<p>S. Baron-Cohen, S. Wheelwright, R. Skinner, J. Martin and E. Clubley, (2001)</p>
<p>The Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) : Evidence from Asperger Syndrome/High Functioning Autism, Males and Females, Scientists and Mathematicians
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 31:5-17</p>
<p>==</p>
<p>I don’t think that it’s inherent difficulty per se inasmuch as it is that social science (usually) requires you to interact with people more so than natural science does.</p>
<p>Social science research involves both qualitative and quantitative skills. Very few social scientific studies nowadays use quantiative methods alone. This means that you must have an excellent understanding of social conventions in order to understand what is causing people to behave a certain way. For example, in studying youth’s behavior in an after-school program, you must understand what’s causing them to behave a certain way. Why are some kids upset? Is it because of something that happened at home, what somebody in the program said, a combination of both, and if so, what degree of influence did each factor have? However, autistic people don’t have the social instinct to understand on their own why certain things are paricularly upsetting to a particular group of people (and this is further complicated by the fact that people react differently to different things). Yes, they are objective in their observations, but if they are unable to even link a cause to an effect, the research will go nowhere. </p>
<p>In compiling data for quantitative analysis, you also have to know which questions are relevant to ask in surveys. You have to know which independent variable to test (this is often based on inkling at first). In short, it’s harder for autistic people to conduct social science research because of the social instinct they’re missing. </p>
<p>The study you cited does confirm that autistic people have a greater aptitude for the natural sciences (thus strengthening my argument), but what we’re looking for is an explanation of whether or not they could apply this same aptitude just as effectively to social science as to natural science research.</p>
<p>On the other hand - we have to be careful not to overgeneralize the applicability of such social instinct. Those with autism may be impaired in their abilities to empathize, to identify non-verbal expressions, and to predict offensive/non-offensive behaviors in a particular cultural context. However, this does not mean that they are impaired in their abilities to understand motives and taboos - once they consciously learn the basis of such motives and taboos (it is just that they must spend more effort into picking up the understanding of motives/taboos/etc - however - once the initial effort is invested - they are not at a particular disadvantage). Autistics usually have the full range of emotional apparatus that non-autistics have.</p>
<p>But it <em>is</em> hard to pick up social conventions, and they need to do this essentially all their lives because culture and social conventions aren’t static. On top of that, they have to know which social conventions to <em>un-learn</em> once the norms have changed. The fact that they have to go this extra step means that the social sciences are that much harder for them. </p>
<p>You don’t strike me as having AS though-- do you really?</p>
<p>I’m going to end this debate right now. Both sciences are equally hard and interesting. One is 2+2, one is 2x2. They look different yet are equal in merit. It’s like you see a super hot girl and another super hot girl where you cannot just make a distinction! None is better than the other and if it is, its just your preference!</p>
<p>Of course social conventions are not static.However, once you are able to reason your way into social situations, to ask yourself questions, then you’d have a much easier time navigating through norm changes.</p>
<p>Moreover - many neurotypicals are also rather poor at “unlearning” old norms and adopting to norm changes. We know it to be the case of many adults who are rather poor in changing their behavior wrt the information age.</p>
<p>Most of the social norms that autistics have trouble with are not norms that concern themselves with research questions that a social scientist may ask - rather - they are norms that deal with everyday social interaction. But most social science questions are unrelated to the nuances of everyday social interaction (and if you are to examine those nuances - you have to consciously pick them up - and while autistics have more to pick up - they don’t have that much more to pick up). They can pick up norms consciously.</p>
<p>And as for AS - it doesn’t really show on the Internet.</p>
<p>It’s obvious that there’s a correlation between which one you’re more interested in (X) and which one is easier for you (Y). Is Y a causality for X, is X a causality for Y, or are both Y and X determined by some outside factor–Z? Or a variety of outside factors?</p>
<p>Interest often manifests itself in perceived difficulty (as people do not enjoy tasks that they perceive as too challenging to understand). Of course within a population, some people will find X more challenging than Y, and others will find Y more challenging than X. But given that a massive number of people are given the option to pursue BOTH Y and X (often through coercion by means of compulsory education), and a greater number of people find X more challenging than Y and others find Y more challenging than X, and that most people are remarkably behaviorally homogeneous, it is usually the case that if more find Y more challenging than X, then Y is usually more challenging than X, unless attitudinal factors (or problems with the teaching of Y) against Y are so powerful that they discourage investment into Y.</p>
