Is anyone tracking how much damage to society bad social science has done? I imagine it's quite a bit.

roadside_picnic 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The most obvious one is the breakdown of trust in scientific research. A frequent discussion I would have with another statistics friend of mine was that that anti-vax crowd really isn't as off base as they are more popularly portrayed and if anything, the "trust the science!" rhetoric is more clearly incorrect.

Science should never be taught as dogmatic, but the reproducibility crisis has ultimately fostered a culture where one should not question "established" results (Kahneman famously proclaimed that one "must" accept the results of the unbelievable priming results in his famous book), especially if that one is interested in a long academic career.

The trouble is that some trust is necessary in communicating scientific observations and hypothesis to the general public. It's easy to blame the failure of the public to unify around Covid as based around cultural divides, but the truth is that skepticism around high stakes, hastily done science is well warranted. The trouble is that even when you can step through the research and see the conclusions are sound, the skepticism remains.

However, as someone that has spent a long career using data to understand the world, I suspect the harm directly caused by the wrong conclusions being reached is more minimal than one would think. This is largely because, despite lip service to "data driven decision making", science and statistics very rarely are the prime driver of any policy decision.

	▲	seec 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion. Science is relevant for those who care about finding the truth, just because they want to know for sure. But for most people science doesn't really make much difference in how they choose and operate. Knowing the truth doesn't mean you are ready to adapt your behavior.

▲

BeetleB 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I imagine it's comparable to the damage done when policies are set that are not based on studies.

Let's be candid: Most policies have no backing in science whatsoever. The fact that some were backed by poor science is not an indictment of much.

	▲	rgblambda a day ago \| parent [-]
		From a political point of view, it may actually be beneficial for a policy to have no scientific basis. What happens when the science gets updated? You either have to change the policy and admit you were "wrong" to an electorate who can't understand nuance, or continue with the policy and accept a few bad news days before the media cycle resets to something else.

▲

feoren 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We rack up quite a lot of awfulness with eugenics, phrenology, the "science" that influenced Stalin's disastrous agriculture policies in the early USSR, overpopulation scares leading to China's one-child policy, etc. Although one could argue these were back-justifications for the awfulness that people wanted to do anyway.

▲

systemstops 2 days ago | parent [-]

Those things were not done by awful people though - they all thought they were serving the public good. We only judge it as awful now because of the results. Nearly of these ideas (Lysenkoism I think was always fringe) were embraced by the educated elites of the time.

	▲	daoboy 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You are absolutely right. Another interesting example: The man who invented the lobotomy won a Nobel Prize for it.
	▲	feoren 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Lysenkoism! That's the one. Thank you for reminding me of the name (and for knowing what I was grasping at). I think some "bad people" used eugenics and phrenology to justify prior hate, but they were also effective tools at convincing otherwise "good people" to join them.

▲

izabera 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

i'm struggling to imagine many negative effects on society caused by the specific papers in this list

▲

systemstops 2 days ago | parent [-]

Public policies were made (or justified) based on some of this research. People used this "settled science" to make consequential decisions.

Stereotype threat for example was widely used to explain test score gaps as purely environmental, which contributed to the public seeing gaps as a moral emergency that needed to be fixed, leading to affirmative action policies.

	▲	seec 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		To be honest, whether they had a "study" proving it or not I think those things would have happened anyway. It's just a question of power in the end. And even if you could question the legitimacy of "studies" the people in power use to justify their ruling, they would produce a dozen more flawed justifications before you could even produce one serious debunking. And they wouldn't even have to give much light to your production so you would need large cultural and political support. Psychology exists mostly as a new religion; it serves as a tool for justification for people in power, it is used just in the same way as the bible. It should not be surprising to anyone that much of it isn't replicable (nor falsifiable in the first place) and when it is, the effects are so close to randomness that you can't even be sure of what it means. This is all by design, you need to keep people confused to rule over them. If they start asking questions you can't answer, you lose authority and legitimacy. Psychology is the tool that serves the dominant ideology that is used to "answer" those questions.

▲

rgblambda 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I once did a corporate internal management course that was filled with pseudoscience bullshit. I imagine the impact of that course on the company's productivity was net negative. I'm sure lots of orgs have similar courses.

Learning styles have also been debunked for decades though they continue to be used in education. I saw an amusing line in an article that said 90% of teachers were happy to continue using them even after accepting they're nonsense.

And that's just theories that have been debunked (i.e. proven wrong).