Physics Envy

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 12:59 pm

Or rather, why does this exist? What is with the 'soft sciences' envying the 'hard sciences'? I don't think there's anything less worthy about having your field being in sociology, ecology, or archeology as opposed to, say, physics. I think economics is just as important a field as, say, chemistry even if the former has a very unfortunate tendency to be politicized.

Just my opinion.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 1:26 pm

Because the physicists know their field is "right."

I mean honestly, while economics is an important field, there are multiple branches of it and some of the currently operating theories are by definition completely wrong. When a physicist writes a force/inertia equation h can tell you exactly what it applies to and why it happens. And most importantly, what the limitations of it are. When an economist draws out a market investment saturation graph, does anyone know what that actually applies to? Since it was derived theoretically, might it in fact apply to fucking nothing?

The home equity bias exists. You can measure it. So what does an investment saturation graph tell us? Markets seemingly don't become saturated and spill into other markets of investment. That seriously doesn't happen.

And that's why people in biology piss on people in economics. Because we grafted an ear to the back of a mouse. And they made the economic miracle of Chile.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:04 pm

No love for the Keynesians?

I mean, they were the ones who came up with the 'revolutionary' idea that spending money on the poor and middle class stimulates the economy and cures depressions. I think permanently killing the gold standard at least deserves a backflip.

But anyway:

The home equity bias exists. You can measure it. So what does an investment saturation graph tell us? Markets seemingly don't become saturated and spill into other markets of investment. That seriously doesn't happen.

This is a consequence of politicizing a field of science, especially one which you can manipulate the outputs. I mean, no matter how hard you try you can't prove baramins or flood geology. But the Chicago school assholes can 'proove' that Pinochet saved Chile's ass by fiddling with the numbers and moving the goalposts.

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:35 pm

A friend of mine went off on my because I said that getting your master's in business only prepared you to make a lot of money for someone else.

He said the same applied to all post-grad degrees.

I still don't regard business as a real college degree, if I was in charge it'd be taught in trade schools.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:43 pm

I don't think Chile was an example of an economics theory being flawed though: didn't they intentionally run it into the fucking ground and make a killing in the process? That's more like the equivalent of a hard scientist saying "Hey, that's interesting, sniff this vial... HAHAHA, it's Sarin gas!" than "Oops, that didn't work, back to the drawing board."

Except that the hard scientist above would get a life sentence* whereas those guys... got away scot-free, with a lot of money, and were congratulated for their great work?

And don't forget glow-in-the-dark dogs. Hard science let that happen. Oh, and cures for diseases and shit, but come on, GLOW IN THE DARK DOGS.

*not including some states that enjoy executing people.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:45 pm

Anything you cannot run a real repeatably experiment on is really fucking hard to prove anything about. Physics is easier to test. Biology is harder but possible. Micro economics? Even harder, but you can do it.

Macro? Yeah right.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 5:50 pm

I have Physics/Math envy because I can see people jumping right into my current field of research from those disciplines and picking things up faster than me because they have a better framework for understanding the math. And possibly because they work harder at it. Also, I failed introductory physics. Also, both of my parents are physics PhDs.

So, yeah, I have physics envy. ヽ(　￣д￣; )ノ

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:03 pm

What field is that Catharz?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 3:16 am

Physics has nukes.
Metallurgy has firearms.
Chemisty has sarin gas.
Biology has anthrax spores.

Arcaeology has flint arrowheads, Economics and Sociology merely predict when aggregate suicide rates jump.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 3:22 am

Geology has massive apathy toward events which take less then three million years to happen or don't wipe out 80% of life on Earth.

But, on the plus side, we're able to tell you where the oil is.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:29 am

TarkisFlux wrote:What field is that Catharz?

Psychology.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:35 am

-Username17

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:41 am

Er, not that kind of psychology. More investigating decision making via simple computer games. There tends to be a fuckton of math involved in the theory, hence the physics envy.

Maxus wrote:Geology has massive apathy toward events which take less then three million years to happen or don't wipe out 80% of life on Earth.

But, on the plus side, we're able to tell you where the oil is.

