tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91705711229667558872024-02-18T17:46:15.289-08:00Academic ScribblersSocial Science and its criticsClint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-38081986189236358882019-03-26T05:09:00.002-07:002019-03-26T05:15:53.413-07:001000 CASTAWAYS: FUNDAMENTALS OF ECONOMICS is now available at Amazon! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">1000 CASTAWAYS: FUNDAMENTALS OF ECONOMICS is now available at Amazon!
</span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PWRXTF2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #0066cc; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">1000 CASTAWAYS: FUNDAMENTALS OF ECONOMICS by Clint Ballinger</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<u></u><br />Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-15321685060479872402017-05-15T11:27:00.002-07:002017-05-15T11:31:27.122-07:00New Posts at http://clintballinger.edublogs.org/<a href="http://clintballinger.edublogs.org/">CLINT BALLINGER
On good urbanism, sane economics, & problems in the social sciences</a>Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-80221215339164527292016-12-19T02:29:00.003-08:002016-12-19T02:39:24.206-08:00Links to recent posts<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #111111; font-family: "Century Schoolbook", Century, Garamond, serif; font-size: 19px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://clintballinger.edublogs.org/2016/12/19/geographyofmercantilism1/" target="_blank">The State System and Mercantilist Policies: Part I of Mercantilism and the Rise of the West </a></em><br />
<i><br /></i>
<strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #111111; font-family: "Century Schoolbook", Century, Garamond, serif; font-size: 19px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://clintballinger.edublogs.org/2016/12/19/geographyofmercantilism2/" style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank"><i>Mercantilism – Rejected by both the Left and the Right: Part II of Mercantilism and the Rise of the West</i></a></strong>Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-69136558201661318522012-12-22T03:24:00.001-08:002012-12-22T03:24:21.024-08:00I HAVE MIGRATED HERE <a href="http://clintballinger.edublogs.org/" target="_blank">Clint Ballinger, <span style="background-color: white; color: #7a7a7a; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">On good urbanism, sane economics, & problems in the social sciences</span></a>Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-4365756405553414492012-10-14T00:50:00.004-07:002012-10-14T00:50:52.434-07:00New Posts are over at Open SalonWhile I am in China, all new posts are at <a href="http://open.salon.com/blog/clintballinger" target="_blank">Academic Scribblers on Open Salon</a>.<br />
A few recent posts:<br />
<a href="http://open.salon.com/blog/clintballinger/2012/10/06/china_and_scale_population" target="_blank">China and Scale (Population)</a><br />
<a href="http://open.salon.com/blog/clintballinger/2012/10/09/jane_jacobs_on_the_eurozone_crisis" target="_blank">JANE JACOBS ON THE EUROZONE CRISIS</a>Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-79542818410253110562012-09-04T07:27:00.003-07:002012-09-04T07:54:37.391-07:00Calling all Economists: A Case Study for Privatization of Government Functions?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWICp_R6Y30ZtpNVJMunMpqKh2NtA_dkUncemnXcX9XUOAERJYKMJnQcWkI5gew00-Gq5eM8RWbDQ6sSPnodQZ8-dQPLIEofVjMJD7-tgUq7owZNJvGP-E1LdqLfNZLTb2d7v5nTthWOzQ/s1600/029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWICp_R6Y30ZtpNVJMunMpqKh2NtA_dkUncemnXcX9XUOAERJYKMJnQcWkI5gew00-Gq5eM8RWbDQ6sSPnodQZ8-dQPLIEofVjMJD7-tgUq7owZNJvGP-E1LdqLfNZLTb2d7v5nTthWOzQ/s320/029.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I was visiting Poland last Christmas and saw a stack of thick sheet-metal cut into squares on the table. I asked my hosts what they were. Turns out they are used to make mail heavier. </div>
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This sounded sufficiently Kafkaesque - or perhaps Alice in Wonderland-ish - to me (and reminded me of something like <i>Harrison Bergeron</i> for letters as well) to make me think: Why in the world...?</div>
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So they explained: Private mail companies are not allowed to carry letters below a certain weight. Normal letters are thus reserved for the national postal service. But apparently the private companies are so much faster that people are willing to insert metal weights into their mail to bring them to "package" weights eligible for private service and pay the substantial difference for the faster service. I observed that this is a very common practice. </div>
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Now, a disclaimer - I believe there are fundamental mistakes with "free market" critiques of government services, particularly networks of all kinds (and health care). They fail to take into account that the value to society of whole networks, even with many unprofitable lines, is far greater than the sum of its parts. </div>
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But seeing these metal weights I couldn't help but think that this is an economist's wet dream classroom example of the free market. I am sure there is more to the story but I was not able to follow up on the situation in greater detail. If any one else is, it could make an interesting case study of economic theory. On the face of it it supports privatization of public services, although again, I think there might be something more going on. </div>
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<br />Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-18351610287420098572012-09-04T06:43:00.002-07:002012-09-04T07:36:20.904-07:00In China <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">If my posts seems rushed and erratic - I am currently behind the "Great Firewall of China" w curtailed net access. Here to learn firsthand more about the economy here.</span>
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">I can get on blocked websites (which includes Blogger, Facebook, Wordpress, Youtube) about 5 minutes a day. Problem is, I don't even know WHICH 5 minutes. So it is really erratic. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">Really interesting so far. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">Anyway, being here is greatly limiting what I can get done on this project. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">But I think in the long run it is worth it to better understand important aspects of the world economy. I will report when I can, although my focus on this blog is a long term/large scale look at the social sciences and not specifically global economics. OK, I better hit "publish" while I can, I have already been signed in to Blogger for a few minutes, and my Facebook just went down, which means the rest will soon as well. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">More later, Clint </span></span>Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-64804336335916210102012-08-12T13:07:00.000-07:002012-08-21T15:09:13.820-07:00QUARRELS & CONTROVERSIES<span style="background-color: white;">Studying
criticisms of one school of thought by another in a discipline often provides
the clearest statements of problems in a discipline. I gave the example previously of how the criticisms of frequentist statistics by Bayesians and
vice versa – taken as a whole - provide the clearest account of what is wrong with
both of these approaches and more importantly, inferential statistics in
general in the social sciences. I also mentioned how the debate between
mainstream and Austrian School economists, for example, provides a good viewpoint on
the use of math in economics (which is even fuller if other heterodox views
are also studied).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">So the goal of
this post is to point the way to clear discussions of some important debates. The
post now is just a brief outline and placeholder. I will add to it as I run
across various sources (sorry this page is quite messy still - slowly sorting it out/growing it). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<li><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 0in;">Methodenstreit</span></i></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 21px;">Nomothetic - Idiographic debate</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 21px;">Reductionism</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 21px;">"Scientism"</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 21px;">Determinism</span></li>
</ul>
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Controversy & Personal Debates (Some of these are in
other fields, but have implications for the philosophy of the social
sciences).</div>
<ul>
<li style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: 0in;">Dawkins - Gould</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: 0in;">Dawkins - Wilson</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: 0in;">Gould's mismeasures (Morton's Skulls)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: 0in;">The Hoxby-Rothstein debate </span></li>
<li style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 0in;">Ron Martin - Paul Krugman, ("Economic Geography" or "Geographic Economics")</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #7c93a1; line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 0in;"><a href="http://books.google.pl/books?id=8DQko5PKaGkC&pg=PA261&lpg=PA261&dq=Hartshorne-Schaefer+debate&source=bl&ots=tAxyvFIZ8l&sig=7LSX5V-6uy3h6upZApO8vjTa0U8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4PEHUOXLEofa4QTznpitBA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Hartshorne-Schaefer%20debate&f=false" style="background-color: white; text-indent: 0in;" target="_blank">Hartshorne-Schaefer debate</a></span></li>
<li style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 0in;">The Tierney Affair</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px; text-indent: 0in;">The McCloskey & Ziliak - Hoover & Siegler debate (significance testing in economics/social science)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 0in;">Wilson -
Lewontin/Gould/Rose (sociobiology) </span></li>
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<b style="background-color: transparent;">The Hoxby-Rothstein debate</b></div>
