Science!
So, a short version of what this post is not about, but it gives you background: Some guy I’ve never heard of is a professor of some liberal arts field and performs studies that support his view that capitalism is bad, socialism is good. And it turns out that all of the studies were fakes. Made up. Not real. He lied, faked data and never performed the research.
But this ain’t a post about that, it’s a post about this. Here’s some of his “research”:
Stapel designed one such study to test whether individuals are inclined to consume more when primed with the idea of capitalism. He and his research partner developed a questionnaire that subjects would have to fill out under two subtly different conditions. In one, an M&M-filled mug with the word “kapitalisme” printed on it would sit on the table in front of the subject; in the other, the mug’s word would be different, a jumble of the letters in “kapitalisme.” Although the questionnaire included questions relating to capitalism and consumption, like whether big cars are preferable to small ones, the study’s key measure was the amount of M&M’s eaten by the subject while answering these questions. (The experimental approach wasn’t novel; similar M&M studies had been done by others.) Stapel and his colleague hypothesized that subjects facing a mug printed with “kapitalisme” would end up eating more M&M’s.
Forget that it was all a fraud. Let’s assume that his “research” was flawless, not faked and, in every way, absolutely perfect. Top notch social science, even. What the fuck does it prove? Nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Obama’s economic plan. Bupkis.
How is it useful? Not at all.
What’s the point? Grant money? Pushing a political philosophy, maybe.
This is “science”. And this stuff is taken seriously.
The ideals suck and their ways of trying to measure them suck even more. And that’s saying something.
May 8th, 2013 at 9:22 pm
The left has a long history of hijacking anything that has an air of unquestionablility. So now if you question their communist assertions, you oppose “science”. Same thing happened with women’s rights, the black civil rights movement, the environment– you name it. If there’s a good cause, they’ll attach themselves to it in an attempt to shut down debate, besmirch their opponents and make opposition impossible.
You don’t like Cap & Trade? You hate the Earth and want people to die. You don’t like Jessie Jackson? You’re a racist. You disagree with anything any Democrat says? You’re a racist, sexist, misogynist homophobe who wants to dirty the air, dirty the water, starve children and kick old people out onto the streets with no food or medicine. And you hate science. ‘Cause you’re a stupid, toothless, Bible-thumping, gun fetishing redneck sister-humper who hates science (and they call us bigots).
It’s 100% predictable and 100% transparent, and yet there’s not a Republican alive who won’t fall for it at least some of the time. Most Republicans have bought into it completely and are afraid to be seen with their voter base. In short; they are cowards. Unprincipled cowards, and others are just Progressives who’ve managed to infiltrate the party so as to capitalize on votes in certain districts where the majority is known to vote Republican. It’s all very simple stuff.
May 8th, 2013 at 11:38 pm
The funniest part is all the thoughtful, chin stoking progressives and journalists claiming they have “no idea” what may have motivated him.
Gee, with study designs like that, hmm, let me think…
May 9th, 2013 at 12:12 am
I still believe there are people out there that are absolutely serious about doing scientific research and that love pushing the limits of what we know. That being said the scientific community needs to start aggressively standing up against this fraud and deceit. Between the recent disgraces in health science, sociology, and climate science it is becoming quite easy to look at science as a whole as tainted and political.
Side-note Uncle: it looks like your posts are having some trouble with SmartQuotes. If you check out the main page, several of your recent posts have the ?-diamond instead of the a quote.
May 9th, 2013 at 8:09 am
And the best part about this cargo-cult science?
It’s so very easy. You dress up in the right vestments, you preform the correct rituals, and you recite the right prayers and you can clame the mantel of full earthly authority.
Pretty cool!
And so much handier than that expensive, messy, ambiguous real science with that whole validating restults and having falsifiable hypothesis.
May 9th, 2013 at 8:16 am
IMOH I don’t think this is necessarily something that you only see from “progressives.” I think most people believe the science that meets their world view the best. Though I will say that the liberal set seems to be extremely willing to vilify anyone that doesn’t fall into lock step with their beliefs and “science.”
The worst of it all is that it is making people more and more skeptical of science that is performed in an honest attempt to do science. The whole ClimateGate cluster flop is a good example. The emails show these guys were intentionally distorting the base information to get the results they wanted. They also refused to provide the math models for peer review. Without replication by independent entities, that isn’t science, it’s just someone’s wishful thinking.
May 9th, 2013 at 9:28 am
Whenever you see the words “Social Science,” “Behavioral Science,” or “Political Science” you can be assured that it is NOT science and is likely to be a scam in one form or another.
May 9th, 2013 at 12:21 pm
“Whenever you see the words “Social Science,” “Behavioral Science,” or “Political Science” you can be assured that it is NOT science and is likely to be a scam in one form or another.”
Hint: If you have to add the word “science” to your area of study, it’s not science.
Chemistry? Science.
Physics? Science.
Biology? Science.
Library science? Not science.
May 9th, 2013 at 1:50 pm
Although the questionnaire included questions relating to capitalism and consumption, like whether big cars are preferable to small ones
It’s like he doesn’t even know what capitalism is.
Which is, sadly, unsurprising.
(Hint, Herr Doktor Professor: It’s not about “consuming bigger stuff because bigger is always better because it’s more!!!”)
May 10th, 2013 at 10:00 am
Amazing that NYT picked up on Stapel (who is not at some US liberal arts college but a state university in the Netherlands)after only 3 years. But I think you over interpret the capitalism vs. communism aspect of this test, it was really about a whether a word on a cup, in relation to a text, would make a difference. It wouldn’t have made a difference if it would have been brown rice vs. french fries as the topic.