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Old 06-1-2014, 10:25 PM   #1
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Default Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread

post an academic article or piece of longform writing (2000+ words) that you find interesting.

I'll start.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...act_id=1263781

Toward an Epistemology of Wikipedia, by Don Fallis
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

Quote:
Wikipedia (the "free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit") is having a huge impact on how a great many people gather information about the world. So, it is important for epistemologists and information scientists to ask whether or not people are likely to acquire knowledge as a result of having access to this information source. In other words, is Wikipedia having good epistemic consequences? After surveying the various concerns that have been raised about the reliability of Wikipedia, this paper argues that the epistemic consequences of people using Wikipedia as a source of information are likely to be quite good. According to several empirical studies, the reliability of Wikipedia compares favorably to the reliability of traditional encyclopedias. Furthermore, the reliability of Wikipedia compares even more favorably to the reliability of those information sources that people would be likely to use if Wikipedia did not exist (viz., websites that are as freely and easily accessible as Wikipedia). In addition, Wikipedia has a number of other epistemic virtues (e.g., power, speed, and fecundity) that arguably outweigh any deficiency in terms of reliability. Even so, epistemologists and information scientists should certainly be trying to identify changes (or alternatives) to Wikipedia that will bring about even better epistemic consequences. This paper suggests that, in order to improve Wikipedia, we need to clarify what our epistemic values are and we need a better understanding of why Wikipedia works as well as it does.
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Old 06-2-2014, 01:57 AM   #2
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Default Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...act_id=1669467

A Study of the Effect of Age, Gender, & GPA on the Ethical Behavior of Accounting Students

Quote:
This study first measured accounting students’ stated behavior by recording their responses to different scenarios on a Business Ethics Quiz. In a follow up experiment, these students’ grades are temporarily changed and an opportunity given to them to report the grading error. The purpose of this study is to observe whether their actual conduct (Actual Behavior) is consistent with their Stated Behavior. The results of this research indicate that, when faced with an ethical dilemma, although accounting students may state they will make ethical choices, their “Stated Behavior” had no correlation to their “Actual Behavior.” Additional findings indicate that accounting students’ ethical choices are also not influenced by their age, gender, or GPA.
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Old 06-2-2014, 02:10 AM   #3
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http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...act_id=1175042

The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth

Quote:
Opening with an articulation of the distinction between truth (the concept) and truths (particular true propositions), this paper is largely devoted to:

(1)developing an account of the dual meaning of "partially true" - "true-in-part" vs. "part of the truth"; and

(2) understanding the reasons for, and the dangers of, the very common tendency to tell only part of the relevant truth.
the article starts to get good at around page 15. here's a quote that establishes its relevance, as statistics like these are mentioned as talking points often:

"a 1993 survey reported that 81% of women in college and university dating relationships in Canada suffered sexual abuse; but Fekete argues that this alarming figure is one of those fractional truths, because the term "sexual abuse" was used so broadly that it covered everything from being raped at knife- or gun-point to unwanted flirting."
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Old 06-2-2014, 02:15 AM   #4
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Default Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread

this is my shit right here:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...act_id=1791570

Quotations and Presumptions - Dialogical Effects of Misquotations

by Douglas Walton as a co-author no less. I have this guy's book on informal logic; it's great.

Quote:
Manipulation of quotation is shown to be a common argumentation tactic in this paper, but is also shown to be associated with fallacies like wrenching from context, hasty generalization, equivocation, and the straw man fallacy. Several examples are presented from everyday speech, legislative debates and trials. Using dialogue models we explain the critical defects of argumentation illustrated in the examples. Analyzing quotation by using the notion of commitment in dialogue, it is shown how an arguer’s previous assertions can be verified to deal with problems arising from misquotation, and how a critic can correct the problem.
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Old 06-2-2014, 02:31 AM   #5
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Default Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread

http://ojs.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/ind...view/3882/3213

Teaching Rational Entitlement and Responsibility: A Socratic Exercise

awesome

Quote:
The paper reports on a Socratic exercise that introduces participants to the norm of rational entitlement, as distinct from political entitlement, and the attendant norm of rational responsibility. The exercise demonstrates that, because participants are not willing to exchange their own opinion at random for another differing opinion to which the owner is, by the participants’ own admission, entitled, they treat their entitlement to their own opinion differently, giving it a special status. This gives rise to rational obligations such as the obligation to provide reasons, and a willingness to risk those opinions to the force of the better reason.
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Old 06-2-2014, 02:56 AM   #6
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http://ojs.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/ind...view/3656/3001

Why Arguments from Expert Opinion are Weak

this starts to get interesting around page 8, so I'll quote from there:

Quote:
"Freedman (2010)" compiles the results of several studies on expertise which include the following: (a) approximately two-thirds of the findings published in top medical journals are rejected after a few years; (b) there is a 1 in 12 chance that a physician's diagnosis will be wrong to the extent that it could cause significant harm to the patient; (c) most studies published in economics journals are rejected after a few years (i.e., the results of the studies are subsequently considered to be incorrect); (d) tax returns prepared by professionals are more likely to contain errors than tax returns prepared by non-professionals (see also Stewart 2009).

