2. Streaming is the future of music. I've said it here before, but Apple's purchase of streaming music service Lala last year (and shutdown of the service in April) may indicate a move in this direction. Even if it doesn't, I still believe that in the future, no one will keep "a thousand songs in their pocket." Music companies will keep them on their servers, and we'll all access them on our phones, our computers, our entertainment centers, in our cars... because the internet will be everywhere.
3. You are racist, and I can prove it to you. I would encourage you to take the Implicit Association Race Test, which is the result of research at Harvard, UVA, and UW. The test is very short, and it reveals how closely the participant associates African Americans with "bad" things and European Americans with "good" things. If you live in America, chances are you associate African Americans with negative things without even knowing it. There are many other tests as well, covering other races, weight, disability, age, gender, and others.
4. Good marketing makes you say, "That's me!" This is part of Apple's marketing brilliance—when you see their iPhone ads, you think, "Wow, I could see myself using that." This is also part of Verizon's miserable failure—no one sees their DROID ads and thinks, "Wow, I wish I could turn into a robot like that guy." Ok, maybe a few of my engineering buddies do. But we're a small group.
5. Bickering newsmen/women are NOT news! Glenn Beck vs. Rachel Maddow, Bill O'Reilly vs. Keith Olberman... who the hell cares? These people are supposed to be enlightening us and contributing to our national conversation. Instead, they're clouding it with their worthless squabbles.
6. We will never know if the stimulus package worked. There is no control group; we will never know what the world would have been like without it. This lack of empiricism is one of the reasons the social sciences have a long way to go before they can be truly be called scientific. I highly recommend this excellent discussion of this idea from NPR's Planet Money.
7. Not every CEO is evil. I feel that almost everywhere I turn, particularly in the fallout of Wall Street's bailout-turned-bonuses, I hear more about the downright diabolical nature of CEOs. A welcome exception is CBS' little-known show Undercover Boss, in which wealthy CEOs go undercover in their own companies, are confronted by the inspiring personal stories of its hard-working employees, and are moved to make changes which will make employees' lives better (and rarely help the company's bottom line). I think this episode as well as this one are definitely worth your time.
8. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. Sarah Palin claimed that attacks from the "mainstream media" were infringing on her First Amendment rights and keeping her from doing her job as governor. Radio host Dr. Laura recently quit her show after using the n-word eleven times in a conversation with a black caller, claiming she wanted to "regain her First Amendment rights." Many folks claimed that the firing of Don Imus in 2007 violated his rights to free speech after he called the Rutger's University women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" on air. This is all bull. The First Amendment limits the government from taking away your right to free speech; it does not require the government to prevent you from suffering the consequences when you exercise your right to be stupid. For what it's worth, I would also argue that no one's right to freedom of religion is being violated by the criticism of the Mosque near Ground Zero.
9. Liberating women liberates the world, or so argues this magnificent piece from the NYT, titled "The Women's Crusade." Nicholas Kristof and and Shery WuDunn argue that "the liberation of women could help solve many of the world’s problems, from poverty to child mortality to terrorism." I'm convinced.
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Justin... I love your blog. that is all.
ReplyDeleteWow, that was quick! Thanks, Melissa. I love you, and your blog too.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post. Short blips of issues, your opinion and links: I love it. More of these, please!
ReplyDeleteI especially loved the Good marketing makes you think, "That's me!" and your great thoughts on freedom of speech. As someone who lives in DC, you sure hear a lot of free speech!
Excellent post, Justin! The events around #8 ticked me off to no end. "The First Amendment... does not require the government to prevent you from suffering the consequences when you exercise your right to be stupid" is the most perfectly succinct statement I've heard on free speech in a while.
ReplyDeleteI'd also love to read more of your thoughts on numbers 1 (shocking), 2 (strange but likely), 6 (regrettable), and 8 (inspiring).
I have just one minor correction: In #8, you misspelled "lamestream media."
I disagree about your characterization of social sciences (namely the "so-called" part; this is reminiscent of all the glib dismissals of what very smart researchers in the field are trying to do [see Sen. Tom Coburn for an example of the virulent anti-social science crowd]). Science is a method, one that social scientists employ with varying quality--as do any other researchers. However, just because the subject (humans) is fundamentally difficult to predict doesn't mean the work is any less scientific. Are theoretical physicists or astronomers not scientists because they cannot necessarily manipulate their subjects and examine counterfactuals (i.e. the Big Bang)?
