Daniel Kaufman – What Is Social Science?
This week’s episode is a throwback to 2015, when Daniel Kaufman, professor of philosophy at Missouri State University, editor of the online magazine the Electric Agora, and (at that time) a mainstay on bloggingheads.tv and meaningoflife.tv, invited me onto his show Sophia. I stumbled across this video again last month, and I think it remains an illuminating discussion that addresses some fundamental questions about economics and the social sciences.
We begin by discussing the “science” part of the social sciences. I explain that we economists tend not to philosophize about our discipline as much as other social scientists. But many major economic thinkers (think Keynes, Marx, and others) elaborate concepts that do ask fundamental questions about the nature of economics. To call a discipline a “science” implies that its findings are testable and replicable, that its insights are able to predict future conditions from present conditions. Does economics do that? I argue that it does. Of course, since much economic data is drawn from real-world behavior rather than controlled experiments, it can be difficult to isolate variables in a way that would satisfy, say, a physicist. This is because markets exist within particular cultures and under particular social arrangements that are not themselves purely economic in nature. And cultural values are going to affect, at least to some extent, how people behave within markets. The idea that people will try to maximize utility in a rational way is important to economics, but of course we know that humans often behave in ways that seem irrational. How does economics incorporate irrationality into its methodology? And finally, Dan and I were speaking at a time when the (still ongoing) replication crisis was all over the news. Is replication as seemingly dire a problem in economics as it is in psychology?
Dan’s training in philosophy helps him to ask some really deep questions here, and I think you can tell I relished the opportunity to answer them. Love to know what you think about this “classic” episode.
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5:44 How scientific are the social sciences?
11:20 Glenn defends the reliability of economic predictions
29:47 The strengths and weaknesses of “natural experiments”
36:48 How much does culture affect economic behavior?
50:06 New insights from behavioral economics
58:12 Dan: We trust the social sciences too much
Links and Readings
Dan’s website, the Electric Agora
Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir’a book, Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives
Daniel Kaufman – What Is Social Science?
Thank you to both professors, this informative conversation (I learned a lot of new ways to think about economics) ends in its last few minutes in turf familiar to me. I offer this wonderful video, https://youtu.be/DOfEu2zqrkQ, brought to my attention in a DIR Floortime training last year, that shows what amazing support from a parent to a child looks like. Circles of communication, beautifully demonstrated here between parent and child, show the core relationship skills needed to nurture a healthy human being. Multiple factors matter, but when the child initiates an encounter with the parent/caregiver, who effectively responds to the child's invitation to engage, it interests the child to keep the circle of engagement flowing. This back and forth flow, with the adult responding to the child's cues, and not vice versa, is key in building healthy relationship which can be measured in the laboratory (Strange Situation) in classifications of attachment. A securely attached child, and there are multiple levels, leads a far more predictably successful life because their capacity to be emotionally resilient was hard wired into the brain early on, when the brain is most plastic. In short, life is easier for the securely attached human. And, a parent/caregiver needs to hit the mark only 60% of the time for a child's needs to be healthfully and securely met.
Prof. Loury speaks here about the need for patience. Prof. Kaufman speaks about a generation of medicated students. A former classmate left her career as a therapist to apply the same therapy skillsets to the tech business world, so she could amass her own fortune to create a 40 year study of infants and development, because most foundations will only fund 4-6 year studies. It's not rocket science, but time and a willingness to slow down and develop deep relationships early on could change the world.
Rational actors. Have you heard about nudging which apparently the Brits have gone into big time. If people are not rational actors then they need to be “nudged” to make the “right” choices. Who is doing the nudging - governments. Assuming people are rational actors promotes a free society. We know what happens when you don’t - covid policies for example.