Question for thorn

Sociologists, on the front line level, are the ones who do probably the least rewarding work overall. They're the ones in the community, working with welfare recipients, child protection services, and other community based services. They probably have overall the highest attrition rate. Those who work at non-direct levels either teach or have input into policymaking, or both.

Criminologists can also do direct work (I put myself through school working in the prison system with psych patients; what a way to pay the rent!) but I expect that those who don't fall to attrition work as theorists and are instrumental in developing policy.

The intro courses in these fields are interesting, but I'd recommend to anyone taking any such courses, including psych and economics, to go in with both an open mind and a healthy dose of critical thinking. If someone presents a theory or interpretation as absolute, the first question to be asked should be, "what else could this be?". Always question, always challenge.

These fields are called the "soft sciences" for a reason.
 
Thorn said:
Sociologists, on the front line level, are the ones who do probably the least rewarding work overall. They're the ones in the community, working with welfare recipients, child protection services, and other community based services. They probably have overall the highest attrition rate. Those who work at non-direct levels either teach or have input into policymaking, or both.

Criminologists can also do direct work (I put myself through school working in the prison system with psych patients; what a way to pay the rent!) but I expect that those who don't fall to attrition work as theorists and are instrumental in developing policy.

The intro courses in these fields are interesting, but I'd recommend to anyone taking any such courses, including psych and economics, to go in with both an open mind and a healthy dose of critical thinking. If someone presents a theory or interpretation as absolute, the first question to be asked should be, "what else could this be?". Always question, always challenge.

These fields are called the "soft sciences" for a reason.
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Well, the thing about these sciences I don't like very much, is it's all just basically a huge guess. They have little room to prove their findings. The only way you could prove your economic theory, for instance, would be to duplicate the entire US, implement your economic theory in one, and leave the other alone. Otherwise, any theory is completely and totally doubt able.

Sociology and scientology are a little easier to test, but still, people react differently all the time, and although the theory you came up with to describe a theory may work in some circumstances but not at all in any others.

I always wanted to be a scientist but it looks like I'm actually going to be going into the boring engineering or boring lawyering field. Maybe I'll triple major and throw astronomy in there! Always wanted to be an astronomer.
 
Watermark said:
Well, the thing about these sciences I don't like very much, is it's all just basically a huge guess. They have little room to prove their findings. The only way you could prove your economic theory, for instance, would be to duplicate the entire US, implement your economic theory in one, and leave the other alone. Otherwise, any theory is completely and totally doubt able.

Sociology and scientology are a little easier to test, but still, people react differently all the time, and although the theory you came up with to describe a theory may work in some circumstances but not at all in any others.

I always wanted to be a scientist but it looks like I'm actually going to be going into the boring engineering or boring lawyering field. Maybe I'll triple major and throw astronomy in there! Always wanted to be an astronomer.
Click to expand...

Sadly, you could probably make a better living as an astrologer than as an astronomer.
 
xkcd applies to everything:

purity.png
 
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