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I completely agree that public policy is very hard, if not impossible, to construct scientifically for the reasons you mentioned. But social science is about explaining as well as predicting, and despite the fact that humans are buggers there is a lot to be learned from experimentation, cross-sectional analyses, and even qualitative research about human and institutional behavior.
Thanks guys! Erik -- thanks for the correction. In the name of journalistic integrity, I'll leave the post as it is. ;)
ReplyDeleteBen -- I absolutely agree. Well said. I do not mean to say that all social science is unscientific, and I definitely do not want to align myself with those who are anti-social science. I believe valuable, important work is being done in those fields. I just mean to say that at present, we do not have an overwhelmingly scientific understanding of human behavior. We learn more every day, and I would never be one to say this important research should not be pursued.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I would also never be one to say that all the truth that's worth knowing can be found in science. :)
Ben, you've convinced me to remove the contraction "so-called" from the post. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteJustin, this was fun. Thanks for removing the "so-called" modifier. My pride and degree thank you. ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks Justin! Most political science folks I know have somewhat of an inferiority complex when put up against the hard sciences, so it's kind of a sore spot. Though economists usually deserve it, since they tend to make the strongest predictive/proscriptive claims and then get all huffy when politicians don't do what they say.
ReplyDeleteTo see what I mean, you should read this take on the Coburn drama of 2009 (if you're interested):
http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/07/tom_coburn_picks_on_political_science
Ben -- I have to admit I generally think of political science more as history and philosophy than science. But I don't think that makes it less important or truthful or fascinating. I would have loved to have majored in it. BTW, you should rewrite the Wikipedia article on political science. It's terrible.
ReplyDeleteEvan -- What was your major?
Both -- My apologies: "so-called" is a hyphenated compound word, not a contraction. I hope I didn't offend you further.
Ben -- Read the article. Ridiculous. It seems Coburn's real problem is not that he thinks political science isn't science, it's that he thinks it's unimportant. "Theories on political behavior are best left to CNN, pollsters, pundits, historians, candidates, political parties, and the voters." Ugh. How awful.
ReplyDeleteOne more comment, Ben, sorry. If you have time to read it, I would really love to hear your opinion on that article I linked to: http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=6330
ReplyDeleteI was a Sociology major at Clemson, with a religion undergrad.
ReplyDeleteI liked Ben's characterization of societies/people as inherently difficult to predict. I would also add that all other sciences break down in similar fashion the farther down the rabbit hole you go. This is why we continue to develop new theories (Newton->Einstein->Quantum physics) and why we continue to research. In the end, we're all trying to tell a story that makes the most sense of this reality we find ourselves in.
Also, unlike many other sciences, our subjects are continually changing. Electrons act like we know electrons to act in given situations and will continue to do so. People and cultures are and will continue to be inconsistent.
I wasn't really offended by it. I actually chuckled when I read it. It's a good topic for conversation, though.
I love the IAT, but I know how you can beat it. Take some time at the beginning to think about excellent examples of African Americans, smiling while you do it. Then think of some examples of bad Europeans frowning while you do it.
ReplyDeleteThe pre-loaded associations will last throughout the test.
I see your point and I've heard a few other smart people make this argument before, but I still believe an electron is unpredictable in a very different way than a human being is unpredictable. One is sentient, the other is not. I don't think the analogy between the two useful enough to equate the study of the natural world to the study of human behavior. However, both are crucial to the understanding of our world you speak about--"making sense of this reality we find ourselves in." Here's to that!
ReplyDeleteWhoa, Bryan beat me there! That last comment was to Evan.
ReplyDeleteBryan -- I've heard that thinking about famous, upstanding African Americans (MLK, for example) before taking the IAT will boost your scores, but I haven't heard that it will enable you to beat the test when you otherwise wouldn't have. I'll have to try that out.
I think the author has a valid argument, though he's conflating a number of factors and I'm not quite clear about his logic. For one, he's mixing the micro and macro level too much. All experimentation on humans, to me at least, has to be at the micro level (i.e. examining each individual). He implicitly acknowledges this, but then gets into all the problems with macro studies. We must have firm microfoundations about how humans behave in order to aggregate upwards. Still, experiments that replicate social situations or group behavior is fraught with difficulty; how does one accurately re-create a society in the lab?
ReplyDeleteSecond, social science (more so than any other science) is probabilistic. This is just a fact, and it is due to what we all call "free will" (though poli sci people never talk about this). Thus to criticize the predictive failures of social science is to acknowledge that they study humans, not bacteria. What I view as successful social science is a result that explicitly acknowledges where it applies and the limitations to the finding. Over-reaching is a potential problem that the author seems to dislike.
