I have an impossible project that I want to do because it needs doing, not because its impossible.
The Social Sciences are often very unscientific. I want to do to economics and foreign policy analysis what Jared Diamond and other similar authors have done with history. This is important because, you know, existential risk from nuclear wars or global warming or whatever else might kill us all. We can’t have an AI or colonize space if we all die in the meantime. Making the Social Sciences more rigorous and subject to simple and empirical and bias free review methods would definitely pay off. We need this.
The Social Sciences are often very unscientific. I want to do to economics and foreign policy analysis what Jared Diamond and other similar authors have done with history.
These two sentences may contradict each other. I’d suggest that Jared Diamond is famous as a multidisciplinarian pop-sci author. I don’t mean that as an insult to him at all. He has sold a lot of books, and has interested the public in ideas, which is great as far as it goes. But if you want to bring more rigor to social science, I don’t think Jared Diamond’s writings on history of all subjects should be your model.
Maybe you should redefine your goal to popularizing science. That wouldn’t be bad if you can do it well. Even so, if you want to popularize real science, you’ve got to get a taste for real rigor. One place to start would be diving deep into the mathematics of statistics.
Beyond that, when reading popular social science of any kind, especially any big theories which explain all of history, set your bullshit detector on high. Just assume that Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and Paul Krugman are just wrong. A fortiori, Jared DIamond.
I understand placing a low prior on ideologues and pop social sciences in general. I don’t believe Diamond should be considered either of those, though. I’ve read Guns, Germs, and Steel and most of Collapse, and I haven’t really seen any attempts by him to sweep any problems under the rug. He didn’t seem to be oversimplifying things, to me, when I read him.
Could you recommend a criticism of Diamond’s material to me?
I think you misunderstand me. Jared Diamond is a serious academic in good standing. I did not say he was an ideologue. Apparently, Professor Diamond has a doctorate in physiology, but is currently described as a professor of geography. He is not a professional historian. In any case, the discipline of History is noble, but it is not always described as a social science at all.
But both Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse are pop sci, not that there’s anything wrong with that. They were marketed to an audience of intelligent nonexperts. They were never intended to be serious peer-reviewed academic studies.
So that’s three strikes against these works as bringing rigor to social science.
Again, this is not an attack on Professor Diamond at all. Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was pop sci, and was wonderful. Richard Dawkins has written some great pop sci. So have E.O. Wilson, and Stephen Hawking etc. etc. But their serious academic work is much more dense and technical, and was addressed to a far more narrow and critical audience. Rigourous works never, ever make it to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.
Iif you want a criticism of pop sci in general, it is that it might be used as an end-run to avoid peer review. An unscrupulous academic might use his or her credentials to dazzle the public into metaphorically buying snake oil, maybe for the sake of celebrity and money. Beware of Stephen Jay Gould .
However, I think Guns, Germs, and Steel might be about as rigorous as that era of history can ever get. I’ve never encountered any historical arguments which cover such an unknown time period with such breadth and depth. If he were to increase the rigor of his arguments, we’d lose any chance at an overall picture.
Just because the books are accessible to the masses doesn’t mean that the books aren’t rigorous, which is what you almost seem to be implying with your above comment. Certainly, they’re not perfectly scientific and can’t be readily tested. But that can never happen in these fields, and the goal is only to move towards science as an ideal. You say that they weren’t intended to be peer reviewed, but I guess I’m sort of confused as to why you believe that. There’s nothing precluding experts from reviewing Diamond’s findings, as far as I can see.
Regardless, there are some really really really bad social science arguments out there. If the average social science argument, or even some of the best social science arguments, reached a level of rigor and excellence comparable to Guns, Germs, and Steel then the field would be improved a hundred fold. Maybe this means that I’ve got pathetic standards for what constitutes rigor, but I prefer to think that I’m being realistic, as I think improving IR and economics to even this level of rigor is already a near impossible task.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea that people invent ideas, but generally I think that having help with something is better than trying to do it all yourself. I think having two different extremes interact and debate each other would probably yield more interesting truths than having one very smart moderate attempt to discover the truth on their own, provided that those extremes are being evaluated by a neutral and intelligent third party and those extremes are trying to court the third party to their point of view.
I think Taleb’s quote is more about how all people attempt to predict the actions of all other people, and then act accordingly. Lots of behavior in the social sciences functions like a super extreme version of a Keynesian Beauty Contest where all participants are both judges and players, there is no limit to how meta or recursive you go except whatever limit is imposed on you by your cognitive limits, and you have access to information that isn’t just incomplete, but is often actually wrong.
It’s not physically impossible, like simulating a complicated simulation that simulates itself (and is thus bigger than itself which is basically a contradiction) but it’s in a similar sort of vein and degree of difficulty. Very meta and recursive, very difficult to measure things or to verify if what you’re doing is correct or if you even understand what you’re doing.
Mmmm. Okay this looks like a really good one. We need a title for it so I can add this to the list. “Make Social Sciences Rigorous” might work… but I think people are already trying to be rigorous, and “more rigorous” is kind of vague. We need a nice solid, concrete goal. Maybe there’s a more strict, more specific term than rigorous… “logically consistent” or … hmmm… what specific goals would you say would best express this vision?
