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Pastimes : G&K Investing for Curmudgeons -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Apollo who wrote (6911)	10/3/2000 2:30:15 PM
From: Dr. Id	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22706

it would be interesting to explore whether there's a difference between the natural sciences and social sciences in this regard. It's so much more difficult to come up with real intellectual progress in the latter that I am extraordinarily skeptical of people in those fields who use mathematical correlations without theoretical analysis to make a point. Aha! We agree. Seriously, my personal take is that the "social sciences" are important, but lack of rigorous evaluation with proper statistics and experimental design can sometimes undermine investigative efforts. And I think this lack of rigor may possibly be more common in the social sciences than in the physical sciences. Some of the worst research I've ever seen has been done by MD's. Lacking in experimental design, shoddy control groups...I've even seen studies in medical journals with NO control groups (I won't even get into the ethical problems with how much medical research is funded by drug companies to study their own drugs while they wine and dine the physicians doing the research!) The medical journals are often much less rigorous than the psychology journals (in fact, many colleagues who have had articles turned down by psychology journals will often successfully submit to some of the medical journals and get published.) (This is a gross generalization, but in the spirit of the present discussion). Dr.Id@throwingmytwocentsintothisMosheritebattle.com

To: Apollo who wrote (6911)	10/3/2000 2:57:17 PM
From: tekboy	Respond to of 22706

Tekster, that was a very brave reply on statistics. actually, it wasn't, just a badly-worded jab in between diaper changes. Don't know why I said multivariate analysis when I did, in fact, understand that Bonferroni referred to measures of statistical significance; brain-fart, I guess. And I think it's perfectly legitimate to use data-dredging to come up with interesting correlations that warrant further exploration. But in the end, I guess, I don't consider something a truly scientific explanation until I hear why a pattern exists, not just that it does exist. As for the social sciences, I think the problems with most research there do indeed stem from lack of intellectual rigor, bad experimental design, etc., as well as the inherent squishiness of the subject matter, but I don't think the answer lies in better statistics. 99% of the time that just gives pinheads more (unwarranted) confidence in findings that look precise but are in fact really squishy. I'm a strong believer in qualitative methodology--i.e., good old-fashioned logic--as a cure for most of my field's problems... ctb/A