I don't know much about sociology, so I found it interesting to read a sociologist critique his own field. This part stood out to me:
> To make a loose statistical analogy, it is a little like continuing to add
variables to a regression on the grounds that the explained variance keeps increasing.
Like a statistical model having parameters, a theory should have some nuance, but too much nuance is analogous to overfitting. It reminds me of the maxim that a theory should be as simple as possible but no simpler
I like to think of nuances as nuisances. Sometimes I wonder if we can just merge these two words because they're pretty much the same thing most of the time.
Discussion close the time (129 points, 68 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11370189
I don't know much about sociology, so I found it interesting to read a sociologist critique his own field. This part stood out to me:
> To make a loose statistical analogy, it is a little like continuing to add variables to a regression on the grounds that the explained variance keeps increasing.
Like a statistical model having parameters, a theory should have some nuance, but too much nuance is analogous to overfitting. It reminds me of the maxim that a theory should be as simple as possible but no simpler
You’d better look out, because I’m gonna say “fuck”.
https://genius.com/Ben-folds-rockin-the-suburbs-lyrics
thank you for posting this!
I still miss the original abstract:
- Seriously, fuck it.
I like to think of nuances as nuisances. Sometimes I wonder if we can just merge these two words because they're pretty much the same thing most of the time.