I also feel a need to clarify the term “social sciences”. You give examples like how there are too many unknowns in economics and foreign policy. This feels like two separate problems. In a way, they are. What you’re saying here is “The way to solve all these problems in all these diverse areas is by making social sciences more rigorous”. That, I can believe, for sure. However, I don’t think that would be the entire solution. When it comes to anything political, there are also large masses of people involved in the decision-making process. They may choose the most rational, most scientifically valid option… or they might not. You might counter with “If we understood why they make decisions that are against their own best interests, we could wake them up to what’s going on.” Is that what you’re envisioning?
Would you spell out the whole line of reasoning?
P.S. I redid a lot of the original post, any suggestions?
The goal is vague because I don’t know how to get started with it.
I’m not quite sure what you’re saying with the rest of your comment. I understand that economics and foreign policy are basically two different areas. However, the policies of both fields interact quite a lot, and both disciplines use many of the same tools, such as games theory and statistical analysis. I would perhaps even argue that IR studies would be improved overall if they were widely conceived of as a sub discipline of economics. They also share many of the same problems.
For example, in both fields there are large difficulties with comparing the results of economic and foreign policies and comparing them to the results that other policies counterfactually would have had, because countries are radically different in one time period as compared to another, and because policies themselves are more or less appropriate for some countries than others. Figuring out how to apply the lessons of one time and place to another is more or less what I was envisioning when I said that I wanted to make the social sciences more empirical.
There are also problems with measuring variables in both fields. In science, it’s relatively easy to determine what the output amount of energy from a system is, or the velocity of a specific object at a specific time. But in economics and IR, we have lots of trouble even understanding exactly what the inputs and outputs are or would be, let alone understanding their relationship with one another. For example, uncertainty is hugely important in IR and in economics, but it seems almost impossible to measure. Even more obvious things, like the number of troops in a certain country or the number of jobs in a specific sector, are often debated intensely by people within these fields.
Without the ability to measure inputs or outputs of policy processes or the ability to compare those processes to the hypothetical effectiveness that other policies might have had, these fields are crippled. If there is any way to get around these problems or to minimize them, we really need to figure it out. This will be really really hard, if not impossible, but it’s probably the most effective nonscientific thing that we can be doing to minimize existential risk.
TL;DR: I want to be Harry Seldon except in real life.
I have an impossible project that I want to do because it needs doing, not because its impossible.
The Social Sciences are often very unscientific. I want to do to economics and foreign policy analysis what Jared Diamond and other similar authors have done with history. This is important because, you know, existential risk from nuclear wars or global warming or whatever else might kill us all. We can’t have an AI or colonize space if we all die in the meantime. Making the Social Sciences more rigorous and subject to simple and empirical and bias free review methods would definitely pay off. We need this.
Anyone have any ideas how to get started?
These two sentences may contradict each other. I’d suggest that Jared Diamond is famous as a multidisciplinarian pop-sci author. I don’t mean that as an insult to him at all. He has sold a lot of books, and has interested the public in ideas, which is great as far as it goes. But if you want to bring more rigor to social science, I don’t think Jared Diamond’s writings on history of all subjects should be your model.
Maybe you should redefine your goal to popularizing science. That wouldn’t be bad if you can do it well. Even so, if you want to popularize real science, you’ve got to get a taste for real rigor. One place to start would be diving deep into the mathematics of statistics.
Beyond that, when reading popular social science of any kind, especially any big theories which explain all of history, set your bullshit detector on high. Just assume that Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and Paul Krugman are just wrong. A fortiori, Jared DIamond.
I understand placing a low prior on ideologues and pop social sciences in general. I don’t believe Diamond should be considered either of those, though. I’ve read Guns, Germs, and Steel and most of Collapse, and I haven’t really seen any attempts by him to sweep any problems under the rug. He didn’t seem to be oversimplifying things, to me, when I read him.
Could you recommend a criticism of Diamond’s material to me?
I think you misunderstand me. Jared Diamond is a serious academic in good standing. I did not say he was an ideologue. Apparently, Professor Diamond has a doctorate in physiology, but is currently described as a professor of geography. He is not a professional historian. In any case, the discipline of History is noble, but it is not always described as a social science at all.
But both Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse are pop sci, not that there’s anything wrong with that. They were marketed to an audience of intelligent nonexperts. They were never intended to be serious peer-reviewed academic studies.
So that’s three strikes against these works as bringing rigor to social science.
Again, this is not an attack on Professor Diamond at all. Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was pop sci, and was wonderful. Richard Dawkins has written some great pop sci. So have E.O. Wilson, and Stephen Hawking etc. etc. But their serious academic work is much more dense and technical, and was addressed to a far more narrow and critical audience. Rigourous works never, ever make it to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.
Iif you want a criticism of pop sci in general, it is that it might be used as an end-run to avoid peer review. An unscrupulous academic might use his or her credentials to dazzle the public into metaphorically buying snake oil, maybe for the sake of celebrity and money. Beware of Stephen Jay Gould .