You also tend to drown in Alaska. Strapping large containers of rocks to your backs before trying to cross rivers can cause that sort of thing.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 7:30 am

Hard sciences are ones where the questions are more binary, whereas the soft sciences deal with more trends and perceptions.

Economics is a soft science, psychology is a soft science, sociology is a soft science. You don't always know whether the tests and the theories have dealt with all the variables.

In physics, the tests are whether rocks fall from the sky (they do) and what happens when they do. Geology, Engineering... These things tests can be set up to avoid outside interaction or subjective views. Fewer, or more easily controlled variables.

-Crissa

Absentminded_Wizard · Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:00 am

Actually, the biggest problem for psychology and the social sciences is that they started calling themselves sciences before any experimental work was done on human behavior. Basically, Freud took things his patients told them and fit them into an intellectual construct that made sense to him but had no basis in brain structure or studies of human behavior.

Similarly, economics suffers from having started in the 18th Century, before there were any experimental studies of human behavior. Thus, all the famous economic theories started with simple, blanket ideas about human thought and behavior that economists pulled out of their asses ("People always behave both selfishly and rationally? Sounds good to me; let's run with it."). In fact, economics suffers from so much inertia that only in the last decade have some economists started to say, "Maybe we could make better predictions if we paid attention to studies of how people actually behave."

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:20 am

Well for my part, I envy historians. They know lots of awesome stuff and they know where to look for/read about more awesome stuff.

The downside is that I cannot really think of a job for a historian except spawning more of the same (university professors). Sure there are some who get to perform at filk festivals and organize games, but those are exceptions.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 1:23 pm

Lots of history majors get work in foreign affairs and also in intelligence analysis. But the idea that you are undertaking an undergraduate degree to specifically prepare for a certain kind job is not supposed to be the point of a liberal arts education

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:41 pm

I met an opera major who decided two switch to global studies and apply for a job with the CIA her senior year, because opera majors already have to be fluent in four or five languages (English, French, German, Italian, Latin). Intelligence and foreign affairs tend to recruit from odd disciplines.

Lich-Loved · Post by **Lich-Loved** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 5:38 am

ckafrica wrote:But the idea that you are undertaking an undergraduate degree to specifically prepare for a certain kind job is not supposed to be the point of a liberal arts education

I don't know - many of the people that work at the mall near where I live are liberal arts majors. They beat out the other contenders for the job because they had a college degree that they couldn't do anything with. At least around here, if one goes to university for a liberal arts degree, one is training for work at the mall.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 6:30 am

That used to be a joke - that having a liberal arts degree was as good as no degree, for job prospects. But that they actually consider you more qualified for having it? Wow.

Absentminded_Wizard · Sun Jun 14, 2009 11:17 am

Well, my English lit degree landed me a job as a dishwasher in the armpit of the hospitality industry (despite the place's role in modern history). My cousin's English lit degree (from another university) got him jobs at various coffee shops. So I guess liberal arts is also decent training for Starbucks.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 3:55 pm

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:So I guess liberal arts is also decent training for Starbucks.

And particle physics is decent training for...

Customer Service!
Hello sir, how may I help you? Please choose one:
* buy concert tickets
* set up an office phone
* get a loan
* buy clothes
* get an abortion
* ask for legal advice
* provide legal advice
* complain at the top of your lungs about debt collectors
* offer phone sex

I found a better job eventually.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 5:30 am

liberal arts stuff

Or graduate school. It's pretty good about that.

Iron Mongler · Post by **Iron Mongler** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 2:26 pm

Maxus wrote:Geology has massive apathy toward events which take less then three million years to happen or don't wipe out 80% of life on Earth.

But, on the plus side, we're able to tell you where the oil is.

Sig material!

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:42 pm

I'm serious.

I'm starting to get that way, myself. I find it hard to get excited about the prospect of extinction for an individual species these days, because taking an Earth History class tells you that things have gone extinct many, many times, and something fills the void.

And one of my professors at the university used to work using microfossils to find oil for oceanic drilling. It's complicated, but boils down to using certain index fossils to get an idea of what time zone is so far down.

Funnily enough, the microfossils can also be used to tell climate change, with a much further range than the antarctic ice coring.

But that's a rant unto itself.