I keep coming back to the idea that when criticizing social science, he's really lamenting the state of the world/humans. It is not a failing of the discipline to not make perfect predictions; as the author mentions, it's incredibly difficult and expensive in the best cases. It may not always be possible. Who in the world could account for all the possible confounds and important variables when predicting the impact of the stimulus? There may be things beyond human capability.
What he seems to take issue with is the way social science is presented. People wanting to sell books and ideas make it seem like their opinion is right and all others are wrong, and rhetoric over-emphasizes prescriptive aspects of social policy. Much more humility is needed.
Finally, I do take issue with calling political science more like "history and philosophy" than a science. One of the things that drives away more grad students in our department is that they expect us to sit around philosophizing about politics or talking about the history of war, when in reality they get research methods, theory construction/critique, and data analysis. In my experience anyway, there is much more "science" than "social".
Again, since science is a method (not a body of knowledge), there is no reason why any area should be immune from scientific inquiry. The failings of social science to provide answers akin to medical or biological sciences is not a function of the discipline, but of the subject. That's what makes if fun, though again we need to be clear about what we can and cannot get out of experimentation and quantitative analysis on people and institutions they create.
Sorry for the delay in my response, Ben. What a astute, thought-provoking, insightful reply. You've given me a lot to think about. I didn't mean to say that I think political science IS philosophy/history so much as that's the way I think about it. But you have challenged me to think deeper and explore further into what it means to be scientific and what the social sciences have to offer us. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI was reminded about one other tricky bit about experimentation that I think is relevant, which is the ethical aspect (sorry if this is overkill!). A few years ago, one of the leading poli sci scholars was asked (along with a bunch of other people) to help the Mexican government design a new health care policy that would provide the maximum care for the least amount of money (sound familiar?).
ReplyDeleteThe guy (who's at Harvard) asked, and was amazingly granted, the ability to conduct an experiment in Mexico! What he did was match states that were as similar as possible on a wide range of dimensions, and basically instituted the policy in one state (which involved an infusion of funds and health care personnel) while having the other serve as a "control".
Besides the political ramifications (can you imagine being a representative of the control region?), this is very dicey ethically. You may well be damning citizens of one state to die or become very sick while allowing the other the receive revolutionary care. Of course, this is the only way to really assess the treatment effect of the new policy, but at what cost? Anyway, it's very rare for this type of scientific evidence for the effect of a societal policy (which was the original point of your post, I believe), and when it is possible, it's ethically questionable to say the least.
I can pass along that article if you're interested in reading more about this.
Haha it's not overkill at all. I love this stuff. I'm just still a little worried I may have offended you and you'll never comment here again. I hope that's not the case.
ReplyDeleteYou've hit the nail on the head, that is precisely the original point of the post. As you've expertly demonstrated, empirical analysis is very difficult, expensive, and even at times unethical when it comes to public policy. But I think the lack of empirical analysis is what makes people question the social sciences as "science." If we cannot construct an experiment to test whether or not the stimulus package worked, can we really say that the study of the effects of a national stimulus program is science? Hard to say. And it seems to me that in most of the social sciences, such experiments are hard to construct, because we can never be sure the test conditions are constant (no two nations, communities, or even humans are alike).
However, I recognize your excellent points in arguing that this does not exclude these studies as science. I guess I'm trying to say there is much work to be done. More scientific experimentation needs to be applied. I mentioned on the blog recently that 2/3 of all subjects in American psych experiments are white college undergrads. That sheds some serious suspicion on the conclusions folks have made from these experiments. Again, much work to be done.
The Mexico study story was really interesting. Please do send along that article.
Nah, you'll have to work a lot harder to get rid of me. I truly love the debate and appreciate the chance to discuss these issues. I suspect we agree about most of it anyway.
ReplyDeleteHere's the link to the part of Gary King's website where he discusses the project, which now is up to four papers. The paper I was talking about above is #1, though #3 seems to be worth reading as well. The intro to #1 discusses a bunch of the issues you brought up, i.e. public policy experimentation. I think you'll find it interesting
http://gking.harvard.edu/projects/mex.shtml
I think we do too. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteregarding number 8...I agree, and am interested to see what the Supreme Court decides today regarding this and those crazy church funeral protesters...
ReplyDeleteMe too.
ReplyDelete