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<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113011672134577225.html" target="_blank">Novel Way to Assess School Competition Stirs Academic Row: To Do So, Harvard Economist Counts Streams in Cities; A Princetonian Takes Issue </a>(Wall Street Journal)<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The McCloskey & Ziliak - Hoover & Siegler debate (significance testing in economics/social science)</b><br />
<br />
The Cult of Statistical Significance. Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey <a href="http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/docs/jsm.pdf" target="_blank">Link</a><br />
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Sound and fury: McCloskey and significance testing in economics. Kevin D. Hoover and Mark V. Siegler <a href="http://public.econ.duke.edu/~kdh9/Source%20Materials/Research/Sound%20and%20Fury%20Published%20Version.pdf" target="_blank">Link</a><br />
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Signifying Nothing: Reply to Hoover and Siegler. Deirdre N. McCloskey and Stephen T. Ziliak <a href="http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/articles/stats/sig.php" target="_blank">Link </a><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>"Geographical Economics" </b><br />
Martin, Ron and Peter Sunley. 1996.Paul Krugman’s Geographical Economics and Its Implications for Regional Development Theory: A Critical Assessment. <i>Economic Geography</i>, 72: 259-292. <a href="http://courses.csusm.edu/lbst361bby/~DATA/~Containers/96_EG_GEOGecon-regDEV.pdf" target="_blank">Link</a><br />
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Martin, Ron.1999. The ‘New Economic Geography’: Challenge or Irrelevance? <i>Transactions Institute of British Geographers </i>24:387-391. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/623231?uid=3738840&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101160893207" target="_blank">JSTOR</a><br />
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<b>Sociobiology</b><br />
<i>Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate</i>. Oxford UP, 2000. <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Ullica Segerstråle <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Defenders-Truth-The-Sociobiology-Debate/dp/0192862154" target="_blank"><span style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none;">Amazon "Look Inside" and Reviews</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Dawkins vs. Gould: Survival of the Fittest</i>. Kim Sterelny.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawkins_vs._Gould" target="_blank"><span style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none;">Wikipedia summary</span></a> </div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><b>The Tierney Affair</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">Jungle Fever: </span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 15.75pt;">Did two
U.S. scientists start a genocidal epidemic in the Amazon, or was<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>The
New Yorker<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>duped? By
John Tooby|Posted Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2000. Slate.com<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2000/10/jungle_fever.single.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Link</span></a></span></div>
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Gregor, T. A., & Gross, D. R. (2004). Guilt by
association: the culture of accusation and the American Anthropological
Association’s investigation of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Darkness in El Dorado.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>AmericanAnthropologist,
106(4), 687–698.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://anthroniche.com/darkness_documents/0588.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Link</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Dreger, Alice. 2011. Darkness’s Descent on
the American Anthropological Association: A Cautionary Tale.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Human
Nature, 22: 225–246. <a href="http://anthroniche.com/darkness_documents/0615.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Link</span></a></span><br />
<br />
Statement on the Publication of Alice Dreger’s Investigation, Darkness’s
Descent on the American Anthropological Association: A Cautionary Tale. Jane B.
Lancaster & Raymond Hames.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Human Nature, 2011.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.unl.edu/rhames/ms/Lancaster-Hames-Intro-Descent.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Link</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Gould’s mismeasures</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">Gould's skulls: Is bias inevitable in science?<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">25 July 2011 by David DeGusta and Jason E. Lewis<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 13pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128225.900-goulds-skulls-is-bias-inevitable-in-science.html?full=true"><span style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128225.900-goulds-skulls-is-bias-inevitable-in-science.html?full=true</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">Scientists Measure the Accuracy of a Racism
Claim, <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">Nicholas Wade, </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">June 13, 2011</span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.75pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.75pt;">Study Debunks Stephen Jay Gould's Claim of Racism on Morton</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html"><span style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.nytimes.com</span>/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #303030;">Lewis JE, DeGusta D, Meyer MR, Monge JM, Mann AE, et al.
(2011) The Mismeasure of Science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton
on Skulls and Bias. PLoS Biol 9(6): e1001071. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001071<u1:p></u1:p></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Published:</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #303030;"> </span></span><span style="color: #303030;">June 7, 2011<u1:p></u1:p></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001071">http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001071</a></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSE_Gaddafi_links" target="_blank">LSE - Gaddafi links</a></div>
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<br /></div>
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Like the "<a href="http://www.paecon.net/HistoryPAE.htm" target="_blank">Post Autistic" movement in Economics </a> and at about the same time and for the same reasons there was the "Perestroika" movement in Political Science</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">Cohn, Jonathan. 1999. “Irrational Exuberance: When Did
Political Science Forget About Politics?” </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">The New Republic</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">, October 25, pp. 25-31. <a href="http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/100/cohn.html" target="_blank">Link</a></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;">“Perestroika” Lost: Why the Latest “Reform” Movement in Political Science. Should Fail. Stephen Bennett 2002.</span><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span><a href="http://people.reed.edu/~gronkep/pol210-f02/bennett.pdf" style="line-height: normal;" target="_blank">Link</a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px;">Why Political Scientists Aren’t Public <span style="background-color: white;">Intellectuals. 2002. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px;">PS: Political Science & Politics. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px;">Andrew Stark </span><a href="http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/politicalscientistsaren'tpublicintellectuals.pdf" style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px;" target="_blank">Link</a></div>
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Monroe, Kristen Renwick, ed. 2005. <i>Perestroika! The Raucous
Rebellion in Political Science</i>. New <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">Haven: Yale University Press.</span></div>
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Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-46052107470132067572012-08-12T09:58:00.003-07:002012-08-12T09:58:51.098-07:00ECON JOURNAL WATCH, GEORGE MASON, AUSTRIANS, STATS & MATH<br />
Over the years I have seen some interesting work from <a href="http://econjwatch.org/" target="_blank">Econ Journal Watch</a> (EJW), but had not visited their actual site in a long time. In some ways the purpose of their site is the same as mine. I was surprised to notice they even have a similar logo. Theirs is of course related to their mention of journals, whereas mine is a reference to Keynes. As far as I can tell, and despite theirs being specifically an economic website, I could not find any reference to the Keynes quote that is the reason for my logo. Indeed, there are few references to Keynes on the whole site, which is not surprising given its Austrian economics leanings and what seems to be a close association with George Mason University academics. At any rate, the site has some excellent critical views on mainstream economics and I highly recommend it.<br />
<br />
Seeing EJW gave rise to several thoughts on GMU, the Austrian School, statistics and academic debates as a source of knowledge. <br />
<br />
As an undergraduate interested in economics I felt that mainstream economics made little sense. I looked to heterodox approaches to see if they were any better.<br />
I did not find what I was looking for in Austrian economics but I did find that it has some very good criticisms of mainstream economics, especially the infatuation with mathematical modeling. Years before it was published Bryan Caplan’s excellent Why I am not an Austrian Economist was available online and probably has done more to highlight what is both good and bad about Austrian economics to a generation than any other single paper, and helped shape some of my early views on economics. (At the end of this post I provide a brief excerpt on the use of math in economics). <br />
<br />
This brings me to my second thought: How debates such as those between mainstream economists and Austrians, even when both parties are wrong, are highly informative. Mainstream (and other) economists show the flaws, shortcomings, fetishes and blind spots of Austrians, but Austrians quite effectively helped do the same with the mainstream. <br />
