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> There are some toxic fields of research, but I don't think this attitude is particularly common in the academia. The author was formerly an economics student

> There are some toxic fields of research, but I don't think this attitude is particularly common in the academia. The author was formerly an economics student, where this attitude is quite common. It might have colored his perspective.

bachmeier 4y ago
It really isn't "quite common". There are some places that take pride in those things, but they are a small minority. People that have only been in the "top" departments are probably not aware of that though.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  The top 20 US Economics Departments train a majority of PhD economists so “quite common” seems fair. Also, using scare quotes for top in Economics is, ah, questionable. There is a very visible ranking and you’d get substantial agreement on it from most academic economists. The strong core agreement on techniques and axioms is part of why economists are more influential in policy than the rest of the social sciences put together. > The Superiority of Economists > There exists an implicit pecking order among the social sciences, and it seems to be dominated by economics. For starters, economists see themselves at or near the top of the disciplinary hierarchy. In a survey conducted in the early 2000s, Colander (2005) found that 77 percent of economics graduate students in elite programs agree with the statement that “economics is the most scientific of the social sciences.” Some 15 years ago, Richard Freeman (1999, p. 141) speculated on the origins of such a conviction in the pages of this journal. His assessment was candid: “[S]ociologists and political scientists have less powerful analytical tools and know less than we do, or so we believe. By scores on the Graduate Record Examina- tion and other criteria, our field attracts students stronger than theirs, and our courses are more mathematically demanding.” https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.29.1.89 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.29.1.89
  - workingon 4y ago
    Yeah but it also attracts students a lot worse than actual sciences. And yet here we are, listening to people with two straight lines intersecting talking about “supply and demand” and writing the world based on it.
  - bachmeier 4y ago
    > The top 20 US Economics Departments train a majority of PhD economists so “quite common” seems fair. Perhaps if I had commented about PhD students. I specified "places" because there are lots of places to work, and the miserable folks are mostly found in a small percentage of places you can work as an academic economist. > There is a very visible ranking and you’d get substantial agreement on it from most academic economists. Others are free to define "top" as they wish. I am under no obligation to accept their definition.
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      You are of course free to have your own definition of top Economics departments, just as you are free to decide that you do not need to pay taxes. Social facts exist.
Fomite 4y ago
Coming from public health, but being involved in several economics hires, economics is fucking savage when it comes to presentations.
- majormajor 4y ago
  That is a bit strange since it seems our economic models are ... extremely rough, at best.
  - bpodgursky 4y ago
    Our economics models are second to none. (cuz it's hard to predict the economic future of the entire human race)
    - dmichulke 4y ago
      Yes, they are the best, but are they good?
  - hnaccount_rng 4y ago
    But that is quite normal, isn't it? The (perceived) need to put other people down ultimately stems from uncertainty about ones own work. And having only bad models available makes it incredibly challenging to think of your own work as "obviously worthwhile", making it more important to improve your own standing by putting down others.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- dash2 4y ago
  Former polisci PhD, now in an economics department. I’m gonna offer a qualified defence of the savagery. 1. Social science matters. If we predict inflation wrong, or mistake what causes development, we screw up the world. (Hello Gunnar Myrdal.) Therefore, if there’s a tradeoff between a nice atmosphere and getting things right, we should always prefer getting things right. 2. There is a rightness-maximizing level of savagery, which is strictly positive. Bad ideas must be challenged. Sometimes bad ideas get entrenched. Then they must be challenged loudly and persistently. Fields where this doesn’t happen tend to degenerate into back-scratching cliques. (Hello, humanities.) Now clearly there is some level of savagery which is TOO savage. If you destroy a PhD student’s confidence, that’s hurtful and you’ve lost their future contributions. Aggression from the top can be used to defend entrenched but mistaken ideas. And there’s certainly toxic behaviour in economics. I’ve seen it and experienced it! 3. Nevertheless, overall, econ does better at removing bad ideas than other social sciences. Our models can be critiqued… other soc scis often just have verbal models which are too vague to be wrong! Our focus on good research design to uncover causality is stronger than many other fields, also. Lastly: 4. There’s more than one kind of toxicity. There are many stories of bad abuses of power - eg sexual harassment - in supposedly “warm”, and highly feminist, fields like Eng Lit. Doubtless there are many reasons for any differences between fields. But I think one underestimated factor is that when there’s no ruthless, hard-faced empirical rigour, when theories are vague and evidence is narrative, then getting published comes to depend on academic politics - on alliances and cliques. That is a fertile breeding ground for abuse of power.