<p>Of course in the United States, there are widespread attitudinal factors that perceive math/science as more difficult than the Humanities. The question is, how accurate are such attitudinal factors? And are those attitudinal factors strong enough such that the perception that math/science is harder than the Humanities is more of a factor of the perception per se, or is it more of a factor of the intrinsic relative difficulty of the subjects? In this case, a cross-cultural comparison is most helpful. Do students in other countries find math/science easier than they do the social sciences in other nations?</p>
<p>And we are obviously speaking in terms of relative terms here. It requires more talent to be mediocre in math/science than to be mediocre in the Humanities. Since most people are mediocre with respect to most academic subjects - we can at least say that the greater proportion of the students there will achieve at least acceptable performance in the Humanities/Social Sciences, as compared to acceptance performance in mathematics/natural sciences, where mediocrity often means not having the intelligence to do well in a standard high school classroom.</p>
<p>We must also isolate attitudinal factors from factors intrinsic to intelligence- these factors are usually combined. However, in academic circles it is generally accepted that intelligences in differences between individuals do exist, and that such differences are not particularly malleable, even if they are malleable with respect to areas that the individual pursues intensively. We must acknowledge that most individuals will not pursue either the natural sciences or the social sciences with any degree of intensity and that consequently their intelligence matters more to mastery than does any sustained amount of effort that occurs over the span of years. (so called 10-year rule)</p>
<p>In theory, social sciences should be more difficult, but in reality, the added complexity is compensated for by lower expectations of research. That’s why, say, physics is <em>easier</em> than, say, sociology. Most of physics is pretty easy and straightforward, and things we don’t know now will one day be shown to follow logically from stuff we already understand well. Sociology, on the other hand, is mostly statistics and guesswork, as exact solutions to problems are intractable.
That being said, however, there are equally intractable problems in the natural sciences, so… it really boils down to what you prefer: people or nature.</p>
<p>We must note that it doesn’t take as much intelligence to appreciate the basic literature of sociology than it takes to appreciate the basic literature of physics.</p>
<p>Most of us here can easily read sociology research journals. However, very few of us can casually read a research journal in physics. Most of us are going to spend more time investing in skills that will help us read sociology research, but the same skills are completely unhelpful to physics. Given the fact that so many high school students have so much difficulty with mere high school Algebra/Geometry/Pre-Calculus, we can be relatively certain that most of the same students will never be able to read physics research journals. A large proportion of them, though, will at least be able to appreciate SOME social science research, should they put in some effort in reading them. It takes more “knowledge” BEYOND what is traditionally taught to be even BASICALLY COMPETENT in the natural sciences. In this, most people are content with basic competence in most fields - and consequently they will find easier the fields where it is EASIER to achieve BASIC COMPETENCE. </p>
<p>At the level of BASIC COMPETENCE, the natural sciences are more difficult than the social sciences.</p>
<p>Move up a level. The level of COMPETENCE FOR RESEARCH. Here, which is more difficult? Again, I’d say the natural sciences FOR NOW.</p>
<p>The level of competence required to do ACCEPTABLE RESEARCH is lower for the social sciences than it is for the natural sciences. The level of competence required to do RIGOROUS PREDICTIONS MAY be higher for the social sciences than it is for the natural sciences</p>
<p>We spend much of our lives immersed in the language relevant to the social sciences. We do not spend the same amount of our lives immersed in the language of mathematics. The question is - if we spend most of our lives immersed in the language of mathematics, would it be less difficult? It is hard to say.</p>
<p>Most natural scientists are probably able of reading the latest social science research journals. Most social scientists are probably unable to read the latest natural science research journals.</p>
<p>Does that speak as to the relative difficulty of the subjects? It speaks to the relative difficulty of the LEARNING CURVE between the two subjects. </p>
<p>This relative difficulty of the LEARNING CURVE effectively makes it impossible for the vast majority of people to understand the literature wrt to the subject with the harder learning curve. </p>