Similarly, I came more and more to see that there are fundamental problems with the way inferential statistics are often used in the social sciences. My understanding of the deeper problems with the application of inferential stats to economics came partly from reading debates between frequentists and Bayesians. Basically both schools of thought on statistics are correct in their critique of the other. The clearest writing on what is wrong with each came from the opposing school of thought. That is why Academic Scribblers seeks to document fully as many academic controversies as possible. They are highly instructive (besides the fact they can make for far better reading than the average textbook). <br />
<br />
The final thought after looking at EJW – I remembered a fun article (<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2006/03/the_secret_of_george_mason.html" target="_blank">The Secret of George Mason: What its Final Four basketball team and its unusual economics department have in common</a>).on how George Mason became such an influential economics department so quickly from very humble beginnings – it was written at the same time that George Mason surprised everybody in basketball and made it to the 2006 NCAA Final Four.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"GMU has excelled on the court and in the classroom by daring to be different. Its basketball team and academic programs began with the (correct) assumption that they couldn't hope to compete against the top schools in their fields—say, Harvard Law School or the Duke Blue Devils—by directly imitating their methods…instead, GMU has hunted for inefficiencies in its markets. Coach Jim Larranaga follows the Moneyball model of recruitment: hunting for the undervalued players—the ones who everyone else thought were too short, too thin, or too fat—and then building them into a team.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
~~~~~~~~~~~</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
(Here is the bit from Caplan I mentioned. This excerpt quoting him is from my <a href="http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/29780/1/MPRA_paper_29780.pdf" target="_blank">Why Inferential Statistics are Inappropriate for Development Studies</a>, PDF, 2011).<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Among economists perhaps the strangest aspect of the prevalent insistence on mathematical and econometric modeling as opposed to simpler causal language is that the former have perhaps not been near as important to the development of economic theory as is commonly perceived. Discursive arguments rather than mathematical models were the basis for such important concepts as Coase’s theory of the firm, Mundell’s optimal currency area (OCA) theory, and the consideration of the market for ‘lemons’ in used-automobile markets which was the basis for the theory of imperfect competition by George Akerlof, all of which led to Nobel prizes in economics.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Economist Bryan Caplan lists ten of the most influential ideas of mainstream academic economics since 1949:</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1. Human capital theory<br />2. Rational expectations macroeconomics<br />3. The random walk view of financial markets<br />4. Signaling models<br />5. Public choice theory<br />6. Natural rate models of unemployment<br />7. Time consistency<br />8. The prisoners’ dilemma, coordination games, and hawk-dove games<br />9. The Ricardian equivalence argument for debt-neutrality<br />10. Contestable markets</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Almost none of these ideas originated with mathematical models, but instead through observation of the real world and/or descriptive statistics, intuition, and discursive arguments. ‘Out of the whole list, there are few plausible cases where mathematics was more than an afterthought: maybe idea #2, and possibly #3. Even there, intuition, not math, probably played the leading role.’ (Caplan 2003)</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Caplan continues: ‘The contributions of econometrics to economics are similarly meager—particularly because econometrics has "crowded out" traditional qualitative economic history…When simple econometrics failed to yield universal agreement among informed economists, this merely provided the impetus for econometric theorists to supply increasingly complex estimators and other tools. Truly, this is a case of looking for car keys underneath the streetlight because it is brighter there. (Caplan 2003)</blockquote>
[from <a href="http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/29780/" target="_blank">Ballinger 2011</a>]<br />
<div>
<br /></div>Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-45009720985019089442012-08-11T15:42:00.000-07:002012-08-13T12:18:22.357-07:00HOW INDETERMINISTS ARE LIKE CREATIONISTS<br />
Replace “intelligent design/IDers” with “indeterminism/indeterminists” and "God" with "Chance" and the passages below are still logical. (This is why the faith in indeterminism worries me – it is irrational yet pervades fields of inquiry that purport to be rational. Blind faith in indeterminism is the flip side from postmodernism of the same coin: They both are just the result of academics throwing up their hands in the face of complexity and saying “we give up!”)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In contrast [to modern science], intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand. Rather than expanding scientific inquiry, such answers shut it down. (How does one disprove the existence of omnipotent intelligences?) </blockquote>
“15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense” (Scientific American) <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=15-answers-to-creationist&page=7" target="_blank">Link</a><br />
------------------<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“The overweening strategy of IDers, and their creationist forebears, is to say that everything that we do not understand is evidence of the existence of God. I can imagine IDers of two centuries ago claiming that God made the sun shine, because until 1938 we had no idea where all that energy came from... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...Who could have guessed twenty years ago that dinosaurs probably became extinct after a giant meteorite collided with Earth and produced a "nuclear winter"? IDers would deprive us of this essential excitement, urging us to stop working when we come up against the hard problems and to ascribe our difficulties to God. </blockquote>
Coyne, Jerry. 2007. The Great Mutator. <i>The New Republic, </i>June 18.<br />
<a href="http://richarddawkins.net/articles/1271-the-great-mutator" target="_blank">Link</a> (Richard Dawkins Foundation)<br />
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<br />
(After posting I noticed this passage discussing Behe's focus on the hard to explain cilia in the same article; replace "design" here with "chance", and "God" and "miracles" with "indeterminism" ):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Behe's arguments from the gaps in scientific knowledge are fatuous. It is certainly true that we do not yet understand every step in the origin of the cilium, but these are early days. Molecular biology is a very young field, and molecular evolutionary biology is even younger. The way to understand the evolution of cilia is to get to work in the laboratory, not to throw up our hands and cry "design." Perhaps we will never understand every step in the evolution of a complex feature, just as we cannot know everything about the development of human civilization from archaeology. But is the incompleteness of our knowledge a reason to invoke God? The history of science shows us that patching the gaps in our knowledge with miracles creates a path that leads only to perpetual ignorance. </blockquote>
</div>
Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-40622844884834247782012-08-11T10:14:00.000-07:002012-08-20T04:41:59.983-07:00NORMATIVE BLINDERS TO EMPIRICAL REALITIES<br />
Several years ago I sent a paper to what eventually turned
out to be several philosophy journals for review. It discussed the treatment of
determinism in the social sciences, specifically that ideas viewed as deterministic
are frequently rejected because common assumptions underlying the social
sciences hold that determinism is morally wrong. The paper was sent straight
back in each case with a comment roughly saying the same thing:<br />
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“Surely scholars of the social sciences are not being so foolish. You
cannot decide factual questions on normative grounds.” </div>
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In other words, how we <i>feel
</i>about whether the universe is or is not deterministic has absolutely no
bearing on whether it <i>is </i>deterministic
or not. It would be utterly misguided to reject factual arguments on normative
grounds.</div>
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Much of the difficulty in convincing these philosophers that social scientists commonly hold certain views was due to the difficulty of demonstrating well established and
thus unspoken assumptions in a group. Group assumptions and norms are sufficiently taken for granted
that they often do not need to be made explicit. However, when research breaks
these taboos implicit norms become explicit. In the social sciences this is
particularly evident with research viewed as either environmentally or biologically deterministic. </div>
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For example, referring to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html?_r=1" target="_blank">Morton-Gould affair</a> John
Horgan (2011, citations below) writes: </div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Biological determinism is a blight
on science. It implies that the way things are is the way they must be. We have
less choice in how we live our lives than we think we do. This position is
wrong, both empirically and morally. </blockquote>
</div>
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Regardless of the truth of the empirical evidence, Horgan explicitly
rejects an argument on moral grounds (Horgan gives no empirical grounds for his position). </div>
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<br /></div>
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There is also a
blanket rejection of research viewed as environmental/geographic determinism.
