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It's entirely possible to get a nonsense paper into an economics journal, even when not intentionally trying to expose the discipline as "nonsense". I'm not su

It's entirely possible to get a nonsense paper into an economics journal, even when not intentionally trying to expose the discipline as "nonsense". I'm not sure what you're not understanding here.

darawk 8y ago
Replication crisis != nonsense papers, i'm not sure what you're not understanding here.
- tomlock 8y ago
  I guess I'm not understanding how you can think that a paper that makes a claim about the real world, but doesn't apply to the real world, could be characterised as anything but nonsensical.
  - darawk 8y ago
    It makes an empirical claim using empirical data. Empirical data is complicated and inherently probabilistic. The fact that empirical studies sometimes conclude things that are wrong does not invalidate the notion of empirical investigation. It is an expected part of the distribution. It is also an issue that sometimes research practitioners do not follow the best practices, and this can lead to an exaggeration of false positive results beyond what you would expect from the underlying statistics. However, this also does not invalidate the idea of empirical investigation. It simply means we need to iterate on our training techniques and peer review. What this paper asserts is not that gender studies need to iterate on their techniques. It does not assert that the basic methodology of gender studies is good, but it needs some tweaks here and there. It asserts that, at a fundamental level, the concept of the field is flawed. They assert that the entire methodological framework is flawed. No one, not the authors of the replication crisis paper, or Ioannidis, nor any other serious academic asserts this about math, physics, etc...
    - tomlock 8y ago
      Empirical data in individual studies are supposed to have statistical controls that mitigate incorrect conclusions, that's why p values are even a thing. To claim that on the one hand individual papers can be wrong, but the additive nature of a field somehow removes the possibility of error in the field, is misguided, to say it gently. Could it be perhaps that this individual paper, which you claim undermines the "entire methodological framework" of these fields, could be one of those individual studies that comes to incorrect conclusions, not because of any statistical flaw, but because of the inbuilt fallibility and political biases of the authors?
      - darawk 8y ago
        Just pay attention to what i'm saying. I'm saying that the METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK of physics and math is legitimate. The replication crisis et al does NOTHING to contradict that. This paper is ASSERTING that the METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK of gender studies is flawed. You may disagree with that assertion. However, citing the replication crisis, which is a DIFFERENT CATEGORY OF ISSUE, does nothing to make your point.
        tomlock 8y ago
        Pay attention to the article! The authors of these hoax papers don't demonstrate or address a methodological flaw in gender studies. They demonstrate that you can get papers written in bad faith into a peer reviewed journal, which is also trivially true for many disciplines, including economics, which you have previously implied people would have a problem getting a "nonsense" paper into.
        darawk 8y ago
        An empirical paper with a reasonable hypothesis that happens to be wrong is not a nonsense paper. The papers they got published in these journals were not simply empirically false. They were categorically absurd and in some cases wildly unethical. They weren't simply making empirical claims that were reasonable but happened to be false.

It's entirely possible to get a nonsense paper into an economics journal, even when not intentionally trying to expose the discipline as "nonsense". I'm not sure what you're not understanding here.

darawk 8y ago

Replication crisis != nonsense papers, i'm not sure what you're not understanding here.

tomlock 8y ago
I guess I'm not understanding how you can think that a paper that makes a claim about the real world, but doesn't apply to the real world, could be characterised as anything but nonsensical.
- darawk 8y ago
  It makes an empirical claim using empirical data. Empirical data is complicated and inherently probabilistic. The fact that empirical studies sometimes conclude things that are wrong does not invalidate the notion of empirical investigation. It is an expected part of the distribution. It is also an issue that sometimes research practitioners do not follow the best practices, and this can lead to an exaggeration of false positive results beyond what you would expect from the underlying statistics. However, this also does not invalidate the idea of empirical investigation. It simply means we need to iterate on our training techniques and peer review. What this paper asserts is not that gender studies need to iterate on their techniques. It does not assert that the basic methodology of gender studies is good, but it needs some tweaks here and there. It asserts that, at a fundamental level, the concept of the field is flawed. They assert that the entire methodological framework is flawed. No one, not the authors of the replication crisis paper, or Ioannidis, nor any other serious academic asserts this about math, physics, etc...
  - tomlock 8y ago
    Empirical data in individual studies are supposed to have statistical controls that mitigate incorrect conclusions, that's why p values are even a thing. To claim that on the one hand individual papers can be wrong, but the additive nature of a field somehow removes the possibility of error in the field, is misguided, to say it gently. Could it be perhaps that this individual paper, which you claim undermines the "entire methodological framework" of these fields, could be one of those individual studies that comes to incorrect conclusions, not because of any statistical flaw, but because of the inbuilt fallibility and political biases of the authors?
    - darawk 8y ago
      Just pay attention to what i'm saying. I'm saying that the METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK of physics and math is legitimate. The replication crisis et al does NOTHING to contradict that. This paper is ASSERTING that the METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK of gender studies is flawed. You may disagree with that assertion. However, citing the replication crisis, which is a DIFFERENT CATEGORY OF ISSUE, does nothing to make your point.
      - tomlock 8y ago
        Pay attention to the article! The authors of these hoax papers don't demonstrate or address a methodological flaw in gender studies. They demonstrate that you can get papers written in bad faith into a peer reviewed journal, which is also trivially true for many disciplines, including economics, which you have previously implied people would have a problem getting a "nonsense" paper into.
        darawk 8y ago
        An empirical paper with a reasonable hypothesis that happens to be wrong is not a nonsense paper. The papers they got published in these journals were not simply empirically false. They were categorically absurd and in some cases wildly unethical. They weren't simply making empirical claims that were reasonable but happened to be false.