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Comment by hikingsimulator | Hacker News Reader

I hope they are. You would not want a fire brigade that's only theoretical about putting fires out.

It seems that the occurrence of people who bemoan that social scientists are activists, that they are not supposed to actually develop solutions to what they study, has increased in recent years. It's bad logic. A sociologist studying the effects of poverty shouldn't be interested in solving poverty is a mind-boggling idea.

There's something more pressing, now. People can concur here. I've found that this line of thought, that social scientists shouldn't be activists, is an idea that's been drummed about by the so-called 'intellectual dark web'. This rag-time team of pundits propagated a lot of conspiracy theories about the 'cultural marxism', the 'Frankfurt school', etc. It feels like an attempt at policing the content of social research under the cover of conservative/christian propriety.

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> people who bemoan that social scientists are activists

I'd prefer they label themselves as partizan ethicists or activists.

> , that they are not supposed to actually develop solutions to what they study

On the contrary, they should develop solutions, not just scandals. The problem is with activists who just want to criticize without contributing a solution. I suspect they are more interested in making a name for themselves and using ethics as a club.

Dismissing researchers as mere activists is a criticism made from a place of ignorance. Maybe you should learn a bit more about the topic before spouting off?

My thought exactly.

I read her paper, her Tweets, the press and almost all the conversations on this topic and that is the conclusion I ended up with. She's making a career out of trashing people who have made real contributions to the field, while she has generated mostly critique without any actionable insight, new breakthrough or solution.

> The problem is with activists who just want to criticize without contributing a solution.

Pointing out a serious problem is a good thing to do, even if you don't have a solution.

Yes, a fire brigade needs to put out the fire. The analog to that in the social realm are non-profits, democratic policies, and grassroots activism. But fire brigades would be really bad at putting out fires if we hadn't studied them scientifically since about the 17th century. We would not know the difference between electrical fires, fires involving oil, and bush fires. Today, woke academics declare some social 'fires' to be bad, others to be necessary, and some to be underrepresented, instead of asking what causes them. I doubt this will lead to a coherent and ultimately actionable understanding of reality.

Fire brigades didn't stand by idly studying from the 17th century until now to act against fires.

Ethics is an old field, and also one that's been applied for a long time. It changed too. For the better even -- since social Darwinism was seen as ethical to some extent at the start of the 20th century.

If you hired a researcher to find out the most effective strategies to putting out fires you might actually want a purely theoretical researcher. Advocates for air drops might be blind to firewalls and vise verse.

There is also a reason to be cautious if a sociologist studying the effects of poverty were basing their suggestions on what would fix their own poverty.

Except social sciences aren't 'purely' theoretical. It's why it's sometimes called human science. There is a prominent human, and humane, part to it. It's a study of the human condition to some extent and it can't be separated from it.

As for your second point, that's true, but it's also why research is always open to criticism. Casting social scientists and ethicists in this case as activists feels like a political swipe.

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