counterfactuals and historical logic

One of my favorite articles to teach in graduate theory is Richard Ned Lebow’s “If Mozart Had Died at Your Age,” (paywall, sorry) which very cleverly lays out a counterfactual theory in which Mozart not dying at 36 changes the aesthetic, thereby the philosophical, thereby the political, history of Germany and therefore the world. Now […]

the nas’s hundred great ideas

A couple of months ago, the right-wing National Association of Scholars pulled together and published a list of “100 Ideas for Reforming Higher Education.” The ideas are presented, one per contributor (with a few exceptions), organized alphabetically by the last name of the contributor, which makes the compilation seem even more haphazard than it is […]

will $500 billion make america feel secure?

I am reposting an important analysis by my colleague, Charlie Kurzman. Original here. On the subject of national security, two unexpected calms lie hidden amid the headlines of conflict. One calm is in Washington, where Republicans and Democrats pretend to debate the national security budget. Republicans in Congress released a plan last month that insists […]

biernacki, “reinventing evidence”

OrgTheory’s current book forum is on Richard Biernacki‘s Reinventing Evidence in Social Inquiry. I provide my views here to contribute to the discussion. Biernacki attempts a wholesale indictment of the practice of “coding” texts as a social scientific technique. Through careful attempts to replicate three studies, Biernacki seeks to show that the attempt to bridge […]

fairness and high-risk, high-reward

I have heard recently two concerns about training for job markets that might be called high-risk, high-reward jobs. The implication is that such training programs are unfair because they aim too high for students’ likely job prospects.

snarky: what is it about a new century?

When I was book review editor at Social Forces, I developed a pet peeve: book titles that used phrases like “for a new century,” “for the 21st century,” and so on. If the only reason your book is of interest is because of the changing digits at the end of the year, you should probably […]

dog bites person; right winger endorses ignorance

North Carolina is “blessed” with a statewide center dedicated to right-wing attacks on higher education, the John W Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. One of their more prolific commentators is Jay Schalin, a small-time journalist with no credentials, experience, or expertise in education, research, or scholarship, but who apparently feels entirely qualified to present […]

the celarent reviews

Quick question – what’s the deal with the “Barbara Celarent” reviews from 2050 in AJS? I find them opaque and have no idea what they’re supposed to be doing. What am I missing? Is it some elaborate inside joke and I’m on the outside?

preparation for shared governance

Some of the most rewarding things I’ve done since leaving graduate school are under the umbrella of shared governance: faculty input on the direction and operation of the university. UNC is fortunate to have a generally well-operating, open, and respected faculty governance system and an administration that is relatively respectful of that system. I’ve been […]

ask a scatterbrain: post-review changes not suggested by reviewers

On behalf of an anonymous reader: After submitting an article to a journal, I have received a revise & resubmit decision along with two reviewer reports. The changes suggested by the reviewers and the editor seem reasonable and doable. However, it has occurred to me after I received the reports that the statistical model I […]

no austrians near fiscal cliffs

The commonplace saying “there are no atheists in foxholes” — while probably technically false — seems apt to describe the so-called “fiscal cliff” situation the United States government finds itself in. Deficit hawks and Austrian economics purists ought to be happy, as the automatic cuts produce the first significant deficit reduction in 12 years and […]

the chronicle’s wasted opportunity

The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a reader contest recently, inviting readers to design their ideal college, from the ground up. The results are here (sorry for the paywall). This could have been a great opportunity to rethink what’s best and worst about current higher education. (In truth, I thought about suggesting a scatterplot combined […]

snarky qotd about voting and economics

The prize goes to Peter T: [Steven] Levitt has millions of brain cells. The activity of any one of them cannot possibly matter. So he doesn’t bother thinking. It’s all part of a(nother) post by Andrew Gelman on why it might be rational to vote if you care about the outcome because there’s a nonzero […]

the fact-checking craze is bad for democracy

Yesterday, someone called “Lewis McBatman” tweeted: Joe Biden fact-raped Paul Ryan last week. About time someone did. Now, there are all sorts of things wrong with the imagery and metaphor in that tweet. But one thing I find problematic is the insistence that what was better about Biden’s performance was that it was factual.

don’t look now, but the campaign is working

According to a lasting view of American politics, the Big Conversation should be about the role of government in the economy: the extent to which government should be engaged in taxation, redistribution, risk management, and so on. And one of the recurrent complaints about the state of US politics is that the image consultants, spin […]