Education Jobs

[Haykakan]

Re: Education Jobs

You dont need a phd in statistics to use statistics.

Not saying we don't need other fields, I'm just saying putting a subject like political science as scientific as mathematics is not accurate at all. Many sociologists/psychologists use statistics without knowing much about it. They just press a button look at a p-value and start making "conclusions". Many times such conclusions turn out to be BS and naive as a result of not having a deeper understanding of the statistics they used to analyse it. Research in any field without having a decent knowledge of mathematics/statistics can be rather dangerous.

[Mos]

Re: Education Jobs

You dont need a phd in statistics to use statistics.

I never said that. But you should have a fundamental understanding of statistics and how it works before going into research and using it.

[Haykakan]

Re: Education Jobs

All research based disciplines are required to do well in a comprehencive statistics class. I took mine while i was getting my MBA-it is a required class and you have to score high to pass it. People doing research which uses statistical data usually know what they are doing and most researchers are not looking to lie about the results. Your disrespect twords other disciplines falls under the same catagories as gays are going to destroy Armenia, as feminists are going to destroy Armenia, as Armenians are a pure race which has never had a drop of anything other then armenian blood in it. All of this is bs and just shows how some people are just dying to disrespect others just to bolster their own feelings of "i am the way all should be". It is easy to jump on a bashing bandwagon but much harder to recognize what is right and harder yet to stand up for it. You are a perfect example of a person who needs badly an education in the very fields of study you are bashing.

I never said that. But you should have a fundamental understanding of statistics and how it works before going into research and using it.

[Mos]

Re: Education Jobs

All research based disciplines are required to do well in a comprehencive statistics class. I took mine while i was getting my MBA-it is a required class and you have to score high to pass it. People doing research which uses statistical data usually know what they are doing and most researchers are not looking to lie about the results. Your disrespect twords other disciplines falls under the same catagories as gays are going to destroy Armenia, as feminists are going to destroy Armenia, as Armenians are a pure race which has never had a drop of anything other then armenian blood in it. All of this is bs and just shows how some people are just dying to disrespect others just to bolster their own feelings of "i am the way all should be". It is easy to jump on a bashing bandwagon but much harder to recognize what is right and harder yet to stand up for it. You are a perfect example of a person who needs badly an education in the very fields of study you are bashing.

What disrespect? The fact that I said political science is not based on mathematical/scientific theory like mathematics and physics are? I'm just stating a fact. In my opinion, it is crucial for a field of study to have a concrete mathematical theory to it, because when it doesn't, it becomes a mix of subjective opinions and quasi-theories. Many researchers may very well have taken a course of statistics, that doesn't mean they always use statistics correctly nor understand the science of statistics at a fundamental level. Some look at a p-value without taking into account fundamental biases that often exist, some even can't get past the primitive notion of "correlation doesn't imply causation". It's funny that you are suggesting all researches have a fluid understanding of statistics, and don't mis-use the science.

[Siggie]

Re: Education Jobs

I know more about science and mathematics than you. And my degree is in mathematical sciences. Yes PolSci has very little mathematical theory. Just take a look at some of the courses PolSci people have to take. Biology has theory behind it. The fundamentals of Biology derive from Chemistry, which derives from Physics and which in turn derives from Mathematics. So please don't ever put PoliSci at level of the natural sciences or mathematics. It's an insult to actual scientists in those fields.

Hit a nerve, eh?

Mos, what's your background exactly? Because it sure doesn't sound like you do. You do know that science is about more than math right?


"Biology has theory behind it." What does that even mean? You're just saying words now...
What "theory" is behind Biology that makes it a science which is lacking from Poli Sci? Just your uttering of that question reinforces my conclusion that you do not know what you're talking about.

[Haykakan]

Re: Education Jobs

Indeed he has no idea what he is talking about. The fact that correlation does not mean causation was drilled into students many times over in psychology and sociology classes on the undergrad level.

[Mos]

Re: Education Jobs

Hit a nerve, eh?

Mos, what's your background exactly? Because it sure doesn't sound like you do. You do know that science is about more than math right?


"Biology has theory behind it." What does that even mean? You're just saying words now...
What "theory" is behind Biology that makes it a science which is lacking from Poli Sci? Just your uttering of that question reinforces my conclusion that you do not know what you're talking about.

I said Biology derives from Chemistry which derives from Physics which derives from Math. As you see the foundation of biology is different than foundation of political science for example. Math is the most pure science and is the natural foundation for many of the sciences. Physics describes many of the fundamental chemical interactions that allow for Chemistry to exist as a science and not alchemy. And so forth. My background is in applied mathematics, but that's besides the point here. I've also done research in Chemistry, more specifically polymer research. I once took a political science course for the fun of it and was left greatly disappointed at the lack of theory in that science as opposed to these other fields.

[Mos]

Re: Education Jobs

Indeed he has no idea what he is talking about. The fact that correlation does not mean causation was drilled into students many times over in psychology and sociology classes on the undergrad level.

That's beside the point though. Some researchers still make mistakes in their work by violating this principle. For example, take a look at all those studies that come out regarding 'X" causing Cancer or not causing cancer....

[Haykakan]

Re: Education Jobs

Violating that principle is bad science and will be called out in peer reviews - the same biases exist in all fields of science so what is your point? Math is not just the basis for physics and chemistry it is the bases for all other fields to including social sciences. Just because you disagree with the facts that are found in lets say psychology or sociology does not make these fields bad science.

[Siggie]

Re: Education Jobs

So what I'm reading from that is that you did an undergraduate major in applied mathematics and worked as a research assistant or something on some kind of research. Hardly enough to claim any sort of "expertise" in any scientific field.

Let me try being less critical and more instructive ... Science is a method. It isn't a subject. Science is what you apply to a field defined by a theme in the type of research questions that are asked. E.g. Political science dealing with research questions having to do with politics and political beliefs and the like. Science is science is science. Whether the question "How do we perceive color?" is asked by a neurologist, psychologist, or physicist is not relevant. If we apply the scientific method in attempting to answer the question and test related hypotheses, we are doing science.
Your disappointment stems from the SUBJECT of the scientific inquiry. It is more difficult to study people because they vary much more than white rats, which vary much more than samples of a given element. It's harder to do and to control for extraneous, potentially confounding variables, but we do our best and we still apply the exact same methods.
There are programs in these fields which are a little more on the humanities side than the social science side perhaps and certainly quality varies greatly among programs at different institutions. In some classes the way in which the information that is communicated was learned isn't emphasized and that's too bad in my opinion. When I teach, I don't create that distance between the acquired knowledge and the application of scientific inquiry which led us there. I take a more scientific, methdological emphasis, but not everyone does. Also, fyi, I have friends from these "hard science" fields who have said to me that I (background in Psych) have more research methods and stats training than they do, because they are trained to apply in their narrower, much less variable fields, and they learn only the limited methodologies/analyses that typically use. Whereas, I seem to have expertise with methodology and stats that is more easily applied across disciplines and in "real world application." So, it's really specifically about how much relevant "how to do science" training one receives and not the field in which they receive it. To make a blanket statement that Poli Sci is not a science is...well, ignorant.