Superforecaster, social science, metascience, data science. USA & Canada.
On Twitter or BlueSky you’d find me @thatMikeBishop
Mike Bishop
Karma: 658
Project Follow Through, the study most frequently cited as proving the benefits of Direct Instruction is far from perfect. Neither classrooms nor schools, were randomly assigned to curricula. Its not clear how students ended up in treatment vs. comparison groups but it probably happened differently in different communities. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Follow_Through#Analytical_methods for a bunch of info and more references.
Claims that the extent to which will power is exhaustible depends on one’s belief about it’s exhaustibility: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101014144318.htm
We should feel good about the fact that some biases of different research designs will cancel each other out, while bad about our inability to weight each study optimally.
I take it Stanovich is doing a lot of experiments where he controls for IQ, or compares performance within and across IQ groups. Here is my concern… there is always measurement error, and the more error in his measure of IQ, the more it will appear he’s measuring something distinct from IQ which he terms “rationality.”
That said, I also agree that IQ, and G, are often reified. The point is, I’m not sure Stanovich has succeeded in carving cognition skills at their joints, but I don’t have anything better to offer.
I don’t think we should push too hard on the dichotomy of boy vs. man. I would emphasize that there is individual variation in how well men they can perform/achieve masculinity in their sub-culture. Women face the issue as well.
For many people, their gender is an incredibly important aspect of their identity. One can think of a given subculture as having an ideal performance of masculinity. Men and women both respect that ideal. Certain occupations have been traditionally seen as very good ways of achieving that ideal. If women enter into such an occupation, the occupation is no longer seen as validating mens’ manly virtues.
I oppose sex-discrimination in hiring, but there is no denying that this is a very serious loss for some men. Eventually, norms and ideals evolve in a way which allows men to continue to have their masculinity validated, and/or de-emphasizes gender as a component of one’s identity, but this is a slow process. Moreover, with any change in values, there will always be winners and losers.
If you want to be on the cutting edge scientifically, you need to plan on a graduate degree. Find people doing the sort of research you are interested in and ask them for advice. Better yet, try to get a job in their lab. You’ll have to get very specialized and the biggest discoveries will probably be using a different approach than whatever approach you’re attempting. But hey, that’s life, its honorable to give it a shot.
If you’re more interested in the business, legal, or public policy, and/or education issues, then the hard science education probably isn’t so important.
Bottom line: I suggest you say much more about the careers that interest you.
You say almost nothing about long-term career goals, which most people would determine what credentials are most useful, which is many, if not most, people’s primary motivation for earning a university degree.
So you want to do an undergraduate degree but you don’t care about earning a helpful credential and you’ll attend lectures but not listen to them.
...and I thought I had unusual tastes.
I plan on devoting very little time studying outside of formal lectures. (This will mean careful use of my time during lectures and all that I know on optimal learning techniques. My philosophy has always been that you either need to attend or you need to study but never both! (Perhaps I should add in IQ and say ‘pick two’).
Personally, I learn faster studying on my own than by listening to 90% of lectures. I would think this would be especially true for a) classes at the undergraduate level and b) classes where I’m not concerned about my grade so much as I’m concerned about learning what I think is interesting/important.
If I had to choose a single piece of evidence off of which to argue that the rationality assumption of neoclassical economics is totally, irretrievably incorrect...
Since this is framed as a hypothetical, its not clear exactly what your thoughts are on the subject, but I always encourage people to ask whether a model aids our thinking, or hinders it, rather then whether it is correct or incorrect.
care to explain why we should expect sensitivity to initial conditions to matter in the particular example being discussed here?
I agree that GDP is imperfect. If it were easy to perfect then it would have been done already. Should more resources be devoted to the issue? Probably. I support the use of multiple measures of wealth and well-being. But I do think that when GDP goes up, that usually indicates good things are happening. Other indicators usually track it.
I’m not trying to deny you’ve noticed a problem, I just think that you’re overstating it because even though GDP is imperfect, there is still a lot to be learned from empirical research that uses it.
We were asked a sort of odd question which was which apartment choice would help the economy when not taking into account the individuals preferences about apartments. Those preferences in fact dominate the overall effect on the economy. I wouldn’t recommend anyone personally attempting Keynesian stimulus.
Increasing the amount of money changing hands only helps in certain circumstances, and even then it is not necessarily the dominant effect.
What about the examples of intelligent stimulus I offered?
I recommend going to an econ textbook for good questions.
I’m a sociologist*, and there is nothing sociologists like to do more than point out where economists go wrong. So if GDP was a worthless figure, I expect the real world entanglement that one of my fellow sociologists would have convinced me of that already.
I’m not saying economists never overinterpret GDP figures, and I’m not saying the consensus of macroeconomists is always correct.
Though I think we might both be better served by quitting conversation and reading actual experts (I don’t claim to be one) I would like to make sure we’re on the same page about the implications of your criticism. Are you not saying that it is essentially worthless to attempt to study economic growth or business cycles empirically because the data is so poor?
*if you can be one without having completed your dissertation yet.
I agree that both a) and b) would have a similar effect in that the widget manufacturer puts to work resources (labor, machines) which would otherwise not be utilized. I wouldn’t recommend either a) or b) because there are many more efficient ways to stimulate the economy. One that my father, who happens to be an economist, has promoted is a temporary tax credit for new hires. More detail. If there are some roads you were going to build a couple years from now, speeding up that investment is probably a good idea in an economic downturn. I’m not defending legislation that actually got passed… I try not to pay too much attention.
To be clear, you are suggesting we might not lose anything by giving up measuring and using GDP figures? I’ll side with the majority of the economics profession… they aren’t perfect but they mostly use GDP data in a reasonable way.
broken link on “usually correlate”?