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Good social science possible, but is difficult and (sometimes) expensive. If you can get the same personal outcome by doing something cheap and easy instead, of

Good social science possible, but is difficult and (sometimes) expensive. If you can get the same personal outcome by doing something cheap and easy instead, of course that's what most people are going to do. Fixing that seems to be the Big Problem for most of science, for at least the last few decades (though, yes, particularly social science). > People wonder why so many government programs fail This, though, I'm not so sure about. Do government programs fail at a rate greater than those undertaken by other large organizations, like corporations or non-profits?

acchow 5y ago
> Good social science possible, but is difficult and (sometimes) expensive The problem is the system incentivizes bad social science.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  That and people overstate and over interpret things. There is nothing wrong with doing a study with faculty children. It is a great idea to get a bigger study done within a budget and timeframe. They write it up stating as much and their intelligent peers understand the caveats. Unfortunately, the results are so exciting that it starts getting cited and taught by people who leave off the caveats. This is why it is important for someone to go back and follow up on the original experiment with new studies.