Social Sciences: Prediction or Premonition?
Social sciences: prediction or premonition
Originally published in Tvērums No 10. Maģija (Magic), Rīga, April 2025 Permission for re-publishing has been attained Translated by author, May 2026, Rīga
The Ancients used magic to understand the World around them. Theology, in its modern, broadened sense, is what followed magic in most of the World. The empirical sciences followed. This is a broadly accepted view. But not all that is accepted is correct.
One only needs to believe that some action is “scientifically-backed” in order to gain more motivation and some placebo-driven positive effect. Just as believing that an action is divinely favourable or imbued with magic – that alone is enough to derive some benefit. In other words, We believe in “science” not only as a process of gaining new knowledge but also as an authority. Just as magic or the divine. This is not necessarily a great evil but it becomes one when magical thinking is more widespread within some fields than scientific thought.
There are multiple domains of science in which academic dishonesty or the usage of esoteric mathematics is widespread. You see, they are attempts to mathematicize the unquantifiable minutiae of reality, each being converted into a co-efficient, thusly exaggerating their importance and further removing the result from the truth. Sociology comes most prominently to mind. For example, it was accepted without contest for multiple years that being in an unclean environment promoted xenophobia. The research article that reached this conclusion was allegedly conducted in an Utrecht railway station but the conditions and layout of the station did not match what was described in the paper; it was fabricated. Stories like this can be heard more and more. Sociology slowly starts to resemble alchemy in its degree of scientificity. Alchemist’s discoveries were very important for early empirical chemistry. Just the same, in modern sociology a large part of studies are true and conducted with the best intentions. But the quantity of false data is so large that it damages the credibility of the entire field. This field occasionally develops something truly useful, just as alchemists managed to extract elemental phosphorus and synthesize never-before-seen substances but the majority of popular studies do indeed resemble the afore-mentioned. It is not the few grains of truth that make a field credible, but rather the fact that it is systematized by a founded order of inquiry, which is followed by nearly every researcher. Of course, we cannot expect perfection from something as broad as a whole field of study – everywhere will always have dishonest or lazy people –, but the majority of social sciences researchers seemingly do not even set it as a goal for themselves to approach the ideals of good scientific practice. When citing the work of other researchers, it is almost never verified – action is governed only by an unlimited reliance on the principle of good will. For example, the infamous Diederik Stapel has in this way earned multiple thousands of citations to his works. A precise percentage-amount of falsified studies is unattainable because rarely anyone would answer truthfully to the question “Have you ever faked your data?”, even if it is asked anonymously. But with a reasonable degree of certainty it can be claimed that the amount of falsification is significantly higher in specifically social psychology than in science as a whole.
Thus there are whole fields of science that are comparable to magic. Firstly, they are often based upon a blind trust in famous researchers. This encourages a view of dishonest scientists as untouchable and honest researchers as infallible.
Secondly, it is much harder to avoid selective or politically “advantageous” interpretation of data in socially significant findings. Rarely anyone has an opinion about laser crystal growing but almost everyone uses their voice on matters of ethnicity and gender. And it is easy to present cases where pre-existing biases have dictated the results.
Third, when presented with data that would destroy current conceptions a way to “explain them away” is immediately sought. For instance, studies often refer to “as of yet unknown factors”, which, rather than salvaging a theory, only delay inquiries into its validity. Of course, these unexplainable factors could exist, nothing prevents that, but trust in the babblings of self-proclaimed wise men does truly sound like magic.
Most often the critique of “esoteric mathematics” is, with reason, levied against the field of economics. Human understanding of the chaotic market systems is not large. Any physicist would honestly admit that it is impossible to deterministically predict the gravitational interactions of 3 objects similar in mass. Even something as simple as the movement of water waves cannot fully be predicted or calculated. But, in contrast to this, there exists a whole field of study called “economics” which claims that it can predict changes in a market that consists of millions of “players”. It even hopes to do so with a high degree of precision. Exaggerated ambitions collide with reality when it becomes clear that consulting with a “professional” does not yield better results than blind guessing.
Economic theories provide good predictions in idealized situations. But real life, of course, is not ideal. Not all participants in a market will make rational decisions – this assumption has the highest level of effect on the result. Everyone in every avenue of economic activity has made a stupid decision. Multiplying this unpredictable offset times a million produces a result that is useless either due to its falseness or its unspecificity. In place of this, representatives of economic “science” give answers that have a degree of precision often in the hundredths of a percent. These figures might as well be derived from a crystal ball because they never fully materialize. Predicting market shifts is exactly like predicting the weather if every single droplet of rain was capably of independently deciding where it wants to go.
The magic of the World is not dispelled. At least not as much as some would think.
