This is not simply a matter of social science being soft. This was caused by exactly 1 thing: researchers not releasing the code they write or use. Their code was bad, and it produced an incorrect result. There is probably TONS of this in research from the past 30 years, and most of it goes uncaught because, for some insanely unwise reason, the scientific community has tolerated researchers keeping their procedures, tools, and experimental processes secret... but only when software is involved.
Science isn't just a matter of what people believe. It often gets considered when governments create policy. Bad science can kill millions. I've run into many 'bugs' in the algorithm descriptions published in computer science and mathematics papers, I shudder to think what the code backing nontechnical research is like.
Science isn't just a matter of what people believe. It often gets considered when governments create policy. Bad science can kill millions. I've run into many 'bugs' in the algorithm descriptions published in computer science and mathematics papers, I shudder to think what the code backing nontechnical research is like.