I call this the "abstraction paradox".

There is no way that an abstraction can fully equate what it abstracts. "Apple" could never equal a real apple. But abstraction allows us to think about real apples. In science, all theories and models are abstractions. Hence, they are always approximations, and can be invalidated or nullified with edge cases that can indeed be backed by evidence.

But the opposite is also true. If a theory is based on evidence, then it will always be an approximation of the truth to some degree. Hence, there will always be hard evidence that validates the theory also -- ideally the evidence the theory is based on.

The ultimate test is application. If a theory or model has purpose, as in, has a use, then the value of that theory can be measured by its consequences. Otherwise, frankly, academics arguing over what has no consequence will have no consequence outside the circles of those who argue over it. I sense "fuck nuance" as a message to them.

We still use Newtonian mechanics where objects are big and slow enough. But we also use general relativity, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, etc, where more accuracy is required. So we already know theories have limits and degrade with constraints, and we switch theories.

This is true of EVERY THEORY. And that is the abstraction paradox.

If you're arguing over someone just to prove them wrong, congratulations, you've just proved you're completely redundant. So fuck you. (in the spirit of the author)

I realized as I was reading this that I know very little about sociology as a discipline. In particular, I'm unaware of any of its "Great Theories", a la General Relativity for physics, or Darwinian Evolution for biology.

Any candidates? I'm not trying to be snide, I really would like to learn more about this. The Wikipedia page for sociology describes "theories" that sound more like schools of thought.

This article is a truly fantastic critique of how modern social sciences (besides economics) are carried out and publicized in modern society. Any critique one dislikes - typically "your theory predicts X which is false" - can be dismissed by "nuance", "things are more complicated", "that's different in unspecified way", etc.

In statistical terms, these dismissals are little more than a call for overfitting - if I can arbitrarily add more dimensions to a theory, I can make it fit any data set.

This is a fantastic article that can be applied in so many places.

In applied social sciences this critique is far easier to work around. "Yeah, my theory is pretty one-dimensional and does lack nuance. My code is in $REPO - feel free to run an experiment and see if your multidimensional theory generates any alpha over mine."

I would distill my understanding of this paper as "Strong Opinions, Weakly Held"

http://www.saffo.com/02008/07/26/strong-opinions-weakly-held...

  By calling for a theory to be more comprehensive, or for an explanation to
  include additional dimensions, or a concept to become more flexible and
  multifaceted, we paradoxically end up with less clarity. A further odd
  consequence is that the apparent scope of theories increases even
  as the range of their explanatory application narrows.

This seems analogous to poor imperative programming to me: as your code becomes more complicated, the range of it's application narrows.

I think when debate comes down to differences in ideology and idiosyncracy, it's at the end of debating because these differences are impossible to compromise (they are all legitimate).

And the world is at a point that everybody can believe in everything and all these beliefs are all grounded and justificable (using the available tools and knowledge we've accumulated).

To deal with the somewhat disturbing thought that the world doesn't need to be saved, I resort to the mantra that: eventually, the reason we read, the reason we write, the choice we make, everyday, is just because we feel like.

I assume simple theories are very good for advancing the science itself. But I don't think they are as actionable as complex ones, because reality is complex, and you need to account for that when creating policy.

I thought this was going to be a rant about voice recognition

Can we un-capitalize "Nuance"? For a second I thought it refers to the speech technologies company.

The amount of nuance in this article is overwhelming.

(The abstract/text ratio is ridiculous)