It started with Naval Ravikant’s tweet where he simply said social science is fake science. To which I agree as much of what people consider social science fail to meet the key criteria of what science should be (i.e. repeatability, falsifiability, independent verifiability, etc… in experiments).

Naturally, many comments included those who were outraged at the statement. But they seemed to be missing the point of liberation. The humanities were not a science to begin with.

Even when one reads the work of Carl Jung, he continues to emphasize how much of what he writes and practices in psychotherapy are observations…results of empirical knowledge. He further notes they cannot be universal rules for psychology but are mere recollections from his individual experience. Not science but more art.

Much of what I learned from studying investing has been how it is more art than science. Yes, there are some great mathematicians who have found quantitative ways of winning over time (i.e. Ed Thorp, Jim Simons) but given they are edge cases with results varying to such massive degrees it does seem more art than science.

Entrepreneurship too is more art than science. Yes, there are fundamental principles of building a business and basic financial discipline one must be aware of. But there is so much randomness and complexity that it cannot be a science. Many who have tried to make it a science have failed.

One can say that fields that are noted as being “art” produce extreme results that aren’t necessarily generalized as law. Whether it’s the economy, markets, philosophy etc… it will result in events, results or writing that is unique and a few will stand out.

But in the nature of science, the end goal seems to be to make it a worldwide application that disseminates any kind of extreme distribution. One can’t dispute with gravity, energy and basic physics.

The point of art is to do the opposite. It’s not to create generalities. It’s to create massive gaps. Things that aren’t repeatable. And much of humanity should focus on the uniqueness instead of trying to generalize that which cannot.

By that, psychology makes sense to be an art. In the realm of human uniqueness, we are complex beings and our minds are influenced by so many factors that to generalize it under rules of science seems a rather insulting thing to do to a person.

So, for those whose life is centered on social science disciplines (i.e. humanities) Naval’s statement should be music to their ears. But then why are people so outraged in such a denouncement of their field?

I consider it an inferiority complex. Somewhere down the line, a number of people in humanities felt inferior and subjugated by the scientists like chemists and physicists. Instead of sticking to intrinsic motivations, they decided to play the stupid game of status and wanted to rebrand themselves as a science because they lacked the intrinsic motivation of their work. They wanted external validation.

A large part of such an inferiority complex results in the creation of bullshit jobs. David Graeber has written a book about it but the theory is rather simple.

Despite the development in technology and Keynes’ prediction that we would only have to work 15 hours a week, we have kept the usual workload and created useless jobs. The simple example is all the levels of bureaucratic management. If you are a mid-level manager in a 1,000+ company, your job is probably a bullshit job.

There are some industries that are bullshit industries propping up creations of bullshit jobs. Much of investment banking and management consulting are bullshit jobs. They then create massive entities with bureaucratic hierarchies with 8 levels of management where at least 5 are bull shit. They can take up real estate and hire more people to fund their operations etc…. The bullshit economy then ensues. I might sound crass but this is from a collection of a few dozen empirical accounts of myself and others believing we were adding no value to anything.

It makes me think that the act of trying to make humanities into a science was a way for more individuals to find a way of creating average job postings where they could be normal but hide in the clout of ’science’. Like economists or whatever poli-sci majors do.

But then again… a part of me believes one can find enough people to listen to one’s art form. It’s just harder and it won’t fit the confines of a marketable job where there needs to be some kind of ‘validity’ and I guess that’s where the ’science’ part adds credibility.

Because let’s face it, it makes it easier to sell oneself as an expert there. Though, to be fair, taking some stats and telling me some coefficient doesn’t really help me achieve anything. But it’ll look good on a slide deck so I guess that’s what they will rely on.

In many ways, I do think it would be a net benefit to society if the humanities ceased to be referred to as science. Then I think we could create scenarios where theorists can seek to create opportunities to apply their ideas. To try it out in the real world and live off on the empirical results. Hopefully, this won’t result in generalizing their results as law in the name of “science” and causing harm at a scaled level.

Call me an idealist but I imagine it will bring some integrity to the field. It may actually make it creative. For the danger of labeling something, a science may try to make it formulaic and just result in teaching a bunch of garbage to students. Such is the case for finance courses when it comes to investing. For god’s sake, they even put ‘engineering’ after finance to justify it.

The more labels something has, the more of an inferiority complex it builds.

I’ve personally accepted that I am not a quantitative guy. School and work has taught me I’m decent, maybe slightly above average but I’ve met quants and that’s not me. I’ve also met some scientists and their rigour is outstanding.

Just as I love being the qualitative investor, I very much love immersing myself deeper into the humanities fully aware that it isn’t a science. It’s much more freeing and that’s actually the attraction. Selfishly, I hope it remains this way.