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For those of us who only read the headline: this is debunking claims by economists and pointing out they’re building their theories on sand.
by moomin 3y ago
For those of us who only read the headline: this is debunking claims by economists and pointing out they’re building their theories on sand.
- cfn 3y agoAnd they (the economists) may not be the only ones.
- dang 3y agoThanks. This is one of those cases where the article is more interesting than its title. I've taken a crack at revising the title, though not a very good crack - it's better to use language from the article itself and I didn't do that in this case. If anyone wants to comb through the article and find a representative phrase that would be more suitable, we'll happily edit it again.
- ianai 3y agoI'd add "some" to the prefix it. Econ papers vary widely in quality. The lack of a quantifier could be taken to mean this is the new unrepresentative lab rats.
- dang 3y agoOk, I've put some up there. Thanks!
- notahacker 3y agoOriginal title was far more accurate than the editorialised one which is extremely inaccurate ("economists" outside the subfield of economic history do not "typically" "rely" on population data for the pre-Industrial Revolution period at all) and seems like clickbait for people to add their middlebrow-at-best dismissals of the field. "Widely used historical population time series mostly guesswork" would be a more accurate title, though you might get a few "water is wet" replies :)
- throwaway154 3y agoI read this on repec a few months ago. Interesting seeing it here. A better title: Economist points out some economists had been using a dodgy source; cites other economists who had pointed this out adding to literature of checking citations and a growing body of literature on checking claims in economic history in particular [editorial: as these feed into pop science years down the road]
- addcommitpush 3y agoTo be more precise in a few more words, the article makes two points: * some papers rely on McEvedy and Jones’ Atlas of World Population History data as the ground truth, when a lot of it is the best educated guess (sometimes the guess is based on basically almost nothing). * the difference between the "guessed" population and the real population (which do not observe) is not random, which would lead not only to less precise results but also to bias.
- flakeoil 3y agoWe can see that in real life everyday when listening to the PhD's of Sand Building at the central banks.
- hospitalJail 3y agoSeriously. The mental gymnastics of economists on the Federal Reserve is mind boggling. Its truly an orthodox religion with rigid rules to follow. The Federal Reserve lies, and the economists continue to trust their every word. My theory is that the deep state needs control of the currency, so they specifically put economists that teach the necessity of the Federal Reserve.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoA much simpler theory is that people still value relatively trustworthy entities even if they might not be absolutely trustworthy.
- tekla 3y agoI look forward to you deep and thorough analysis of the wrongness of the fed.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lotsofpulp 3y agoIs this not the case for pretty much any field outside the hard sciences? https://xkcd.com/435/ https://xkcd.com/435/
- moomin 3y agoI think hard sciences are amenable to more precision, but it’s fine to be imprecise as long as you’re cognisant of the level of precision you’re using. The problem with the studies being criticised is their conclusions aren’t supported by the level of precision. I highly recommend reading some of AE Housmann’s prose. He lays out a vision of _English Literature_ that intellectually rigorous.