Tuesday 26 August 2008

Are Natural Sciences Better Than Social Sciences?










Director general of the Parque del Este zoo, Javier Hernandez pointed to a well known characteristic of gullibility when he commented that swallowed student Erick Arrieta had understimated the animals instinct

Had the unfortunate Mr Arrieta studied social psychology as well as zoology he would have certainly been familiar with the concepts of over confidence effect and optimism bias
which are descriptions of how people consisently overestimate their ability to prevail in situations where their capabilities are really not up to it.

The entertainment form of this behaviour is of course, American Idol and The X Factor auditions, where the delusionally over confident frequently get eaten alive.

Often natural scientists look down on social science as not being 'real' science, i.e. objective, rational and empirically based. The evidence it seems is before us, ssssssssocial ssssssssssciences can play an important role in making sure we don't get digested at work!

I could, of course, be over optimistic in thinking that you will believe this, and go on to Stumble or Digg it :)

2 comments:

  1. Stumbled Thanks good article

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stumbled, great article.

    I really enjoyed them and will be looking forward to your future postings.

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    ReplyDelete