For example, Jared Diamond’s <i>Guns, Germs
and Steel</i> is likewise rejected not on empirical but on moral grounds:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white;">Diamond pushes further the moral relativism underlying
his Pulitzer Prize winning text….In a chilling display of the dark expediency
of an interpretation that privileges geographical determinism over the idea of
human beings as responsible and accountable agents of our own actions.</span>
(Hall 2003, 135)</blockquote>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Diamond’s
empirical argument is similarly chastised by another scholar as a “pernicious
book” that except for the popular attention it has received “would not
ordinarily merit scholarly discussion” (Sluyter 2003, 813). Diamond’s
(deterministic) “junk science” is seen as so morally dangerous that it “demands
vigorous intellectual damage control” (Sluyter 2003, 813).</div>
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This last statement uses extraordinary language for a scholarly
journal – to demand that factual academic arguments should be deliberately
curtailed based on moral sentiment. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I
believe the quotes above accurately capture the <i>zeitgeist</i> concerning ideas viewed as deterministic in the social
sciences. Theories and empirical evidence concerning biological or geographic
influence on society have largely been shunned, viewed as taboo, and even
ridiculed or subjected to “vigorous intellectual damage control.” Evolutionary
psychology and works such as that by Diamond or Jeffrey Sachs and similar areas of
study have met with extraordinary resistance. Their success is due to
overwhelming empirical evidence that supports them rather than support from
within the social sciences.</div>
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<br /></div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A FEW ADDITIONAL RELEVANT QUOTES </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>ON BIOLOGICAL INFLUENCE</i></span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“During
most of the twentieth century ‘determinism’ was a term of abuse, and genetic
determinism was the worst kind of term” (Ridley 2003, 98). </blockquote>
</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
‘To
acknowledge [a perceived deterministic] human nature, many think, is to endorse
racism, sexism, war, greed, genocide, nihilism, reactionary politics, and
neglect of children and the disadvantaged… Any claim that the mind has an
innate organization strikes people not as a hypothesis that might be incorrect
but as a thought it is immoral to think’ (Pinker 2002, viii). </blockquote>
Peter
Grosvenor observes that “progressive” or “left” intellectuals interpret
“deterministic” evolutionary psychology “as part of the broader assault on collectivism
and on the prospects for more cooperative and egalitarian social models”
(Grosvenor 2002, 436) and view determinism “as a flawed scientific
rationalization of prevailing [unethical] social hierarchies.” (Grosvenor 2002,
438)</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
eminent primatologist Sarah Hrdy even questions “whether sociobiology should be
taught at the high-school level…Unless a student has a moral framework already
in place, we could be producing social monsters by teaching this.” (quoted in
Barash, 2006, B13).</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“[50 years ago] the thought that evolutionary biology might
be relevant to judgments about behavior was not just wrong, it was unclean.” (Michael
Ruse, 2011)</blockquote>
</div>
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Ruse also writes that evolutionary ethics “has moved from
being a taboo subject” to gaining some support. Note the moral aspect of being
taboo and then the immediate response by David Barash:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“It may be, as Michael Ruse has just cogently written, that
‘evolutionary ethics’ is (are?) experiencing something of a renaissance. But I
hope not.</blockquote>
</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To my mind, efforts to derive ethics from evolution are not
only misguided, but have already done considerable harm: witness the
less-than-admirable history of social Darwinism and its use to buttress not
just <i>laissez-faire</i> capitalism but
also colonialism, racism, war and genocide.”</blockquote>
</div>
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Like Pinker’s observes above, views seen as deterministic
are not just shunned as immoral by some, but often in extreme terms. </div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Environmental/Geographic Determinism</i></span></span><span style="text-transform: uppercase;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<o:p> </o:p><o:p> </o:p> Mark
Bassin observes ‘Of all the various chapters in the development of modern geography,
none has been more disparaged, indeed vilified than the discipline’s relatively
brief engagement with the doctrine of environmental or geographical determinism
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ (Bassin 1992, 3). </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Robert Kaplan can quite comfortably write ‘And of all the unsavory truths in which
[international relations] realism is rooted, the bluntest, most uncomfortable,
and most deterministic of all is geography.’ (Kaplan, 2009, 97). </div>
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<br /></div>
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Similar
moral stances are evident in the wording (“shame”, “shameful”, “sin”) of
overviews of geography and geographic/environmental determinism. These are
“treated as part of geography’s distant and shameful past” (Frenkel 1992, 144),
“remembered with shame” (Godlewska, 1993, 550) and equated with “Original Sin”
(Buttimer 1990, 16). </div>
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<br /></div>
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Even
from the detached worldview of analytic philosophy we may find moral beliefs influencing
the study of factual questions - It is extraordinary that the state of modern
philosophy can still allow Jeremy Koons to observe that: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
many
philosophers seem to reject it [hard determinism] not because of its
philosophical implausibility, but because they fear the consequences of its
being true.” (Koons 2002, 81).</blockquote>
</div>
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If even philosophers allow their normative views to
influence their understanding of factual questions, then what hope do social scientists
have for understanding factual questions?</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
~~~~~~</div>
(Often, e.g. see Grosvenor, it may seem that rejections to determinism are from the "left". However, the "right" also often rejcts determinism on moral grounds. More on this in a future post.)</div>
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<o:p> </o:p> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>WORKS CITED</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Barash,
David P. 2006. The social responsibility in teaching sociobiology. <i>The Chronicle of Higher Education</i>
53(13): B13.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Barash,
David P. “Evolutionary Ethics and Other Oxymorons.” July 30<sup>th</sup> 2011
post on “Brainstorm,” (a Chronicle of Higher Education blog). <a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/evolutionary-ethics-and-other-oxymorons/37729" target="_blank">Link</a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bassin,
Mark. 1992. Geographical determinism in Fin-de-siècle Marxism: Georgii
Plekhanov and the environmental basis of Russian history. <i>Annals of the Association of American Geographers </i>82(1): 3-22.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Buttimer,
Anne. 1990. Geography, humanism, and global concern. <i>Annals of the Association of American Geographers</i> 80(1): 1-33.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Frenkel,
Stephen. 1992. Geography, empire, and environmental determinism. <i>Geographical Review</i> 82(2): 143-153.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godlewska,
Anne. 1993. Review of <i>Déterminisme et
géographie: Hérodote, Strabon, Albert le Grand et Sebastien Münster</i> by Jean
Bergevin. <i>Isis</i> 84(3): 550-551.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Grosvenor,
Peter C. 2002. Evolutionary psychology and the intellectual left. <i>Perspectives in Biology and Medicine</i> 45
(3): 433–48.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Hall,
Anthony. 2003. <i>The American Empire and
the Fourth World</i>. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Horgan,
John. “Defending Stephen Jay Gould’s Crusade against Biological Determinism.”
