> Much of my research began with a large claim about society (e.g., "consumer culture constructs identities") and I then searched texts for language that could illustrate that claim. Because almost any passage could be interpreted that way through a sufficiently flexible framework (and enough imagination), it was difficult to say what evidence would prove the claim wrong.

Doesn’t sound like you’re doing science, to me.

In fact, this is the crux of the whole reproducibility crisis in social sciences, is it not?

This also stood out to me, such that this article really has no bearing on the validity of advanced degrees in the sciences. Case in point, if you got a "Doctor of Sciences" degree and "had no idea what a p-value was or why the hell anyone would take the logarithm of a number" that is clearly not a scientific degree.