the.com/social science
Physics envy with consent forms and worse replication rates.
means The disciplined study of how humans behave, organize, and interact in groups — sociology, economics, psychology, political science, and their kin.
from A straightforward compound: 'social,' from Latin 'socius' meaning companion or ally, plus 'science,' from Latin 'scientia,' knowledge. The phrase took hold in the 19th century as thinkers like Comte pushed to study society with the same systematic rigor as the natural sciences — hence the enduring, half-affectionate dig that it's been chasing physics-style certainty ever since, with messier subjects and messier results.
- replication rate
- about half of findings fail to replicate
- core move
- turns common sense into a regression
- founding flex
- comte coined it to out-science physics
- p-hacking
- invented accidentally, used constantly