The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies

[Forogil]

I put true experiments in quotation marks because anyone who has studied any branch of science beyond highschool level knows it's a myth.
You can only have degrees of control in an experiment, which is ok. By your definition quantum Mechanics is less scientific than Newtonian Mechanics, which is obviously false. They are exactly the same. They are scientific theories.

Some quantum experiments can be controlled rigoursly, some not - as anyone who studied science would know.

[Direpenguin]

This paper wasn't peer reviewed by hundreds of different actual scientists like the papers proving climate change is a reality are.

Oh, so long as something is peer reviewed by like-minded individuals, who also stand to gain from its acceptance, then we can just take it as carved-in-stone fact. Gotcha.

Tell me, what is the acceptable ratio of deliberate falsifications to validated peer reviews before we can go ahead and accept something as gospel?

[Kraenen]

Because there is no degree to science, something is either scientific or not.

This really doesn't answer the question, and this kind of binary thinking doesn't really help.

There are many criteria to science that make it scientific. Many are necessary, but not sufficient, like true experiments - as someone else pointed out. Having more of these criteria would indeed make a study more scientific.

[HumbleDuck]

[QUOTE=Forogil;45813795]Physics have produced lots of experimental results and verified theories since the 1930s.

There have been some theories without experimental verification (string theory - and some deride it for that) - and there are some theories there we cannot make controlled experiments in the normal way (e.g. climate science, geology, cosmology - and evolution of stars) - but as long as we can make predictions based on the theories and the predictions agree with observations it is ok.[/QOUTE]

Yes, theories which had been put forward back in the 30s.

Wrong. However, that doesn't mean that "true experiments" is all there is to science.

You cannot conduct a ℅100 controlled experiment.

- - - Updated - - -

Some quantum experiments can be controlled rigoursly, some not - as anyone who studied science would know.

Rigorously controlled experiment is not a true experiment.

[Zogarth]

What I've touched on is typically what people view as science and is in line with the history and philosophy of science. The bold really just underscores a core reason why social science isn't real science. And that's perfectly fine, because trying to understand worker productivity or something like that is a valid and important topic to research.

It would water down the meaning so much if science were just a research into better understanding something. I don't think you've thought this through - your view implies there is some method of researching a subject, yet you haven't detailed what this method is. My answer would be the scientific method, as I've described it briefly.

Problem is that there is not one method to research something, it all depends on the methodology. And it was wrong of me to say "find truths" it would be more right to say "find the one truth". The method of researching something differs greatly. When good quantitative data is available it will ofc be used, and if it can be collected so will it if possible. And as I said, it is not only the research to better understanding into something, but having deliberate and well explained methodology doing it. What makes something "science" is in my view the level at which it is done. Something like the paper in question in this thread, I would not call science. It has too many flaws and "bad" conclusions.

[Mafic]

LOL The abstract is horrid...climate change...toxic masculinity...what does all that have to do with social constructs of transgenderism?

[Spectral]

It does not make it less scientific, it makes it less objective. Something like theories around leadership and strategy is pretty much impossible to find objective truths, as there is too many variables, and that humans are complicated creatures. What may be viewed as "right" today, may not work for shit in a couple of years.

This means it's not science. If there is not an empirically testable hypothesis that is reproducible, it's not science.

That's fine. Not everything needs to be science. Most sources of useful everyday truths aren't scientific and that's OK. What's irritating is when unscientific things play dressup as science in order to gain more credibility.

[Garnier Fructis]

LOL The abstract is horrid...climate change...toxic masculinity...what does all that have to do with social constructs of transgenderism?

It was specifically written to be bad. That's why things which have nothing to do with transgenderism made it in. Says 'hoax' right in the title.

[Zogarth]

This means it's not science. If there is not an empirically testable hypothesis that is reproducible, it's not science.

That's fine. Not everything needs to be science. Most sources of useful everyday truths aren't scientific and that's OK. What's irritating is when unscientific things play dressup as science in order to gain more credibility.

Again, depends on your definition of science. But there certainly is bad science out there, and things that claim to be scientific when they are not. Gender studies is one of the bullshit things that claim to be science when they are not most of the time. But not always. If a paper comes out that talks about why women are more prone to take off-days when the child is sick compared to the husband, and it is transparent and open about everything it does, and reaches a viable conclusion that defines a number of factors that is most likely the reason for this. I would call that real science. It may not be able to reproduce it, and reach the exact some conclusion, and if an entirely different conclusion is reached, it may even debunk the previous paper.

I think this is more a problem of people perceiving something calling itself science to be an inarguable truth, than it is to call something that is not based on pure math science.

[Mafic]

Gender studies = philosophy

If it can be tested than it falls into the science side of things (eg Psychology). That is why Aristotle is often regarded as a philosopher and not a scientist, because he didn't test his theories.

