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The bosses pretend to have theories, and we pretend to test them
17 May 2021
Leo Tiokhin has hosted a new blog series on the use of formal models in metascience and, more generally, in psychology. The starting point for the series is the increasing recognition that psychology’s weaknesses don’t just lie in its recent replicatory embarassments. The underlying theories that all those (possibly non-replicable) experiments aim to test are also weak. That is: the theory as stated could give rise to multiple patterns in the data, and the data could be compatible with multiple theories, given how vaguely these are stated. In my contribution to Leo’s series, I invoked the old Soviet joke: the bosses pretend to have theories, and we pretend to test them. Several contributors to the series point out the virtue, given this problem, of formalizing theories in mathematical or computational models. This undoubtedly has merit: if you convert a verbal psychological theory into a formal model, then you expose all your tacit assumptions; you are forced to make decisions where you had left these vague; you discover if your conclusions really must follow from your premises; and you are left with a much tighter statement of what your do-or-die predictions are. This is all good, and true. However, my contribution, … Continue reading “The bosses pretend to have theories, and we pretend to test them”
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My muse is not (or, possibly, is) a horse
30 Apr 2021
I’ve written one thing in my life that people really want to read: a 2017 essay called Staying in the game. When I first posted it, the unprecedented traffic over a couple of days caused my web site host to suspend the service. A lot of people commented or emailed when it came out. Many people have read it since. Every few months it has a little outbreak of virality, usually via Twitter or Facebook. The most recent one was this week. Given that people seem to be interested in the essay, and more generally in understanding the creative processes of their fellow academics, I thought it might be fun to write some more about the history of this essay, how it came about. Staying in the game existed for some time, in several versions. It tries to do several things. It contains a self-help or how-to guide for actual or aspiring academics, a kind of Seven habits of moderately effective (and slightly nerdy) people. There is something of the confessional in it (and that, I think, is what people, especially younger academic colleagues, like). I wanted to say that it is OK, normal, permitted, to struggle in your academic … Continue reading “My muse is not (or, possibly, is) a horse”
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Why does inequality produce high crime and low trust? And why doesn’t making punishments harsher solve the problem?
21 Jan 2021
Societies with higher levels of inequality have more crime, and lower levels of social trust. That’s quite a hard thing to explain: how could the distribution of wealth (which is a population-level thing) change decisions and attitudes made in the heads of individuals, like whether to offend? After all, most individuals don’t know what the population-level distribution of wealth is, only how much they have got, perhaps compared to a few others around them. Much of the extra crime in high-inequality societies is committed by people at the bottom end of the socioeconomic distribution, so clearly individual-level of resources might have something to do with the decision; but that is not so for trust: the low trust of high-inequality societies extends to everyone, rich and poor alike. In a new paper, Benoit de Courson and I attempt to provide a simple general model of why inequality might produce high crime and low trust. (By the way, it’s Benoit’s first paper, so congratulations to him.) It’s a model in the rational-choice tradition: it assumes that when people offend (we are thinking about property crime here), they are not generally doing so out of psychopathology or error. They do so because they … Continue reading “Why does inequality produce high crime and low trust? And why doesn’t making punishments harsher solve the problem?”
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Why is Universal Basic Income suddenly such a great idea?
16 Apr 2020
The idea of an unconditional basic income, paid to all (UBI), has a long history. Very long in fact. Yet, although the policy has been deemed philosophically and (sometimes) economically attractive, it has generally languished in the bailiwick of enthusiasts, mavericks, philosophers and policy nerds (these are, by the way, overlapping categories). But now, with the global pandemic, UBI is very much back in the spotlight. Previous sceptics are coming out with more enthusiastic assessments (for example, here and here). Spain apparently aims to roll out a UBI scheme ‘as soon as possible‘ in response to the crisis, with the aim that this becomes a ‘permanent instrument’ of how the Spanish state works. And even the US Congress relief cheques for citizens, though short-term, have a UBI-like quality to them. So why, all over the place, does UBI suddenly seem like such a great idea? Answering this question requires answering another, prior one: why didn’t people think it was such a great idea before? To understand why people’s objections have gone away, you need to understand what they were before, as well as why they seem less compelling in this time of upheaval. UBI is a policy that appears to … Continue reading “Why is Universal Basic Income suddenly such a great idea?”
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This is no time for utilitarianism!
8 Apr 2020
An interesting feature of the current crisis is the number of times we hear our leaders proclaiming that there are not weighing costs against benefits: ‘We will do whatever it takes!’. ‘We will give the hospitals whatever they need!’. And even, memorably, from the UK Chancellor, ‘We will set no limit on what we spend on this!’. No limit. I mean when did the UK Treasury ever say that? Maybe only during the war, which is a clue. Such statements seem timely and reassuring just at the moment. When people are timorous enough to question whether some of this largesse might actually be sensible – for example, whether the long-term costs of some decisions might be greater than the benefits – it seems in incredibly poor taste. But people are dying! Those commentators are roundly excoriated on social media for letting the side down. All of this is something of a puzzle. The whole essence of evidence-based policy, of policy modelling, is that you always calculate benefits and costs; of course this is difficult, and is never a politically neutral exercise, given that there are so many weightings and ways one might do so. Nonetheless, the weighing of costs and … Continue reading “This is no time for utilitarianism!”