June 24, 2011. “Cross-Check” Scientific American blog. <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2011/06/24/defending-stephen-jay-goulds-crusade-against-biological-determinism/" target="_blank">Link</a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kaplan,
Robert. D. 2009. The Revenge of Geography. <i>Foreign</i>
<i>Policy</i>. 172: 96-105.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Koons,
Jeremy Randel. 2002. Is hard determinism a form of compatibilism? <i>The Philosophical Forum</i> 33(1):81-99.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pinker,
Steven. 2002. <i>The blank slate: The modern
denial of human nature</i>. New York: Viking.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ridley,
Matt. (2003) 2004. <i>The agile gene: How
nature turns on nurture</i>. New York: Harper Perennial.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ruse,
Michael. “The Marc Hauser Dilemma” July 28th<sup>th</sup> 2011 post on
“Brainstorm,” (a <i>Chronicle of Higher
Education</i> blog). <a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/the-marc-hauser-dilemma/37703" target="_blank">Link</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sluyter,
Andrew. 2003. Neo-environmental determinism, intellectual damage control, and
nature/society science. <i>Antipode</i>
35(4): 813-817.</div>
Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-48183297233234480142012-07-30T07:58:00.000-07:002016-12-24T07:38:53.204-08:00Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-88478113543802178212012-07-30T05:57:00.001-07:002012-07-30T05:57:59.866-07:00NY TIMES ON ALGEBRA & UNDERSTANDING SOCIETYThis passage from the recent opinion piece on algebra in The New York Times reminds me of the excellent <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Innumeracy-Mathematical-Illiteracy-Consequences-Vintage/dp/0679726012" target="_blank">Innumeracy </a>by John Allen Paulos. Both mesh well with my view that we need a much better heuristic understanding of society, and a social studies approach that explains ideas clearly, uses graphs, maps and visual approaches to understanding society that match human cognition better than current statistical approaches (as I discuss in <a href="http://cambridge.academia.edu/ClintBallinger/Papers/436639/Initial_Conditions_as_Exogenous_Factors_in_Spatial_Explanation" target="_blank">Chapter 6 here).</a><br />
<br />
<img alt="" src="data:image/png;base64,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" /><br />
<h1 class="articleHeadline" itemprop="headline">
Is Algebra Necessary?</h1>
<div class="articleSpanImage">
<span itemid="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/29/sunday-review/29COVER/29COVER-articleLarge-v2.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject">
<div class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">
Adam Hayes</div>
</span>
</div>
<h6 class="byline">
By
<span itemprop="creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span itemprop="name">ANDREW HACKER</span></span></h6>
<h6 class="dateline">
Published: July 28, 2012</h6>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Instead of investing so much of our academic energy in a subject that
blocks further attainment for much of our population, I propose that we
start thinking about alternatives. Thus mathematics teachers at every
level could create exciting courses in what I call “citizen statistics.”
This would not be a backdoor version of algebra, as in the Advanced
Placement syllabus. Nor would it focus on equations used by scholars
when they write for one another. Instead, it would familiarize students
with the kinds of numbers that describe and delineate our personal and
public lives. </div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
It could, for example, teach students how the <a class="meta-classifier" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/consumer_price_index/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about the Consumer Price Index.">Consumer Price Index</a>
is computed, what is included and how each item in the index is
weighted — and include discussion about which items should be included
and what weights they should be given. </div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
This need not involve dumbing down. Researching the reliability of
numbers can be as demanding as geometry. More and more colleges are
requiring courses in “quantitative reasoning.” In fact, we should be
starting that in kindergarten. </div>
I hope that mathematics departments can also create courses in the
history and philosophy of their discipline, as well as its applications
in early cultures. Why not mathematics in art and music — even poetry —
along with its role in assorted sciences? The aim would be to treat
mathematics as a liberal art, making it as accessible and welcoming as
sculpture or ballet.</blockquote>
<br />
www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/is-algebra-necessary.html?src=me&ref=general&pagewanted=all<br />Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-88513740459296920302012-07-30T03:18:00.001-07:002012-07-30T06:25:56.351-07:00Whose flag is this? Geography question of the day<br />
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<a href="http://sunsetsandcervezas.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/flag.jpg" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Sami Flag" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1522" height="379" src="http://sunsetsandcervezas.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/flag.jpg?w=500" style="border: 0px; clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 100%;" title="flag" width="640" /></a></div>
Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-43540278743543009072012-07-29T14:22:00.000-07:002012-07-30T06:26:11.195-07:00TECHNOCRACY, BUREAUCRACY, CREDENTIALISM & SOCIETY. IS IT WORTH IT?<span style="background-color: white;">The social sciences raise, of course, all kinds of issues related to ethics, democracy (who decides what, if anything, is 'better' then the current situation? And how to try to change society?), unintended consequences and so on.</span><br />
<br />
But how about just the sheer exhausting tediousness of it all? Do we really want to move in the direction it would take to successfully fully understand and intervene in social outcomes? Would it really make us happier as a society?<br />
<br />
Just two examples I ran across recently made me think of this issue again. The first is on the math that would be needed to model financial markets (as the math currently used has obviously proven not up to the task). The econophysicist (who has some excellent criticisms of economics) suggests<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
that the economists revise their curriculum and require that the following topics be taught: calculus through the advanced level, ordinary differential equations (including advanced), partial differential equations (including Green functions), <span style="background-color: white;">classical mechanics through modern nonlinear dynamics, statistical physics, stochastic processes (including solving Smoluchowski-Fokker-Planck equations), computer programming (C, Pascal, etc.) and, for complexity, cell biology. Time for such classes can be obtained in part by eliminating micro- and macro-economics classes from the curriculum. The students will then face a much harder curriculum, and those who survive will come out ahead. </span><span style="background-color: white;">So might society as a whole. (McCauley 2006, <a href="http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0606/0606002.pdf" target="_blank">PDF</a>)</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;">The second is from a <a href="http://talesfromethehood.com/2010/10/31/professional-2/" target="_blank">“professional” aid worker </a>arguing against amateur aid workers and organizations.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There are certain very specific things that you need to know in order to do good aid work. There is a large body of aid theory that you need to know, and there is an even larger body of raw information. You need to know (fluently) standards like Sphere, HAP, or those related to your area of technical expertise/interest. You need to know grant management (not just management,grant management). You need to know the latest thinking in community assessment, organizational learning, and maybe child protection….You need to understand R2P (don’t know what that is? Better Google it…) and why it matters. You need to know industry best-practices related to humanitarian protection. You need to know the difference between OCHA and UNOPS and UNHCR. You need to know how humanitarian coordination works and where to find information about it…you may need to know basic logistics, financial management, communications or security.</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;">So – to recap – to understand the economy you need to know:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">calculus through the advanced level</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">ordinary differential equations (including advanced)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">partial differential equations (including Green functions)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">classical mechanics through modern nonlinear dynamics</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">statistical physics</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">stochastic processes (including solving Smoluchowski-Fokker-Planck equations) computer programming (C, Pascal, etc.). </span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">and, for complexity, cell biology. </span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">And to do aid work:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">"You need to know (fluently) standards like</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">Sphere,</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">HAP,</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">or those related to your area of technical expertise/interest.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">grant management (not just management, grant management).</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">the latest thinking in community assessment,</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">organizational learning,</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">and maybe child protection….</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">To understand R2P (don’t know what that is? Better Google it…) and why it matters.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">to know industry best-practices related to humanitarian protection.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">to know the difference between OCHA and UNOPS and UNHCR.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">to know how humanitarian coordination works and where to find information about it…</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">basic logistics, financial management, communications or security.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div>