[HumbleDuck]

This really doesn't answer the question, and this kind of binary thinking doesn't really help.

There are many criteria to science that make it scientific. Many are necessary, but not sufficient, like true experiments - as someone else pointed out. Having more of these criteria would indeed make a study more scientific.

That is credibility of a study and has nothing to do with the science itself.

[Zelk]

https://www.cogentoa.com/article/10....17.1330439.pdf

http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/...ender-studies/

So, someone made the effort to make a "paper" that is as much garbage as possible (yup, even MORE garbage than the usual gender study papers, which says A LOT) - and it got published

You forgot that they paid to get it a published in a rag that makes money by getting people to publish their crap

[Halyon]

I read the first paragraph and felt my brain-cells commit seppuku...y u do dis to me...well, us.

[Lady Dragonheart]

So... people think that this paper is serious in its intent? It's a satire of buzzwords, and not really much else... *Shrugs*

[Spectral]

Again, depends on your definition of science. But there certainly is bad science out there, and things that claim to be scientific when they are not. Gender studies is one of the bullshit things that claim to be science when they are not most of the time. But not always. If a paper comes out that talks about why women are more prone to take off-days when the child is sick compared to the husband, and it is transparent and open about everything it does, and reaches a viable conclusion that defines a number of factors that is most likely the reason for this. I would call that real science. It may not be able to reproduce it, and reach the exact some conclusion, and if an entirely different conclusion is reached, it may even debunk the previous paper.

I have no idea what useful definition of science you think include things that don't have testable hypotheses and reproducible results.

I think this is more a problem of people perceiving something calling itself science to be an inarguable truth, than it is to call something that is not based on pure math science.

I agree entirely. I think this is why social scientists are so desperate to be considered "real" scientists. I'd vastly prefer that we tamp down the rank scientism that infects epistemology than just start calling things science that aren't using anything that looks like scientific methodology.

[Skroe]

Is the journal that published it at all creditworthy btw (I cannot even find it ranked)? I am not excusing this, but it might simply be a junk journal that only exists for citations circlejerks.

No. It's not. It's a few year old open access online journal. Pretty much anything can go there.

So just so we're clear MMO-OT. We have a 6 page thread about an irrelevant "research" (more on that in a sec) that posted a paper in a journal that'll host basically anything, because that's it's purpose.

Oh and about the authors:

Jamie Lindsay, PhD, and Peter Boyle, EdD,
represent a dynamic team of independent
researchers working for the Southeast
Independent Social Research Group, whose
mission is obvious in its name. While neither uses
Twitter, both finding the platform overly reductive,
they incorporate careful reading of the relevant
academic literature with observations made by
searching trending hashtags to derive important
social truths with high impact. In this case, their
particular fascination with penises and the ways in
which penises are socially problematic, especially
as a social construct known as a conceptual
penis, have opened an avenue to a new frontier
in gender and masculinities research that can
transform our cultural geographies, mitigate
climate change, and achieve social justice.

Skip the part about penises and climate change, the boldened and underlined part in the "About the Authors" section tells you all you need to know.

Two idiots being idiots. What's on TV?

[Forogil]

Physics have produced lots of experimental results and verified theories since the 1930s.

There have been some theories without experimental verification (string theory - and some deride it for that) - and there are some theories there we cannot make controlled experiments in the normal way (e.g. climate science, geology, cosmology - and evolution of stars) - but as long as we can make predictions based on the theories and the predictions agree with observations it is ok.[/QOUTE]

Yes, theories which had been put forward back in the 30s.

Except quantum physics was started before the 1930s, and people had also started with star evolution before the 1930s.

And there has also been a number of other scientific theories since the 1930s.

You cannot conduct a ℅100 controlled experiment.

You can, there are many experiments where the errors is less than 0.001% - and 99.999% rounded is 100%.
Some like quantum electrodynamics can give values that are correct within 99.999999%.

[HumbleDuck]

Some like quantum electrodynamics can give values that are correct within 99.999999%.

That is still not absolute. Quantum ( and by extent quantum field) revolves around this very concept.

[Thoughtful Trolli]

This could be real.

The female form is natural, but a parasite generates the Y chromosome turning fetuses into men. Only their nipples survive the transformation.

"manhood' Is as awful and poisonous as Lavos parasitism, and the only way we'll be free from this difficult-to-purge alien parasite will be when we're all pure women with reinstated asexual reproduction like whiptail lizards and all toxic testosterone wiped from this planet from lithosphere to core. Then we can return to mother to daughter cloning deity preservation instead of this constant fractal degeneration through the penis spit and everything it represents.

We're being preyed upon by alien dick, but we WILL survive, not succumb!

[Flatspriest]

Yet another reason the authors of the study should request a refund from the universities they got their pointless degrees from.