<p>So what of hypothesis generation, then? (this is the second branch of difficulty, the first branch being the learning, the second being novel ideas/novel hypotheses) In math/science, there can be the PERFECT hypothesis to a problem. On the social sciences, there are only VARYING DEGREES of hypotheses/models, and each improvement merits a publication.</p>
<p>Of course, there is also the next degree of testing/experimental verification. But I think that this category of difficulty should fit in the “learning curve” branch of difficulty - since testing/experimental verification is merely something else you have to learn. Or you could improve the methods - where it would then fit in the “novel idea/hypothesis” branch of difficulty.</p>
<p>There really shouldn’t be a distinction between the social and natural sciences, which is really an arbitrary social construct (based on when we knew less of the world). Neil Postman explicitly says that the art of taxonomy and of categorization effectively closes our mind to new ways of thinking (as we get too conceptually caught into our old ways of thinking). Rather, we must think of new distinctions, with completely different ways of thinking.</p>
<p>I think that this distinction lies within the distinction between sciences basedon FUZZY THINKING and sciences based on Platonic logic (read Bart Kosko “Fuzzy Logic” and his “Heaven in a Chip” for more). ALL social sciences are based on FUZZY THINKING that cannot have closed solutions. SOME of the natural sciences are also based on such fuzzy thinking. SOME of the natural sciences, however, are based on Platonic logic. </p>
<p>The natural sciences based on FUZZY THINKING, effectively, require many of the same methods used in the social sciences. HOWEVER, they do have steep learning curves COMMENSURATE with the degree of mathematical precision needed to understand the subject.</p>
<p>That’s not a matter of intelligence. Research journals in physics contain many terms the average, or “mediocre”, person doesn’t know. Sociology research journals, on the other hand, contain fewer of those specialized terms. If the mediocre person was to memorize all of the terms commonly found in physics journals, s/he would have an equally easy time reading said journals.</p>
<p>The point is, however, that the terms in physics aren’t just definition terms. You have to read A LOT in order to understand terms like Hermitian matrix, eigenvalue, eigenfunction,parity conservation, etc. They’re not terms you can merely learn from a dictionary.</p>
<p>And it’s the learning curve that makes the subject difficult.</p>
Oh, I would have to disagree with that. The level of quantitative skill required to comment intelligently on physical science is way way way higher than for social science. Vocabulary ain’t part of the equation.</p>
<p>well from a COMPLETELY scientific perspective… if our entire world is explainable and deterministic, then aren’t social science and the natural sciences all in one the same - science?</p>
<p>and aren’t the social sciences, technically, just applied math/sciences? a science is a SCIENCE… one just deals with people, the other the natural world. i think by drawing a distinction between social and natural we are just acknowledging (or at least assuming) that humans offer something different to our physical world… which i would say is free will. without free will, shouldn’t we be able to (with the right technology and knowledge) predict human behavior mathematically?</p>
<p>if you look at life that way, then everything can basically be reduced to math. the idea that we would separate the social from the natural would just be in our heads. therefore, social science would just be a subset of natural science. evidence could be that biology basically starts to explain certain aspects of psychology, so the two are obviously not exclusive. of course, how many “certain aspects of psychology” it explains we don’t know, but it is indeed growing.</p>
<p>in such a case… math > physics > chemistry > biology > psychology > the rest (i say the rest because they begin to deal with populations whereas psychology is of the individual… if we were able to completely explain all of an individual human’s behavior than i would think we could apply that to larger social phenomena)</p>
<p>as academic disciplines, i think as the thought required involves more abstract thought and reasoning, the subject is generally more difficult (esp more math, more difficult).</p>
<p>need evidence with that? pure math is regarded to be more difficult to understand than engineering. chemistry is more conceptual and requires a decent amount of math which makes it regarded as more difficult than biology (which is mostly memorization of facts and ideas). biochemistry is considered a very difficult discipline of biology whereas evolution or ecology not so much (because biochemistry deals with more abstract ideas and things we can’t really see or deal with with our naked eyes or our lab microscopes). economics, which has a lot of analytical thinking and becomes extremely mathematical, is generally regarded as the most difficult social science.</p>
<p>there are lots of exceptions and outside factors, but that is GENERALLY speaking.</p>
<p>And math can be reduced to psychology. I’m serious. Math is related to the way we conceptualize things. We can only conceptualize what we can sense, and we can only conceptualize what our brains can handle. there’s an interesting book on this =></p>