Somehow I think technocracy (in the first example) and bureaucracy and credentialism (the second example) are not the way forward. </div>
Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-36675694810245168542012-07-21T17:59:00.002-07:002012-07-30T06:32:17.559-07:00OF POLICY, MICE, MEN, & CUTTING BOARDS. UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES<span style="background-color: white;">New York City prohibits cats in shops as a health hazard because of their fur, waste etc.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">So - What do you end up with? <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/nyregion/21cats.html" target="_blank">Rats, mice, - rat fur and mice droppings - in your food instead. And shopkeepers forced to break the law</a> and pay fines. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">I prefer cats personally. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bureaucrats decide to ban in restaurants the age old
practice of using wood for cutting boards. The result? Untold numbers exposed
to higher levels of more dangerous pathogens (<span style="background-color: white;">I worked in restaurants for years, and personally had to change cutting boards and wooden shelves due to these laws)</span><span style="background-color: white;">. Turns out no one thought to
compare plastic cutting boards under real usage conditions against wood – in the
real world plastic cutting boards become (surprise!) covered in cuts. In
plastic, these <a href="http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/docliver/Research/cuttingboard.htm" target="_blank">harbor dangerous bacteria, while in porous natural wood they do not. Wood is safer in the real world.</a></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">In the 21</span><sup style="background-color: white;">st</sup><span style="background-color: white;"> century, in relatively small scale
and well-defined areas of society (food practices in shops and restaurants), a modern country (the US in this case)
cannot get cats and mice and cutting board policies correct. How well do you
think larger bureaucracies governing much less well-defined situations in much
more complex environments, often in countries and cultures far away, do?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Let us step up the complexity a little - say, to the still highly circumscribed (compared to studies of global development and entire societies) area of alternative fuels and their utility. Policy makers and many academics were in consensus that palm oil and biofuels were a good idea. But...<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CE8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2007%2F01%2F31%2Fbusiness%2Fworldbusiness%2F31biofuel.html%3Fpagewanted%3Dall&ei=CxsDUNupHKrjmAXMkMTwCQ&usg=AFQjCNFOpySBRZF7wiYGNNk8U4mRyEnbIQ" style="color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Once a dream fuel, palm oil may be an eco-nightmare</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">and</span><br />
<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/biofuels-make-climate-change-worse-scientific-study-concludes-779811.html" style="background-color: white; color: #7c93a1; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Biofuels make climate change worse</span></a><br />
How, then, can anyone imagine that in the still more complex areas of social policy or international aid that the EU, World Bank, IMF, NGOs, the US Government (Katrina, anyone?) can do any better?<br />
<br />
~~~~~<br />
(Related)<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Philip K. Howard. 1995. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Death-Common-Sense-Suffocating/dp/0679429948/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. </div>
Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-79600992815309945412012-07-21T16:46:00.001-07:002012-07-30T06:33:49.654-07:00A HIPPOCRATIC OATH FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCES?The classic oath for caring for individuals may be a good guide for larger scale interventions...<br />
<div style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;">
<blockquote>
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not", nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.<br />
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath"></a></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath</span></a></blockquote>
</div>
Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-82960534518523331642012-07-21T14:42:00.000-07:002012-07-30T06:28:53.853-07:00M.B.A.s - a menace to society<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">The rise of the business-school-trained M.B.A... is “a menace to society.”</span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">The New York Times </span><br />
<br />
<h1 class="articleHeadline" itemprop="headline" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 2.4em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.083em; margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: left;">
<nyt_headline type=" " version="1.0">The Anti-MBA</nyt_headline></h1>
<nyt_byline style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;"><span itemprop="creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"></span></nyt_byline><br />
<h6 class="byline" itemprop="name" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 2px 0px;">
<span itemprop="creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
By D. D. GUTTENPLAN</span></h6>
<span itemprop="creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;"></span><br />
<h6 class="dateline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">
Published: May 20, 2012</h6>
<h6 class="dateline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/world/europe/21iht-educlede21.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/world/europe/21iht-educlede21.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all</a>
</h6>
<br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-48858479229151831722012-07-21T13:02:00.001-07:002012-07-21T19:32:34.202-07:00A NOTE ON THE BLOG TITLE<span style="background-color: white;">“Academic scribblers” is of course a nod to J.M. Keynes’ famous
phrase:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.”</i></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;"> This website seems to be saying that the social sciences are
ineffective and have failed in important ways. Yet Keynes seems to be saying that social
scientists (or economists and political philosophers at any rate) are very
influential. How do I reconcile the two? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Basically, the reason for studying failure is precisely that in important areas - the way we build our cities, the way we intervene to change social problems, the way our economy functions - does indeed seem to be strongly influenced by the spirit of the times, which in turn is profoundly shaped by earlier thinkers.<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> Is Social Science leading to a positive "encroachment of ideas? Does it, like medicine, first do no harm? What can "practical men" and women learn from the social sciences? This website is devoted to this question. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>“It is the dead who govern. Look you, man, how they work their will upon us! Who have made the laws? The Dead! Who have made the customs that we obey and that form and shape our lives? The dead! And the titles to our lands? Have not the dead devised them? If a surveyor runs a line he begins at some corner the dead set up; and if one goes to law upon a question the judge looks backward through his books until he finds how the dead have settled it-and he follows that…Why, man, our lives follow grooves that the dead have run out with their thumbnails! </i></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Melville Davisson Post</span><br />
<i style="text-align: justify;">Uncle Abner </i></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">“…men make their own history but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it in circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.” </span></i></blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Karl Marx</span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: right;">
<i style="background-color: white;">The Eighteenth of Brumaire</i></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;">(On the spirit of the times and intellectual ideas, I ran across this:</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Simonton, Dean K. 1976. Philosophical eminence, beliefs, and