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Are people selfish or cooperative in the time of COVID-19?
25 Mar 2020
On March 12th 2020, in a press conference, the UK’s chief scientific advisor Patrick Vallance stated that, in times of social challenge like the current pandemic, the people’s response is an outbreak of altruism. On the other hand, we have seen plenty of examples in the current crisis of bad behaviour: people fighting over the last bag of pasta, price gouging, flouting restrictions, and so on. So there is probably the raw material to tell both a positive and a negative story of human nature under severe threat, and both might even be true. Rebecca Saxe and I are trying to study intuitive theories of human nature. That is, not what people actually do in times of threat or pandemic, but what people believe other people will do in such times. This is important, because so much of our own behaviour is predicated on predictions about what others will do: if I think everyone else is going to panic buy, I should probably do so too; if I think they won’t, there is no need for me to do so. We have developed a method where we ask people about hypothetical societies to which various events happen, and get our … Continue reading “Are people selfish or cooperative in the time of COVID-19?”
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The view from the top of the hierarchy of evidence
1 Oct 2019
About five years ago I began doing meta-analyses. (If, as they say, you lose a tooth for every meta-analysis you conduct, I am now gumming my way through my food.) I was inspired by their growing role as the premier source of evidence in the health and behavioural sciences. Yes, I knew, individual studies are low-powered, depend on very specific methodological assumptions, and are often badly done; but I was impressed by the argument that if we systematically combine each of these imperfect little beams of light into one big one, we are sure to see clearly and discover The Truth. Meta-analysis was how I proposed to counter my mid-life epistemological crisis. I was therefore depressed to read a paper by John Ionnidis, he of ‘Why most published research findings are false’ fame, on how the world is being rapidly filled up with redundant, mass produced, and often flawed meta-analyses. It is, he argues, the same old story of too much output, produced too fast, with too little thought and too many author degrees of freedom, and often publication biases and flagrant conflicts of interest to boot. Well, it’s the same old story but now at the meta-level. Just because … Continue reading “The view from the top of the hierarchy of evidence”
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Hanging on to the Edges book published
25 Oct 2018
I am delighted to be able to say that my new book Hanging on to the Edges is now published. Thanks to Open Book Publishers, it’s an open access book; you can read it online, download the PDF, or order paper copies here. People often ask me what Hanging on to the Edges is about, and it is not entirely easy to say. It is based on fourteen blog essays I published on this site over the past two years, though they are revised and re-ordered in the book version. It is an attempt to reflect on the major things I care about most in life: science and being a scientist; human nature and human cognition; the relationship between the social and the biological; inter-disciplinarity; politics; and human well-being. To give you some idea of the scope, here’s a word cloud of the terms in the index: And here’s the table of contents: Contents Introduction PART ONE 1. How my theory explains everything: And can make you happier, healthier, and wealthier 2. What we talk about when we talk about biology 3. The cultural and the agentic 4. What is cultural evolution like? 5. Is it explanation yet? PART TWO 6. The mill … Continue reading “Hanging on to the Edges book published”
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HOTTE #14: Morale is high (since I gave up hope)
15 May 2018
Buddhism and the replication crisis: morale is high (PDF) Click here to return to the Hanging On To The Edges hompage.
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HOTTE #13: Is it explanation yet?
17 Apr 2018
A meditation on Newtonian mechanics, ‘life-history theory’, and optimal bus networks. Is it explanation yet? (PDF) Back to Hanging On To The Edges homepage
Another great essay!!! Really insightful analysis of issues of so diverse natures. Most interesting for me, since it concerns a personal belief, that the provision of health care should be the number one function of a government. Also, a sound reasoning on the problems faced by science communicators on the use and abuse of the information provided by them. Looking forward to more of your views on that subject.
Hats off to the Mayr citation!
Hi Daniel, enjoying these very much. They are the perfect nap time reading (Penny’s not mine) to give my mat leave squidgy brain a bit of a workout. Looking forward to reading the next instalment. Hope you are well. Take care
Daniel,
I very much enjoyed your essay and think your diminishing returns (DR) argument is a strong one.
I guess you know this but wanted to simplify your essay: increasing the dispersion of income under DR doesn’t necessarily reduce average health outcome. It would do so if the increase in dispersion were symmetric (equally great in the rich and poor directions). If asymmetric, an increase in the high income direction, with its consequent small improvement in health outcome, would have to be large enough to outweigh the relatively large detriment to health outcome due to any decrease in the value of the lowest incomes. Unlikely perhaps but mathematically possible.
