Problems with the Peer Review System in Science

Frank Furedi has written a very thoughtful essay on the problems with current peer review system in science. In my view, the issues are a lot more serious in the social sciences where is much harder to formulate non-trivial general laws and make precise predictions that can be proven or disproven. The natural sciences require replication before something is accepted. There is very little exact replication in management research for example. Theories are accepted on very tenous grounds and when you write a paper that contradicts existing paradigms your data is not going to persuade your peers who have a vested interested in the status quo.  Read Furedi’s Essay.

Update 28. June 2010:Interesting Problem Case in Economics:  Copy URL into your browser: http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/nachrichten/no-comment-please;1446947

Jeffrey Meyers on Writing Habits

CM: Having written 43 books, including more than 20 biographies, you’re nothing if not prolific. What’s your work routine?

JM: I work every day— it’s important to keep up momentum—from 9:30 to 1 in the morning and from 7:30 to 11 in the evening. In the afternoons I recharge by playing tennis (inexpensive psychotherapy), taking long walks, frequenting bookstores, going to the Cal library, and wandering around San Francisco. I do research and interviews with family and friends for six months. I then write by hand on yellow pads, type three pages a day and 100 pages a month on the computer, and finish a 400-page book in four months. Finally, I spend two more months revising.

When I’m done, I follow the example of my longtime friend, Iris Murdoch, who began her next novel the day after completing the previous one. (More momentum.) While the editor is reading my typescript, I do the research and write a ten-page proposal that secures the contract and advance for my next book.

From California Monthly.

Economics: Is the discipline in crisis?

Drake Bennett of the Boston Globe is reporting on the soul searching that is going on the field of economics and finance after the professions inability to foresee the crisis. 

THE DEEPENING ECONOMIC downturn has been hard on a lot of people, but it has been hard in a particular way for economists. For most of us, pain and apprehension have been mixed with a sense of grim amazement at the complexity of what has unfolded: the dense, invisible lattice connecting house prices to insurance companies to job losses to car sales, the inscrutability of the financial instruments that helped to spread the poison, the sense that the ratings agencies and regulatory bodies were overmatched by events, the wild gyrations of the stock market in the past few months. It’s hard enough to understand what’s happening, and it seems absurd to think we could have seen it coming beforehand. The vast majority of us, after all, are not experts. But academic economists are. And with very few exceptions, they did not predict the crisis, either. Some warned of a housing bubble, but almost none foresaw the resulting cataclysm. An entire field of experts dedicated to studying the behavior of markets failed to anticipate what may prove to be the biggest economic collapse of our lifetime. And, now that we’re in the middle of it, many frankly admit that they’re not sure how to prevent things from getting worse.

Read Full Story “Paradigm lost: Economists missed the brewing crisis. Now many are asking: How can we do better” on Boston.com

Paulson on the diversity of firm in the financial industry

Trying to imitate high-status Newtonian physics, management scholars over the past fifty hear have tried to formulate general laws about the behavior of organizations.  In his statement after the passing of the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Paulson in my view correctly emphasized that the salient fact about most industries is the diversity and not the sameness of firms within them. 

Paulson Statement: By acting this week, Congress has proven that our Nation’s leaders are capable of coming together at a time of crisis, even at a critical stage of the political calendar, to do what is necessary to stabilize our financial system and protect the economic security of all Americans.

The American people will appreciate the leadership of their elected representatives and senators who took bold action to help stem a severe credit crunch that threatens to cost many jobs and undermine access to credit for working Americans.

This bill contains a broad set of tools that can be deployed to strengthen financial institutions, large and small, that serve businesses and families.

Our financial institutions are varied – from large banks headquartered in New York, to regional banks that serve multi-state areas, to community banks and credit unions that are vital to the lives of our citizens and their towns and communities. Each institution has its own unique benefits, and their collective strength makes our financial system more resilient, and more innovative. The challenges our institutions face are just as varied – from holding illiquid mortgage backed securities, to illiquid whole loans, to raising needed capital, to simply facing a crisis of confidence. This diversity of institutions and challenges requires that we deploy the tools in this rescue package, in combination with the tools the Fed, the Treasury, the FDIC and other bank regulators already have, in a variety of ways that addresses each of these needs and restores the ability of our financial system to fuel our broader economy.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to alleviating the stress in our financial system. Each situation will be different and we must implement these new programs with a strategy that allows us to adapt to changing circumstances and conditions, and attract private capital. The broad authorities in this legislation, when combined with existing regulatory authorities and resources, gives us the ability to protect and recapitalize our financial system as we work through the stresses in our credit markets.