zeitgeist: An individual-generational analysis. <i>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</i>, 34(4), 630-640. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/34/4/630/">http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/34/4/630/</a>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have only skimmed it but it sounds interesting. </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">12 hypotheses were proposed that specify the eminence of thinkers to be a function of belief structure, zeitgeist relationships, and sociocultural and political variables. An archival research design was introduced that simultaneously tests individual and generational factors. The sample consisted of 2,012 thinkers from Occidental civilization spanning 124 generations from 580 BC to 1900 AD. The dependent variable was derived from a factor analysis of 10 distinct measures. A multiple-regression analysis indicated that philosophical eminence is a function of (a) breadth, extremism, and consistency of belief structure; (b) zeitgeist representativeness, precursiveness, and modernity; (c) role model availability (but not ideological diversity); (d) political fragmentation and political instability (but neither imperial instability nor war intensity); and (e) historical proximity to the present. However, despite the significance of the regression equation, an overwhelming percentage (78%) of the variance in philosophical eminence remains unexplained. Implications of the results and design for further research are briefly discussed. </span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;">A later book length treatment - <i>Genius, Creativity, and Leadership: Histriometric Inquiries</i> 1984. Harvard University Press.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><a href="http://books.google.pl/books?id=k-7R1TVQX4sC&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=Philosophical+eminence,+beliefs,+and+zeitgeist:+An+individual-generational+analysis.&source=bl&ots=JmwOXD2xj6&sig=_jvpvOZFRC15zFhTEHw_wlaFkHA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TwgLUO3FAoTl4QSM_tGpCg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=zeitgeist%20&f=false" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Link</a></div>Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-89187946805400173812012-07-20T23:58:00.003-07:002012-07-30T06:30:03.004-07:00IMF economist accuses Fund of suppressing information (Link)<br />
<h1 class="headline" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 1.21em; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;">
IMF economist accuses Fund of suppressing information</h1>
<a href="http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=An4cZdW0O0T_bj5TI8RR7b7yWed_;_ylu=X3oDMTFiN2pzZDVyBG1pdANBcnRpY2xlIEhlYWQEcG9zAzEEc2VjA01lZGlhQXJ0aWNsZUhlYWQ-;_ylg=X3oDMTM0Yms2ZWkwBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDOGVkM2IyNjMtYTBhZS0zMWIxLThkNTgtOWY3ZjJkMmI3ZTMzBHBzdGNhdANidXNpbmVzc3xlYXJuaW5ncwRwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2U-;_ylv=0/SIG=11btsn6nv/EXP=1344063195/**http%3A//www.reuters.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #5d4370; font-family: arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Reuters" class="logo" src="http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/FZN6924R0WZ__x92.x6.GA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjc-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/logo/reuters/d0c3eb8ca18907492a4b337b5cec5193.jpeg" style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; display: inline !important; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; vertical-align: middle;" title="" /></a><cite class="byline vcard" style="color: #7d7d7d; display: inline-block !important; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; line-height: 2.2em; vertical-align: middle;">By <span class="fn">Lesley Wroughton</span> | <span class="provider org">Reuters</span> – <abbr style="border: 0px;" title="2012-07-21T04:34:21Z">2 hrs 18 mins ago</abbr></cite>
<br />
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/imf-economist-accuses-fund-suppressing-information-011551565--business.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 2.2em;">http://news.yahoo.com/imf-economist-accuses-fund-suppressing-information-011551565--business.html</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="first" style="font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; padding: 0px;">
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A veteran economist at the<span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1342845379_0">International Monetary Fund</span> has accused the global lender of suppressing information on difficulties in dealing with the global financial meltdown and euro zone crisis.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">
In a resignation letter to the IMF's board and senior staff, dated June 18, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1342845379_1">Peter Doyle</span> said the IMF's failures in issuing timely warnings for both the 2007-2009 <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1342845379_2">global financial crisis</span> and the euro zone crisis were a "failing in the first order" and "are, if anything, becoming more deeply entrenched."</div>
</blockquote>
<cite class="byline vcard" style="color: #7d7d7d; display: inline-block !important; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; line-height: 2.2em; vertical-align: middle;"><abbr style="border: 0px;" title="2012-07-21T04:34:21Z"><br /></abbr></cite>Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-4830745770660421702012-07-20T12:54:00.004-07:002012-07-30T06:30:39.892-07:00ACADEMIC VIEW OF NEW URBANISM IN 2002<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
"Over the past two decades, the New Urbanism has emerged as a
controversial alternative to conventional patterns of urban development.
Although growing in popularity, it has received a skeptical reception in
journals of planning, architecture and geography." (Ellis, 2002, 261). </blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Clearly, academic schools of architecture are hostile to
virtually all traditional building, and find the various permutations of
modernism, neomodernism, postmodernism and deconstructionism to be the only
suitable styles of our age." (Ellis, 2002, 274). </blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">Ellis, Cliff. The New Urbanism: Critiques and Rebuttals. 2002.
</span><i style="background-color: white;">Journal of Urban Design</i><span style="background-color: white;">, 7(3): 261-291. </span><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1357480022000039330#preview" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Link</a><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">More recent academic views on New Urbanism and Jacobs </span><a href="http://bettercities.net/news-opinion/links/14739/how-revisionists-are-blaming-jacobs-new-urbanism" style="background-color: white;">http://bettercities.net/news-opinion/links/14739/how-revisionists-are-blaming-jacobs-new-urbanism</a></div>
Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-1935964206080201932012-07-19T14:45:00.000-07:002012-07-20T10:36:12.393-07:00STRING THEORY & THE SOCIAL SCIENCESAre the social sciences like string theory? Some of the controversy surrounding string theory in physics sounds familiar...<br />
<br />
"<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">Here are some of the most significant criticisms levied against string theory (or the string theorists who practice it):</span><br />
<ul class="level-one" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; margin: 5px 0px 5px 10px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: disc; margin: 0px 0px 5px 18px; padding: 0px;"><div class="first-para" style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-top: 8px; padding: 0px;">
String theory is unable to make any useful prediction about how the physical world behaves, so it can’t be falsified or verified.</div>
</li>
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: disc; margin: 0px 0px 5px 18px; padding: 0px;"><div class="first-para" style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-top: 8px; padding: 0px;">
String theory is so vaguely defined and lacking in basic physical principles that any idea can be incorporated into it.</div>
</li>
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: disc; margin: 0px 0px 5px 18px; padding: 0px;"><div class="first-para" style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-top: 8px; padding: 0px;">
String theorists put too much weight on the opinions of leaders and authorities within their own ranks, as opposed to seeking experimental verification.</div>
</li>
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: disc; margin: 0px 0px 5px 18px; padding: 0px;"><div class="first-para" style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-top: 8px; padding: 0px;">
String theorists present their work in ways that falsely demonstrate that they’ve achieved more success than they actually have. (This isn’t necessarily an accusation of lying, but may be a fundamental flaw in how success is measured by string theorists and the scientific community at large.)</div>
</li>
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: disc; margin: 0px 0px 5px 18px; padding: 0px;"><div class="first-para" style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-top: 8px; padding: 0px;">
String theory gets more funding and academic support than other theoretical approaches (in large part because of the aforementioned reported progress).</div>
</li>
<li style="border: 0px; list-style: disc; margin: 0px 0px 5px 18px; padding: 0px;"><div class="first-para" style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-top: 8px; padding: 0px;">
String theory doesn’t describe our universe, but contradicts known facts of physical reality in a number of ways, requiring elaborate hypothetical constructions that have never been successfully demonstrated.</div>
</li>
</ul>
(Excerpt from <span style="background-color: white;">The String Wars: Outlining the Arguments b</span><span style="background-color: white;">y Andrew Zimmerman Jones and Daniel Robbins <a href="http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-string-wars-outlining-the-arguments.html" target="_blank">Link</a> ). </span>Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-25940533863024716462012-07-19T05:03:00.002-07:002012-07-30T06:25:23.509-07:00USE OF POPULAR MEDIA SOURCES<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am purposefully linking to popular accounts of social science