A second thought is that the mere fact that greater income brings better health outcomes means that the poor suffer unfairly and we should try to lift people out of poverty (and In a relatively closed system like a nation state this means taking from the rich). This conclusion holds whatever the shape of the function between income and health (linear, DR or whatever). To the extent that Wilkinson & Pickett’s hypothesis is correct their mechanism is an additional way in which inequality results in the poor suffering unfairly, since any stress resulting from perceived societal inequality must surely fall more strongly on the disadvantaged (and you point to evidence for this).
Concerning the “profound unease” of your last few paragraphs I also prefer the stumbling naivety you refer to, openly acknowledging our scientific uncertainty about complex social phenomena. This is not only more honest but, in the long-term I believe, more effective in driving change. Since there will always be other academics to dispute an oversimple claim an apparent ‘controversy amongst the experts’ can be used by policy makers who wish to deny the evidence. And sometimes academic disagreements are relatively unimportant to a case for social change; in the present case of income and health outcomes it might be more effective, as I implied above, to put aside the inequality concept altogether and focus instead on the case for improving the health of the poor by reducing poverty. Of course it is difficult in this argument to avoid comparison with the rich but to the extent that a comparison must be made ‘unfairness’ may be a more broadly acceptable moral label than ‘inequality’. And although, as you say Daniel, the DR argument is more complicated than Wilkinson & Pickett’s, it is a powerful and, I believe, sufficiently understandable point to be used effectively in making the case for the health benefits of reducing poverty (and you say this too). Finally, a purely societally selfish reason for improving the nation’s health is that it reduces pressure on the resources of the National Health Service.
Best, John
John,
Thanks for your helpful and thoughtful comments.
I guess you know this but wanted to simplify your essay: increasing the dispersion of income under DR doesn’t necessarily reduce average health outcome. It would do so if the increase in dispersion were symmetric (equally great in the rich and poor directions). If asymmetric, an increase in the high income direction, with its consequent small improvement in health outcome, would have to be large enough to outweigh the relatively large detriment to health outcome due to any decrease in the value of the lowest incomes. Unlikely perhaps but mathematically possible.
That’s true enough, but I was considering only increases in dispersion that leave the mean income unchanged. I think the asymmetric case you are thinking of would also shift the mean income up (if the total positive gain were greater than the total loss). And the inequality argument is really all about increases in dispersion given a fixed mean – clearly if the whole distribution goes up then even if it goes up unevenly, average health could improve.
A second thought is that the mere fact that greater income brings better health outcomes means that the poor suffer unfairly and we should try to lift people out of poverty (and In a relatively closed system like a nation state this means taking from the rich). This conclusion holds whatever the shape of the function between income and health (linear, DR or whatever). To the extent that Wilkinson & Pickett’s hypothesis is correct their mechanism is an additional way in which inequality results in the poor suffering unfairly, since any stress resulting from perceived societal inequality must surely fall more strongly on the disadvantaged (and you point to evidence for this).
Absolutely – and of course DR and Wilkson and Pickett’s process are not mutually exclusive.
Concerning the “profound unease” of your last few paragraphs I also prefer the stumbling naivety you refer to, openly acknowledging our scientific uncertainty about complex social phenomena. This is not only more honest but, in the long-term I believe, more effective in driving change. Since there will always be other academics to dispute an oversimple claim an apparent ‘controversy amongst the experts’ can be used by policy makers who wish to deny the evidence. And sometimes academic disagreements are relatively unimportant to a case for social change; in the present case of income and health outcomes it might be more effective, as I implied above, to put aside the inequality concept altogether and focus instead on the case for improving the health of the poor by reducing poverty. Of course it is difficult in this argument to avoid comparison with the rich but to the extent that a comparison must be made ‘unfairness’ may be a more broadly acceptable moral label than ‘inequality’. And although, as you say Daniel, the DR argument is more complicated than Wilkinson & Pickett’s, it is a powerful and, I believe, sufficiently understandable point to be used effectively in making the case for the health benefits of reducing poverty (and you say this too). Finally, a purely societally selfish reason for improving the nation’s health is that it reduces pressure on the resources of the National Health Service.
I agree with all of this. And I also think that we need to be more open about our uncertainties, so that the media and public comes to appreciate that some uncertainty in complex scientific matters is the norm. That way ‘the experts disagree’ cannot be used to dismiss the case for action–as if the case where experts disagreed was somehow atypical. We need people to understand that experts always disagree in details of the specifics; but nonetheless there is often broad consensus shining through that disagreement, in cases like climate change and the health consequences of poverty, things that we can all agree on the need for.
Thanks again
Thanks for your response Daniel. On my first point yes, of course you’re right, for this analysis you need to keep the mean income constant, as Wilkinson & Pickett did in theirs. And in this case dispersion of income must change symmetrically and so, given diminishing returns, mean health outcome will decline as dispersion increases.
Total agreement on the final point. And there’s a long way to go in the understanding of science by the public, policy makers and politicians; and the last of these have a vested interest in maintaining (or pretending) some level of ignorance.