> Seventy-three independent research teams used identical cross-country survey data to test an established social science hypothesis: that more immigration will

> Seventy-three independent research teams used identical cross-country survey data to test an established social science hypothesis: that more immigration will reduce public support for government provision of social policies. Instead of convergence, teams’ numerical results varied greatly, ranging from large negative to large positive effects of immigration on public support. The choices made by the research teams in designing their statistical tests explain very little of this variation: a hidden universe of uncertainty remains. That's... surprising, but keep in mind that we're talking about "soft" social sciences here. Measuring soft quantities like "public support for government provision of social policies in response to increased immigration" is very different from measuring hard quantities like, say, the location of a rocket in space at a point in time using earth as a frame of reference. I'm looking forward to seeing what Andrew Gelman and his colleagues will say about it at https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/ -- surely they will want to say something about it!