research and debates in addition to academic sources. These 1) help non–specialists
understand difficult and obscure aspects of the social sciences 2) are easily accessible,
even to visitors who do not have access to university library databases and 3)
are often written by academics, but forces them to put their research and arguments
in clear language, and thus are sometimes better sources on the social sciences
than the original academic texts themselves. </div>
Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9170571122966755887.post-35660933178937595892012-07-14T12:34:00.000-07:002012-08-15T16:09:24.055-07:00ARE THE SOCIAL SCIENCES USEFUL?<span style="background-color: white;">In 2002 Stanford and NYU political scientist Russell Hardin published an article that asked a number of questions about political
science, including whether the fact that much of its academic work may seem
obscure and irrelevant to the public is a problem, in </span><i style="background-color: white;">PS: Political Science and Politics </i><span style="background-color: white;">(</span><a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=108507" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Whither Political Science?</a><span style="background-color: white;">).</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hardin wrote that an economic consensus had occurred on
important policy issues and asked</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Has the less apparently relevant work of modern economics
contributed to that concurrence? A similar question would be worth tackling not
only in economics but in many other disciplines. The huge number of people
working on economics and economic problems suggests that most of them cannot be
doing anything that rises to the level of public awareness, so few of them can
have had much direct effect on public debates or policies. That might be too
quick and dismissive a claim, however, because someone such as Larry Summers,
whose economic advice was centrally important for several years during the
Clint administration, could not likely have achieved his own understanding
without the large enterprise of academic, research institute, industrial and governmental
research on economic issues. It is not trivially easy and maybe not analytically
possible to ferret out the connections between the thousands of journal
articles over the past 50 years and the counsel that a Summers has had to
offer. Yet it would be absurdly presumptuous to dismiss the relevance of all
that work, as abstract or minutely focused as much of it was. Somehow, the
enterprise of economic science has been fundamentally important." (Hardin 2002, 183).
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hardin defends the vast amount of seemingly irrelevant or unproductive work in academia on the grounds that it does
indeed inform policy in an important way, at least in the long run. <span style="background-color: white;">The “thousands of journal articles over the past fifty years” were "fundamentally important” to modern economic policy decisions. </span><span style="background-color: white;">It would be hard to choose a better example than this to
illustrate the point of this blog. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By 2008 the US economy was in a financial meltdown and the crisis in which we are still in began. It is widely attributed to the polices
(with their intellectual roots in Milton Friedman) of Alan Greenspan along with
Summers, who while at Harvard, the World Bank, and as Secretary of the Treasury of the United States was in
the forefront of the academic argument for deregulation, in favor of ever more complicated derivatives,
and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 2010, from among the 11,000 subscribers of the heterodox
Real World Economics Review, 7,500 voters chose Summers as one of the top ten <a href="http://rwer.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/greenspan-friedman-and-summers-win-dynamite-prize-in-economics/" target="_blank">economists most responsible for the modern financial crisis</a>, third behind Greenspan
and barely behind Friedman himself. Although (purposefully) over-the-top, the
economic website zero-hedge was able to ask “Is Larry Summers an Economic War
Criminal?” (Zerohedge.com. <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/larry-summers-economic-war-criminal" target="_blank">Link</a>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Summers’ policies have been utterly disastrous for the US economy (more on the <a href="http://academicscribblers.blogspot.com/p/economics.html" target="_blank">Economics page</a>).
If this is what, in the words of Hardin, “the large enterprise of academic,
research institute, industrial and governmental research on economic issues”
and “thousands of journal articles over the past 50 years” leads to, then the
utility of the social sciences (at least economics in this case, but the
problem is wider) must be questioned. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This webpage, then, asks the question: Are the social sciences useful?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, economics as taught in most departments has been argued to be useless, or worse still, "dangerous to know", its theories leading to wrongheaded policies that caused the current economic crisis and continue to make it worse. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Development aid and public policy initiatives are frequently shown to be ineffective, and like economics, often worse than doing nothing due to serious unintended consequences. Sociology, Political Science, Human Geography - all have been argued to be suffering from crises of progress, failing to provide useful policy advice, nor do they engage, inform and enrich the public (the common defense of the Liberal and Fine Arts). Political scientists failed to predict major events such as the fall of the Soviet Union and the Arab Spring. Architects and urban planners' policies led to dysfunctional, antisocial, unhealthy, environmentally unfriendly and unsustainable built environments, especially in the United States, ("new urbanism" concepts that are reverting to traditional human friendly building forms were laid out, to a striking degree singlehandedly, by <a href="http://www.kunstler.com/mags_jacobs1.htm" target="_blank">anti-academic</a> Jane Jacobs). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> In the UK, for example, "<span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-left;">Social scientists hoping to influence government policy are likely to find that their pearls of wisdom fall on deaf ears. An independent review of the state of social sciences finds that, while the volume and quality of UK research is second only to the US, the “real world” of government and wider society remain unconvinced of its value." ("Antisocial Science?" 2003). </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-left;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> This website seeks to consider this point of view. Are the social sciences in crisis? If so, can they be better? Can they help in the creation of a better society? What are the worst aspects of modern social science, and what are the best?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> At the moment the site is mainly focused on linking to other material. There are many excellent critiques of the social sciences, and I wanted to put them all on one site, as a resource, and to see what is common between them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Much of the site is focused on macroeconomics ( and development / international aid), and urbanism. These are two areas where mainstream academic approaches have not only shed little light, but have actively caused significant harm. Mainstream economics and the policies it has developed is directly responsible for the current financial crisis in the developed world. International aid has largely failed and frequently caused negative unintended consequences in the developing world. And academic influences on urban policy, especially in the United States, were a major cause in the decline of the quality of life in the United States. I also look at political science, sociology and other areas of the social sciences.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <b> ~~~~`~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The goal of this project is to document both successes and problems with the social sciences. The following sources highlight some problems in the various disciplines. They are listed first to support the contention that there is indeed a problem. Successes will be considered later. Also, these are mostly "big picture" critiques. Of course there are many more specific internal disputes within social science disciplines. Some of these will be considered in greater detail at a later date. I am mainly looking for more recent criticisms, although some older ones are included as well.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">There are at least three classes of critiques of the social sciences: </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">As an endeavor at all</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">In their current form</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Criticism within a particular discipline - one branch against another. </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Currently these are not distinguished clearly here. The focus of this website is primarily on the first two points. The third point is of course extensively covered within disciplines themselves. However, often critiques between opposing viewpoints within a discipline expose problems relevant to the first two points. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="background-color: white;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: medium; line-height: 18px;">114054852073093</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: medium; line-height: 18px;">经济学</span></div>
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<br />Clint Ballingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16484643778860969972noreply@blogger.com0