While working as a former economic researcher, my then-boss had a litmus test for analyzing studies: he would always try to identify an alternative explanation

While working as a former economic researcher, my then-boss had a litmus test for analyzing studies: he would always try to identify an alternative explanation for any qualitative assertions made by the study. See midas's comment below for a great example of this. [0] In economics -- hell, in any empirical field -- it's absurdly hard to draw qualitative conclusions. If you see these often, like in Priceonomics's blog posts, then you should have doubts. I get Priceonomics is a YC company so we should cheer for them or something, but they're quickly picking up a reputation for making qualitative jumps using elementary work. You don't want to be in that position when you're in the business of analyzing data. [0] http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3859136 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3859136