the world and of doing things is contrary to its very foundation.

You are completely wrong.

Retaining traditional social institutions in culture and civilization is NOT a barrier to progress and discovering new ways to see the world is NOT contrary to their very foundation.

TheBeardedLady · 18-02-2015 1:51pm

reprise wrote: »

We are talking about science. It doesn't matter how liberal I might like to think I am, the laws of gravity, thermodynamics and the speed of light won't be changing to suit trendy little me.

I thought we were talking about SOCIAL sciences?

Not sure what the trendy comment was in relation to.

TheBeardedLady · 18-02-2015 1:52pm

DavidRamsay99 wrote: »

You are completely wrong.

Retaining traditional social institutions in culture and civilization is NOT a barrier to progress and discovering new ways to see the world is NOT contrary to their very foundation.

Well that's me told!

conorhal · 18-02-2015 2:01pm

reprise wrote: »

Very sweeping statements. Any examples?

Hang on, he'll be back in a moment with a survery from the Sociology department to back it up, probably the one from Professor Fauxscience called, 'The right, just a bunch of dicks eh?'

Tony EH · 18-02-2015 7:49pm

What would be the point in wasting my time? You'd only gainsay it with some shite anyway.

In any case, if you cannot see the point in saying that a liberal, open minded, approach to social aspects is a boon, then there's no helping you.

If society had to rely purely on conservative mindsets to advance society, we'd still be jailing gay people for the "crime" of homosexuality.

reprise · 19-02-2015 12:40am

Tony EH wrote: »

What would be the point in wasting my time? You'd only gainsay it with some shite anyway.

In any case, if you cannot see the point in saying that a liberal, open minded, approach to social aspects is a boon, then there's no helping you.

If society had to rely purely on conservative mindsets to advance society, we'd still be jailing gay people for the "crime" of homosexuality.

Social scientists decriminalised homosexuality? who knew?

Why are so many social scientists left-liberal?

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