I misunderstood you earlier, yes.
However, I think Guns, Germs, and Steel might be about as rigorous as that era of history can ever get. I’ve never encountered any historical arguments which cover such an unknown time period with such breadth and depth. If he were to increase the rigor of his arguments, we’d lose any chance at an overall picture.
Just because the books are accessible to the masses doesn’t mean that the books aren’t rigorous, which is what you almost seem to be implying with your above comment. Certainly, they’re not perfectly scientific and can’t be readily tested. But that can never happen in these fields, and the goal is only to move towards science as an ideal. You say that they weren’t intended to be peer reviewed, but I guess I’m sort of confused as to why you believe that. There’s nothing precluding experts from reviewing Diamond’s findings, as far as I can see.
Regardless, there are some really really really bad social science arguments out there. If the average social science argument, or even some of the best social science arguments, reached a level of rigor and excellence comparable to Guns, Germs, and Steel then the field would be improved a hundred fold. Maybe this means that I’ve got pathetic standards for what constitutes rigor, but I prefer to think that I’m being realistic, as I think improving IR and economics to even this level of rigor is already a near impossible task.
An idea from Taleb which I find plausible: The more people there are, the harder prediction becomes.
I believe this is the case because the more people there are, the more likely they are to invent things.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea that people invent ideas, but generally I think that having help with something is better than trying to do it all yourself. I think having two different extremes interact and debate each other would probably yield more interesting truths than having one very smart moderate attempt to discover the truth on their own, provided that those extremes are being evaluated by a neutral and intelligent third party and those extremes are trying to court the third party to their point of view.
I think Taleb’s quote is more about how all people attempt to predict the actions of all other people, and then act accordingly. Lots of behavior in the social sciences functions like a super extreme version of a Keynesian Beauty Contest where all participants are both judges and players, there is no limit to how meta or recursive you go except whatever limit is imposed on you by your cognitive limits, and you have access to information that isn’t just incomplete, but is often actually wrong.
It’s not physically impossible, like simulating a complicated simulation that simulates itself (and is thus bigger than itself which is basically a contradiction) but it’s in a similar sort of vein and degree of difficulty. Very meta and recursive, very difficult to measure things or to verify if what you’re doing is correct or if you even understand what you’re doing.
Mmmm. Okay this looks like a really good one. We need a title for it so I can add this to the list. “Make Social Sciences Rigorous” might work… but I think people are already trying to be rigorous, and “more rigorous” is kind of vague. We need a nice solid, concrete goal. Maybe there’s a more strict, more specific term than rigorous… “logically consistent” or … hmmm… what specific goals would you say would best express this vision?
I also feel a need to clarify the term “social sciences”. You give examples like how there are too many unknowns in economics and foreign policy. This feels like two separate problems. In a way, they are. What you’re saying here is “The way to solve all these problems in all these diverse areas is by making social sciences more rigorous”. That, I can believe, for sure. However, I don’t think that would be the entire solution. When it comes to anything political, there are also large masses of people involved in the decision-making process. They may choose the most rational, most scientifically valid option… or they might not. You might counter with “If we understood why they make decisions that are against their own best interests, we could wake them up to what’s going on.” Is that what you’re envisioning?
Would you spell out the whole line of reasoning?
P.S. I redid a lot of the original post, any suggestions?
The goal is vague because I don’t know how to get started with it.
I’m not quite sure what you’re saying with the rest of your comment. I understand that economics and foreign policy are basically two different areas. However, the policies of both fields interact quite a lot, and both disciplines use many of the same tools, such as games theory and statistical analysis. I would perhaps even argue that IR studies would be improved overall if they were widely conceived of as a sub discipline of economics. They also share many of the same problems.
For example, in both fields there are large difficulties with comparing the results of economic and foreign policies and comparing them to the results that other policies counterfactually would have had, because countries are radically different in one time period as compared to another, and because policies themselves are more or less appropriate for some countries than others. Figuring out how to apply the lessons of one time and place to another is more or less what I was envisioning when I said that I wanted to make the social sciences more empirical.
There are also problems with measuring variables in both fields. In science, it’s relatively easy to determine what the output amount of energy from a system is, or the velocity of a specific object at a specific time. But in economics and IR, we have lots of trouble even understanding exactly what the inputs and outputs are or would be, let alone understanding their relationship with one another. For example, uncertainty is hugely important in IR and in economics, but it seems almost impossible to measure. Even more obvious things, like the number of troops in a certain country or the number of jobs in a specific sector, are often debated intensely by people within these fields.
Without the ability to measure inputs or outputs of policy processes or the ability to compare those processes to the hypothetical effectiveness that other policies might have had, these fields are crippled. If there is any way to get around these problems or to minimize them, we really need to figure it out. This will be really really hard, if not impossible, but it’s probably the most effective nonscientific thing that we can be doing to minimize existential risk.
TL;DR: I want to be Harry Seldon except in real life.