From: Robin Hanson (hanson@hss.caltech.edu)
Date: Fri Sep 27 1996 - 22:03:17 MDT
Eugene Leitl writes:
>> difficult? Is there a distinction or isn't there?
>Aw, come on. Stop harping upon things syntactical. Observation alone is
>no experiment, it needs recording and interpretation. Experiment without
>observation is no experiment, you could as well invent your data.
I honestly remain confused as to your meaning. Social science
observations are indeed recorded and interpreted. So why do you say
there are no social science experiments?
>Yes, but there is a bandwidth. Physics and social sciences lie at the
>opposite side of the spectrum, obviously.
This is not obvious to me, as I don't know what you mean by
"bandwidth" here.
>It is very difficult to obtain sensible results on extremely complex,
>ergodic systems. That's the reason why social science is a very difficult
>subject.
Rather than continuing to throw out new distinctions, please just pick
one and explain it.
Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/
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