Other researchers have conducted studies that confirm the aforementioned results. For example Dawes (1994) has found that, as far as the outcomes of therapy by clinical psychologists are concerned, experts perform no better than non-experts. Similarly, Camerer and Johnson (1991) have found that experts' decisions are often no more accurate than non-experts' decisions and are much less accurate than decision aids (e.g., decision procedures). And Yates and Tschirhart cite a study by Wilson et al. which shows that atteding physicians caring for elderly patients were no more accurate at predicting patients' preferences for end-of-life care than interns, despite the fact that the attending physicians spent much more time with their patients than the interns did."
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Old 06-15-2014, 09:54 PM   #7
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Default Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread

http://www.jimmunol.org/content/178/10/6590.full

I didn't bother reading the method section or results, intro and discussion only.
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Old 09-25-2014, 06:20 PM   #8
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Default Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arch0wl View Post
http://ojs.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/ind...view/3656/3001

Why Arguments from Expert Opinion are Weak

this starts to get interesting around page 8, so I'll quote from there:

Interesting read, but I have some critical questions and comments, all of which can be subsumed under the overall question:

1. What/Who is an expert?

This is highly relevant to the argument of the author, yet remains unspecified. If an expert is an honorary title one earns based on the objective criterion of espousing may truth claims, then the finding that experts often espouse wrong claims is simply impossible. If an expert is someone who is regarded by others to have expertise, several issues emerge: the relationality of expertise, the subjectivity of expertise and the domain-specific nature of expertise. That is, it raises questions as to how expertise can be determined, how 'expertise' is construed, and how context- and relation specific expertise is.

Even if we have narrowed down the subject domain (say, medicine), we can ask ourselves what it means to be an expert in that domain. One relevant distinction, in my opinion, would be between expertise about established knowledge and expertise on predicting the unknown. An expert in medicine may know everything about how certain drugs work, how the chemistry behind them works, how compatible various pills are with each other etc., but he may not have equally strong answers as to how, given a certain medical condition and a prescribed medicinal regimen, a patient's health condition will develop. An expert political scientist may tell you everything about the difference between political systems, but may not tell you with equal expertise how likely it is that this or that country will adopt more democratic procedures in the future.

A third concern is that, especially when it comes to prediction, experts in some fields are much more likely to make wrong truth statements than experts in other fields. A common stereotype held by many students and scholars in the exact sciences is that the 'soft', social sciences concern themselves with much easier problems than they do. Ironically, as Duncan Watts discusses in his book 'Common Sense', the fact that 'soft' sciences are said to not be 'rocket science' should not be taken to mean that they are easier, but rather that they tackle more complex systems. It ties in with the distinction that Zimmerman and Glouberman make between simple, complicated and complex problems: simple problems are easy to solve, complicated problems are difficult, but once a solution is figured out it tends to work with high reliability and replicability, and complex problems are those in which there are so many unstable interactions between systems that each problem is unique and every proposed solution has to deal with lots of uncertainty and a large margin of error. Expert statements on complex problems cannot be expected to have the same probability of being true than expert statements on simple or complicated problems.

Finally, as a scientist, I'd like to point out that scientific expertise, while it surely contains a necessary compendium of knowledge and insights into the relevant subject matter, also and perhaps mainly is concerned with the manner in which truth claims are formulated and put to the test. While the conclusions that scientists come to me be contested and while insights may change over time, expertise in analyzing proof, formulating testable predictions, critically looking at methodological issues and reflecting carefully on the interpretation of results will always be stable, core competencies of scientific experts.

Having made these observations, I'd like to look in more detail at the arguments and examples of the author. Let's first look at the logical structure of the main argument:

"(1) Arguments from expert opinion are weak arguments
unless the fact that expert E says that p makes it significantly
more likely that p is true.
(2) [As empirical evidence on expertise shows] the fact
that E says that p does not make it significantly more
likely that p is true.
(3) Therefore, arguments from expert opinion are weak
arguments." (p. 58)

As a minor criticism, I have to say I object to the term 'opinion' to characterize any truth statement of an expert. This choice of words seems to reflect an issue I will come back to, namely that the author seems to aim mostly for expert statements on complex problems and uncertain predictions.

Secondly, the '[as empirical evidence on expertise]' part of the second premise produces an interesting condundrum: if the conclusion is that arguments from expert opinion are weak arguments (without reservation, without further specification, but as a general matter), but this is proven by reference to expert opinion on expert opinion (the empirical evidence on expertise), then the argument is self-defeating.

