Sichu Lu @lu_sichu
— quoting @SynBio1 — saved image
Sichu Lu [verified] @lu_sichu · 14h Some thoughts I think this was mostly because the smartest people were attracted to math and physics because concrete progress was possible and had more conceptual engineering than in other areas, but it's not a real reflection of the actual difficulty of the fields. The fact that a lot of softer fields are not nearly so amenable to pure conceptual analysis and deductive type reasoning means they are actually harder to work with. You need a ton of more data. In the limit I just expect stuff like political science or sociology to be way harder to model, some parts of biology are also like this [quoted] Jake Wintermute 🧬/acc [verified] @SynBio1 · 16h This classic xkcd captures a certain belief in nerd hierarchy that used to prevail in the natural sciences: psychology < biology < chemistry < physics < ... [xkcd comic, 'FIELDS ARRANGED BY PURITY', arrow labeled 'MORE PURE'. Stick figures left to right: Sociologist saying 'Sociology is just applied psychology', Psychologist saying 'Psychology is just applied biology.', Biologist saying 'Biology is just applied chemistry', Chemist saying 'Which is just applied physics. It's nice to be on top.', Physicist standing alone, then off to the right a Mathematician saying 'Oh, hey, I didn't see you guys all the way over there.']
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
X reply thread: Sichu Lu argues field prestige historically tracked amenability to conceptual/deductive analysis rather than true difficulty, predicting political science, sociology, and parts of biology are actually harder to model due to data demands. Quotes Jake Wintermute sharing the classic xkcd 'Purity' comic ranking fields by purity with mathematicians looking down on physicists.