On the field of social psychology, he writes,
The lack of political diversity is not a threat to the validity of specific studies in many and perhaps most areas of research in social psychology. The lack of diversity causes problems for the scientific process primarily in areas related to the political concerns of the Left – areas such as race, gender, stereotyping, environmentalism, power, and inequality – as well as in areas where conservatives themselves are studied, such as in moral and political psychology.
As you know, I am concerned about a monoculture in economics, particularly in macroeconomics. I believe that the dynamics behind this monoculture are somewhat different than the ones that underly the alleged monoculture in social psychology. I think that macroeconomics came to be dominated by just a few professors who were so successful in placing their students that they came to dominate the entire ecosystem.
Arnold:
You said, and have indicated often, ” I think that macroeconomics came to be dominated by just a few professors who were so successful in placing their students that they came to dominate the entire ecosystem.”
I couldn’t agree more. But I would add that beyond the few professors and their students you are referring to, the entire “macroeconomics” sect within the economics discipline has degenerated into a crop of self-appointed “GDP mechanics” – convinced not only that “GDP” is the be-all ends-all of macro, but that “GDP” is “broken”, and only they know how to “fix” it. I seem to see “GDP Mechanic” centrist mind-set from alleged “economists” all too often. (Except here, thankfully.)
One of your other very profound and telling statements is, “The economy is not just a GDP factory.” That was one of the most enlightening macroeconomic statements I’ve ever read. Too bad the “GDP Mechanics” haven’t considered that.
Macro is also notable for not having any solid theory with strong emperical evidence. As such, the definition of a “good macroeconomist” ends up being something like “a macroeconomist that is approved of by all the other macroeconomists”.
I don’t see that the situation is any different in microeconomics, though we’d have to go farther back in time to find the professors who came to dominate.
Isn’t micro somewhat self-correcting and macro the opposite?
My sense is that macro tends toward “the theory of everything” reductionism whereas I can probably go find someone in micro writing on the economics of trans-gender organ donations (or am I thinking of NPR?). Maybe that is a different problem altogether.
I’m talking about method, not theory or paradigm. We’ve all been Samuelsonians for a very long time. I think diversity of method is crucial.
If only Micro were Samuelsonian. After Debreu, it’s mostly been Bourbaki lite, which is far far worse.
What if you suggested to a university that they completely define the requirements for tenure. “Do this, you get tenure. Fail to do that, you don’t.” They would balk, no doubt.
But short of that, every aspiring professor has to guess. On the performance side, it’s easier to guess – more papers in higher status, more selective journals. More and bigger grants.
But what about things you might say or study that would be obvious disqualifications for the members of the committee, but which, of course, they are reluctant to spell out in any explicit manner, especially at a public university?
Well, without anything more than that, with the self-selection pressures that implies, maintaining anything resembling genuine intellectual independence and some reasonable representation of holders of competing points of view is like trying to balance a baseball bat vertically. A little tip in either direction and it falls all the way over. It’s a recipe for inevitable intellectual monoculture.
That’s probably a good reason we see it happen almost everywhere.
But it seems to me there are only two possible ways to deal with this problem. The first is some kind of quota system to remedy these representation disparities. But there is no good way to write the rules for those quotas, and any attempt would be horribly gamed.
The second way is to do what I mentioned above, and, at a minimum, make the rules of the career game as explicit, quantitative, and objective as possible, so people will feel a little relief from the chilling effect.
Of course, that just passes the buck to the editors of journals, who would also have to give up discretion and judgment and make the rules for publication follow some sort of completely transparent, computer-program-like procedure. And that’s not going to happen either.
So at the end of the day this realization is not so much “a problem to be solved” but a justification for radical skepticism in regards to claims without extreme levels of independent corroboration, falsifiable models, and gold-standard quality of empirically observed evidence. Anything less is never a justification for a major shift in public policy.
The issue is consumers. Why is it that parents have been willing to send their kids to these biased schools?
I suggest a decentralized market response:
1) an independent source should find a way accurately measure political diversity.
2) we should publish diversity results.
3). We should allow parents and students to consider this when choosing a college.
I am not a conservative, but I am dumbfounded by how conservatives have allowed the left to kidnap institutions. I would send my grandson to a 98% leftist school any more than I would send him to a Klan rally.
Conquest’s Second Law of Politics
The questions raised are: (1) What is the nature of this ‘kidnapping’ (or ‘disproportionate / unrepresentative concentration’), (2) When did this happen, (3) How did it happen, and (4) What could conservatives had done about it when they still have the power (in whatever form) to prevent it?
I think for most of the realistic frameworks for which one could spin narratives for (1)-(3), (4) ends up with building competitive institutions explicitly dedicated to conservative ideas (some have tried, most have failed), and insisting that nearly every cord connecting government and academia be cut, and no new ‘connective tissue’ be established, to the maximum degree feasible.
But given the duration of the current deeply-intertwined structure and funding flow, those reforms are probably impossible to implement without a truly and radically disruptive revolution. Probably worth it, but still, bound to generate insurmountable levels of resistance for anyone who tried at this late stage.