Comments on: Reader survey results: Science vs. social science vs. humanities

By: bioIgnoramus

bioIgnoramus — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:41:25 +0000

How many, I wonder, confused “transhumanism” with “transhumance”?

By: toto

toto — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:29:15 +0000

Where we learn that social scientists are just as nerdy as real scientists, and that Browns don’t do social sciences (but East Asians do!)…

Is there a particular reason why you didn’t offer a “both” option for the IQ question? I know, it’s a bit of a cop-out, but I noticed that you offer it for race.

By: Zora

Zora — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:03:57 +0000

I recall one of my anthro professors, in grad school, boasting at the department’s success in getting the university to drop the statistics requirement for anthro students.

This was at the height of the Foucalt-Derrida-Bourdieu craze, when we were supposed to be studying to be French philosophers, NOT scientists. One reason why I didn’t finish my PhD. I knew that much of what I was expected to admire was bogus, but I was too timid and confused to confront my professors.

I took math much later, for the computer degree, and discovered, to my surprise, that I *liked* it. Including statistics.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:14:18 +0000

joshua, mathematics is the most important domain of human inquiry in my opinion fwiw.my response was to give a context for your shock, since for you calculus is trivially easy, but for many biologists it is the last mathematics they take. that is, the most advanced!

By: Joshua Zelinsky

Joshua Zelinsky — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:59:27 +0000

Razib, yeah, that’s obviously part of it; I’m probably not the only person who overestimates the importance of my own field. However, I suspect that a fair number of people are also using theorems from calculus without actually realizing it (population genetics might be the obvious example where one doesn’t actually need to know much calculus as far as I can tell, but a lot of the standard formulas and results require calc to derive.)

By: EcoPhysioMichelle

EcoPhysioMichelle — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:00:35 +0000

That’s understandable. I am often confused as to how many people can be so clueless as to how their own bodies work.

Also w/r/t girls being a small fraction, I think that’s because (at least in my experience) the majority of female bloggers/blog readers tend to prefer talking about being a scientist rather than talking about science itself. There are obvious exceptions, of course.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:51:10 +0000

joshua is a math guy. explains his shock & surprise

By: EcoPhysioMichelle

EcoPhysioMichelle — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:29:24 +0000

Calculus isn’t entirely necessary for natural sciences. Physics and chemistry, yes, but not as much for most biological fields. I’m a physiologist and while I did take calculus, it was over 7 years ago and I haven’t had to use it since. I suppose it depends on the amount of theory and/or modeling your work requires.

By: Joshua Zelinsky

Joshua Zelinsky — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:08:40 +0000

I’m surprised at in general how small a fraction of readers are female. I’m both surprised and disturbed by the large fraction of people in the social sciences who haven’t taken calculus; I don’t know how they are able to talk to natural science people almost all without that. I’m really curious how the natural science people who haven’t taken calculus function, and what they do.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:49:12 +0000

yes. though many latin american elites self-define as white and could easily pass, as could most of the population of argentina, chile and much of brazil (i’ve blogged on the non-trivial admixture of non-white ancestry among the whites of these nations, so with caution). and many black brazilians are becoming more assertive about their african origins.

By: EcoPhysioMichelle

EcoPhysioMichelle — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:47:08 +0000

I suppose under that rationale most latinos would be considered of mixed race, then, since they’re a combination of indigenous (Asian of some sort most likely, I’m not up to date on the most recent theory of which Asian group(s) populated the Americas), African, and European lineages for the most part?

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:41:58 +0000

because it’s an ethnic, not racial, category. also, i’m obviously americo-centric, but it makes most sense to americans in a particular way. europeans would probably be confused why hispanics (spaniards) are bracketed out from all other europeans.

By: EcoPhysioMichelle

EcoPhysioMichelle — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:40:35 +0000

Out of curiosity, why did you not include a hispanic/latino racial category?

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