We will move rapidly to implement the new authorities, but we will also move methodically. In the coming days we will work with the Federal Reserve and the FDIC to develop strategies that deploy these tools in an expedited and methodical way to maximize effectiveness in strengthening the financial system, so it can continue to play its necessary and vital role supporting the U.S. economy and American jobs. Transparency throughout this process will be important, and I look forward to providing regular updates as we move ahead to implement this strategy.

Source

Charles Tilly 1929- 2008

I don’t know anyone who has come in contact with Charles Tilly and who was not inspired by him. For those who have never met him, here are wonderful tributes to this exemplary scholar.
Social Science Research Council Tribute Website
Tributes by Scholars
NY Times Obituary

April 29, 2008

Columbia University: President Bollinger’s Statement on the Passing of Professor Charles Tilly

Columbia lost one of its finest citizens when Professor Charles Tilly passed away April 29. Most recently the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science, serving the departments of Political Science and Sociology, he was a scholar of boundless energy and intellect. Few could, or will ever, match his scholarly output and lasting impact. His 50 years of teaching, writing and intellectual inspiration will be missed here at Columbia and everywhere people seek to understand how history and societies move forward.

The extraordinary half-century career of Charles Tilly continuously demonstrated scholarship that transcended disciplinary boundaries. It seemed that he could write, interpret, and explain virtually anything to curious minds. With more than 600 articles and 51 books and monographs bearing his name, Charles Tilly literally wrote the book on the contentious dynamics and the ethnographic foundations of political history.

Though he received an extraordinary number of special awards, scholarly inductions and honorary degrees during his long and productive career, we will remember that, since 1996, he was a distinguished member of the Columbia community. His students, fellow faculty members and friends will all remember someone not only who reached and remained at the pinnacle of his field but also a warm and valued colleague who never stopped asking profound questions.

Lee C. Bollinger
President

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/08/04/tilly.html

Automatic Coding of Printed Materials

Traditionally most researchers working with printed data sources have entered data by hand to convert it into electronic format. If a research project involves large amounts of data from similarly formatted sources – for example, when one tries to create a longitudinal database of directory information spanning many years – entering this data by hand is a very labour intensive and tedious task. We wanted to automate the coding of printed directory information in order to cut down the time it takes to transfer this information into electronic data. Once the data is in electronic format, it can be further analysed with a plethora of software packages ranging from Microsoft Excel, FileMaker, SAS and SPSS, depending on the needs of the particular researcher. The purpose of this technical paper is to share with other scholars in a clear and practical way the methods we developed for automating the coding of printed information. Download article.

The Power of Richness IV: How Can Qualitative Methods Help us Ask Better Questions

Over 150 people came to the Power of Richness PDWs at each of the last three Academy meetings, drawing from many different divisions and interest groups.  With the demand for the workshop running so strong, Diana Day and I will try to organize an All-Academy PDW for the next meeting Annaheim. The format this past year proved very successful for learning how to do qualitative research well. The first part of the 2008 PDW will feature again a panel of leading qualitative scholars (Jane Dutton,  Royston Hinnings,  Martha Feldman and Ann Langley ), who will offer their insights qualitative research can help us ask the right questions. The second part of the workshop will have parallel sessions designed for people beginning or developing qualitative research and those trying to publish qualitative research.  Participants in the second part can have small group discussion with panelists, attend at least two of several tutorials, or sign up for a paper feedback session with experience scholars. For more up-to-date information on this Qualitative Research PDW, interested parties should go to our website PDW 2008 where we will post new information as the specifics of the PDW (tutorials subjects and leaders chosen), working paper discussion leaders, etc.

When and Where: Friday, August 8, from 1:00 to 5:00 pm, Anaheim, California

Presentation slides from the event are now posted. Please click on this link.

The Power of a Good Meta-Analysis

Chinese scientists have carried out a powerful meta-analysis and created new knowledge about the chemical pathways that lead to addiction. Can social scientist imitate this model? I am not sure. But certainly we should strive to do so.

Dr Wei therefore ran her 396 genes through a database of all known pathways to see which involved several enzymes encoded by those genes. She found 18 that were involved in addiction to at least one type of drug. Five, however, were common to all four types, and these five pathways therefore look as though they are at the core of the process of addiction. Three of the five were already under suspicion. Dr Wei’s result provided strong statistical evidence to back up what had just been hunches. Two other pathways, however, had not previously been considered as being involved in addiction. The existence of these five central pathways helps explain a lot about addiction. First, it gives weight to the belief that some people are more susceptible to all sorts of addiction than others are. That contrasts with the thought that addictions are substance-by-substance phenomena, though the two ideas are not mutually exclusive since changes in the 13 substance-specific pathways clearly also result in addiction.

Full story is available at Economist.com.