bachmeier 4y ago

It really isn't "quite common". There are some places that take pride in those things, but they are a small minority. People that have only been in the "top" departments are probably not aware of that though.

barry-cotter 4y ago
The top 20 US Economics Departments train a majority of PhD economists so “quite common” seems fair. Also, using scare quotes for top in Economics is, ah, questionable. There is a very visible ranking and you’d get substantial agreement on it from most academic economists. The strong core agreement on techniques and axioms is part of why economists are more influential in policy than the rest of the social sciences put together. > The Superiority of Economists > There exists an implicit pecking order among the social sciences, and it seems to be dominated by economics. For starters, economists see themselves at or near the top of the disciplinary hierarchy. In a survey conducted in the early 2000s, Colander (2005) found that 77 percent of economics graduate students in elite programs agree with the statement that “economics is the most scientific of the social sciences.” Some 15 years ago, Richard Freeman (1999, p. 141) speculated on the origins of such a conviction in the pages of this journal. His assessment was candid: “[S]ociologists and political scientists have less powerful analytical tools and know less than we do, or so we believe. By scores on the Graduate Record Examina- tion and other criteria, our field attracts students stronger than theirs, and our courses are more mathematically demanding.” https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.29.1.89 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.29.1.89
- workingon 4y ago
  Yeah but it also attracts students a lot worse than actual sciences. And yet here we are, listening to people with two straight lines intersecting talking about “supply and demand” and writing the world based on it.
- bachmeier 4y ago
  > The top 20 US Economics Departments train a majority of PhD economists so “quite common” seems fair. Perhaps if I had commented about PhD students. I specified "places" because there are lots of places to work, and the miserable folks are mostly found in a small percentage of places you can work as an academic economist. > There is a very visible ranking and you’d get substantial agreement on it from most academic economists. Others are free to define "top" as they wish. I am under no obligation to accept their definition.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    You are of course free to have your own definition of top Economics departments, just as you are free to decide that you do not need to pay taxes. Social facts exist.

Fomite 4y ago

Coming from public health, but being involved in several economics hires, economics is fucking savage when it comes to presentations.

majormajor 4y ago
That is a bit strange since it seems our economic models are ... extremely rough, at best.
- bpodgursky 4y ago
  Our economics models are second to none. (cuz it's hard to predict the economic future of the entire human race)
  - dmichulke 4y ago
    Yes, they are the best, but are they good?
- hnaccount_rng 4y ago
  But that is quite normal, isn't it? The (perceived) need to put other people down ultimately stems from uncertainty about ones own work. And having only bad models available makes it incredibly challenging to think of your own work as "obviously worthwhile", making it more important to improve your own standing by putting down others.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dash2 4y ago
Former polisci PhD, now in an economics department. I’m gonna offer a qualified defence of the savagery. 1. Social science matters. If we predict inflation wrong, or mistake what causes development, we screw up the world. (Hello Gunnar Myrdal.) Therefore, if there’s a tradeoff between a nice atmosphere and getting things right, we should always prefer getting things right. 2. There is a rightness-maximizing level of savagery, which is strictly positive. Bad ideas must be challenged. Sometimes bad ideas get entrenched. Then they must be challenged loudly and persistently. Fields where this doesn’t happen tend to degenerate into back-scratching cliques. (Hello, humanities.) Now clearly there is some level of savagery which is TOO savage. If you destroy a PhD student’s confidence, that’s hurtful and you’ve lost their future contributions. Aggression from the top can be used to defend entrenched but mistaken ideas. And there’s certainly toxic behaviour in economics. I’ve seen it and experienced it! 3. Nevertheless, overall, econ does better at removing bad ideas than other social sciences. Our models can be critiqued… other soc scis often just have verbal models which are too vague to be wrong! Our focus on good research design to uncover causality is stronger than many other fields, also. Lastly: 4. There’s more than one kind of toxicity. There are many stories of bad abuses of power - eg sexual harassment - in supposedly “warm”, and highly feminist, fields like Eng Lit. Doubtless there are many reasons for any differences between fields. But I think one underestimated factor is that when there’s no ruthless, hard-faced empirical rigour, when theories are vague and evidence is narrative, then getting published comes to depend on academic politics - on alliances and cliques. That is a fertile breeding ground for abuse of power.