(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best social sciences methodology books

http://www.amazon.com/Rival-Hypotheses-Alternative-Interpretations-Conclusions/dp/0060429755

Sandler was my department chair in grad school, he did a lot of thinking in the area of philosophy of science. Just took emeritus status at Peabody/Vanderbilt.

looking for pdf's of the three books below. $5 each:

Shelley Cohen Konrad - Child and Family Practice: A Relational Perspective - isbn: 019061613X - https://www.amazon.com/Child-Family-Practice-Relational-Perspective/dp/019061613X

James R. Dudley - Social Work Evaluation: Enhancing What We Do (2nd Ed.) - isbn: 0190615435 - https://www.amazon.com/Social-Work-Evaluation-Second-Enhancing/dp/0190615435/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536554504&sr=1-1&keywords=Social+work+evaluation%3A+Enhancing+what+we+do

Allen Rubin, Earl R. Babbie - Essential Research Methods for Social Work (4th ed.) - isbn: 1305101685 - https://www.amazon.com/Empowerment-Essential-Research-Methods-MindTap/dp/1305101685/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536554614&sr=1-1&keywords=Essential+research+methods+for+social+work

Um he makes people look bad using logic, why else would the left feel the need to tie logic in with whiteness?

https://www.amazon.com/White-Logic-Methods-Racism-Methodology/dp/0742542815

I used academic, news, direct/firsthand sources, "from the horse's mouth," so to speak.

If you want, I can direct you to the author(ess) of the Post Meritocracy Manifesto, a self-described "Leftist," who professes marxist beliefs (and who looks/has a twitter bio that is exactly like you'd expect.)

Meritocracy implies a rise to the top- which is inherently anti-marxist in belief. Marxism is the belief that there shouldn't be a "top" or a "bottom." In a Marxist utopia, all is equal. One of their more annoying beliefs is that objective scientific methodology to determine objective right/wrong, good/bad, and any other lens of measurement is but a tool of 'white supremacy'. Ideology matters more than data. Even the authors of the academic papers, who are themselves liberals, profess that this is a huge problem in sociology. I can give quotes if you need, from their actual academic paper (the one non-hoax, of the dozens of hoaxes they got either featured, published, reviewed, or wrote out but were only in the pipeline).

In an era of the replication crisis, in which most experiments can't be replicated successfully (Which especially affects the social sciences) this is a replication of the famous Sokal Hoax- replication is more vital to proof than ever. Therefore while this was technically a repeat, it's still significant and lends further evidence to serious academic malfeasance within their discipline. That the person I am replying to is a sociologist, therefore, should be of no benefit to their authority.

I'm a data scientist. I like data that says "good" and "bad." I live in reality. Gaslighting me will be ineffectual when I have actual data with solid sources.

The research question is a little oddly phrased ("does x cause y" is vs "is x causually related to y"). The second option sounds like you're just hedging against endogeneity problems.

I think your case studies are more problematic than your question. Based off your response to u/Tony_the_Tamil_Tiger, greater production of refugees is your dependent variable. All the case studies you listed are conflicts that produced huge numbers of refugees, which implies that you chose cases on your dependent variable, which is something you must not do.

What you should do is find a number of wars in which states used proxies (and several in which proxies were not used) regardless of refugee counts. If all your cases involve large numbers of refugees, then you've got no variation on the dependent variable to explain. A good book that goes into these problems in case study construction is Bennett and Checkel (ed)'s Process Tracing: From Metaphor to Analytic Tool (Strategies for Social Inquiry

> pronouns don’t refer to biological sex

Sure they do. For instance, we refer to our biologically male pets as "he," and our female pets as "she."

>they’ve existed since hundreds of years before chromosomes were discovered

What's the relevance of this? Yes, the oppressive social construct of gender has been widespread in large-scale societies since sex-based divisions of labor were formally institutionalized, well before modern science. So what? This does not mean we don't also sometimes use pronouns to refer to organisms' biological sex, or that we can't abandon the use of gendered terms. This smacks of traditionalist, reactionary claptrap.

>transphobes have to do some insane mental gymnastics to justify their bigotry!

Bigotry is intolerance. There is no intolerance of trans folk involved in the refusal to reproduce gender via the adoption of gendered nomenclature. It's patently absurd to think that avoidance of oppressive (gendered) language is oppressive. Such an attitude is reminiscent of white racists who claim that those who point out actual, structural racism are the real racists. Again, trans ideology, and the gaslighting tactics its adherents resort to, is thoroughly conservative.
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>i don’t think gender is oppressive for everyone, i feel very much at home in my femininity and i don’t want that taken away, but if you feel like your gender is harming you, then just ask me to use gender neutral pronouns for you.

First, gender isn't merely a personal thing; rather, it is characteristically interpersonal. Remember, gender is a social construct. Just like racists (and pretty much all other anti-egalitarians, for that mater), you're committed to a traditionally individualist mindset when it comes to understanding social issues. Observes sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva in Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America:

>The frame of abstract liberalism involves using ideas associated with political liberalism (e.g., “equal opportunity,” the idea that force should not be used to achieve social policy) and economic liberalism (e.g., choice, individualism) in an abstract manner to explain racial matters. (p. 56, italics in original, bold added)

Of course, traditional Western individualism is a conservative ideology. It functions to preserve social inequalities. Further, it is simply unscientific. Social scientists have long known that individualistic accounts of human society and behavior are bogus. As the late sociologist Allan G. Johnson would put it, such accounts miss the forest for the trees.

Second, though you may not feel personally oppressed by gender, this doesn't mean that others don't. This is what is called anecdotal evidence; you cannot make broad generalizations based on singular, personal accounts. Gender is, in fact, an oppressive social construct because it engenders social inequality and instills conformity; this, of course, results in much distress for those who do not wish to conform, via social exclusion that can even culminate in violence. Your callous disregard here for others is similar to that of selfish "I got mine" American libertarians. Again, you, and the ideology you represent, are clearly conservative.

Third, you are erroneously conflating the social construct of gender with traditionally gendered (masculine VS feminine) social presentations. I'm not suggesting that you should have your right to present yourself in a feminine manner taken away. In fact, freedom to express oneself as one sees fit is the point of gender critical efforts! The issue here is that these social presentations are formally instituted; as I explained above, this is problematic for many reasons.

Finally, as I've been saying, I'd prefer it if you refrained from the usage of gendered terms altogether. Instead of using pronouns such as "he/she" and "his/hers" to refer to people's genders, use them in reference to their biological sex. Sex-neutral terms such as "they" are fine as well.
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>dude i fuckin wish we lived in a society where i was considered a conservative!

Hmm? Why is that, haha?

Whether society considers you conservative is not the point. For instance, mainstream American society regards liberals as leftists, even though they are not actually leftist. Society, of course, can be wrong. Since you advocate the usage of terms to refer to gender, you are, in fact, conservative, as this practice functions to preserve rather than eliminate this oppressive, anti-egalitarian social construct. Whether society sees you as conservative is irrelevant.

>no one can agree on what defines sex, not even scientists

While the particulars and nuances of biological sex are still a matter of scientific debate, researchers agree on general properties of biological sex. For example, organisms of a particular sex contain only same-sex intranuclear genetic material (XX or XY), can only produce same-sex gametes, and can only reproduce with conspecifics of the opposite sex. While there are some exceptions (e.g., children and eunuchs, who are unable to produce gametes), when it comes to normal development these properties are usually present.

Unlike biological sex, gender has no particular material substrate. It is, through and through, purely a social construct. It is not comparable to biological sex, which is a natural phenomenon that transcends human culture.