LifestyleMy lesbian friend is now trans and is trying to convince me that I am too

submitted by SillyGoose from (self.LGBDropTheT)

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[–]reluctant_commenter 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

My sociology class (which was mandatory) taught me, directly from the textbook, that there were two kinds of research in the field. The first is the scientific method. The second is "Intuitive Retrospective", where you look at data, and try to figure out through your "lived experience" what you think the cause of the correlations are. This is a logical fallacy, and they are currently filling up scientific journals with drek based on this reasoning at a lightning pace.

Holy shit! That is a real trip. I've heard some crazy stories out of friends' sociology classes (don't want to risk doxxing or I'd share lol), but that's really extreme. I took an anthropology class and it wasn't that bad, but I think there may be different norms between the two fields.

Try to keep in mind that teachers are people too, I'm in my early 20s and already many of my friends are on the professor track. I love them, but these people are not the brilliant genius tweed-jacket intellectuals who can never be wrong that academia thinks they are. These people are not much older than you. If you've got a good head on your shoulders you can often realize whether or not what they're saying makes any sense at all, so do your own research and remember how to think.

Agreed, it's important not to idealize professors. Research is awesome, but humans in every field are fallible.

[–]gadflyinajar 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, we wonder why our arguments aren't getting through to these nutjobs, but it's because they're basically taught a 2+2=5 approach to reasoning. I could scarcely believe it, I might try and find the textbook this is taken from. The fact that I could so easily read the paragraph describing this "method" and see it as plainly ridiculous, and yet it made it into the book feels like gaslighting. Somehow it made it through enough editors, professors, and schoolboard committees to be "prescribed", so what right have I to criticize it? Is it more likely that I'm right and all these people are wrong? These days I worry more and more that I'm the crazy one, browsing tiny forums like this while the rest of the world revels in the smell of their own farts. Sure can't help but want to call out the emperor for his missing clothes, though.