So, what is the author trying to show exactly? Well, let's first take a look at his examples:

example 1

" (1) Electrochemists Fleischmann and Pons say that nuclear
fusion can occur at room temperature.
(2) Therefore, nuclear fusion can occur at room temperature.
In this case, a true premise in an argument from expert opinion
leads to a false conclusion. For, as it turns out, nuclear fusion
cannot occur at room temperature. This shows that the mere fact
that two electrochemists say that nuclear fusion can occur at
room temperature is not a particularly strong reason to accept
the claim that nuclear fusion can occur at room temperature. As
it turned out, when other experts tried to replicate the results " (p. 62)

This is a clear case of the self-defeating nature of the argument, since expert opinion has cast doubt on other expert opinion.

example 2

"(1) The FBI says that U.S. businesses lose $200-$250 billion
to counterfeiting on an annual basis.
(2) Therefore, U.S. businesses lose $200-$250 billion to
counterfeiting on an annual basis." (p. 63)

The author then shows how far off the numbers of the FBI were. However, it is not clear why he takes the FBI to be an expert on estimating financial loss due to counterfeiting. The FBI may be an authority on methods of screening and monitoring major counterfeiters, but it is not an economic research center with a comprehensive dataset on annual clunterfeits, nor the expertise to extrapolate from the handful of cases of counterfeit on which the FBI keeps tabs. In other words, bad example.

example 3

The author recognizes that 'a few counterexamples' may not cut it and seeks to provide a 'principled reason' for casting general doubt on expert opinion. However, he never provides any substantive reason, but merely mentions more examples, except that these are examples reported on by other experts, endowing them with a certain authority. Needless to say, this is a self-defeating move.

The first set of examples in this section is from Tetlock (2005). These mostly concern journalists, economists and political scientists and pose complex predictive problems such as expectations about long-term economic growth and the likelihood of the fall of political systems. The fact that they often scored worse than a 'dart-throwing chimpanzee' may obscure the fact that the consistency of their arguments, the strength of their arguments and the extent to which their speculations are grounded in vast knowledge of their field are likely to beat any layperson's speculation. It is not the core expertise of political scientists to predict long-term political upheavals or of economists to predict long-term economic growth trends. This concerns very complex problems combined with long time horizons and predictions rather than factual statements.

example 4


"Freedman (2010) complies the results of several
studies on expertise which include the following: (a) approximately
two-thirds of the findings published in top medical
journals are rejected after a few years; (b) there is a 1 in 12
chance that a physician’s diagnosis will be wrong to the extent
that it could cause significant harm to the patient; (c) most studies
published in economics journals are rejected after a few
years (i.e., the results of the studies are subsequently considered
to be incorrect); (d) tax returns prepared by professionals are
more likely to contain errors than tax returns prepared by nonprofessionals
(see also Stewart 2009)." (64)

(a) and (c) fall into the same category and concern scientific progress. When articles get criticized, this may be because of the methodology or the conclusion or any other part, but it is important to keep in mind two things: (1) most articles do not expound well-established expert knowledge, but seek to venture into the unknown, exposing themselves to a much higher likelihood of error, and (2) it is not clear how to judge the extent to which the truth value of the criticized article is diminished by its being criticized; articles mostly contain many truth statements, as background, as part of an argument, as methodological propositions, as interpretation of results etc. and they are very rarely floored on all counts.

(b) makes no comparison to non-physicians and merely proved that experts in that field are not infallible in that regard

(d) is not a great example of expert truth statements, but rather concerns aptitude at administrative tasks. If it had concerned an exam on fiscal laws, it would have been more relevant

example 5

Let's skip a few examples that have similar problems. On page 66, the author has an interesting example of medical practitioners following decision rules outperforming those who rely on their own judgment. Again, the example has no direct bearing on the truth value of expert statement. However, it does put expert judgment into question. I can recommend Atul Gawande's book 'Checklist: How to get things right', in which he also argues for selectively implementing checlists and decision rules, but also warns that detailed READ-DO lists only work in some situations, mostly for simple problems, and most effective decision rules leave room for expert judgment and discussion among team members. In fact, the best checklists make sure to have a routinized moment of reflection, communication and collaboration between experts.

Ok, let's leave it at that for now as far as examples are concerned and go on with what is perhaps the most baffling distinction that the author tries to establish. In order to lend more credence to the scientific evidence he marshalls to support his case that expert arguments are weak, he sets scientists and science apart from experts and expertise. I quote:

"note that scientists themselves rarely, if ever,
establish scientific conclusions by appealing to expertise. For
example, Fleischmann and Pons didn’t argue that cold fusion
can occur at room temperature by claiming that they are experts
in electrochemistry. Similarly, Einstein didn’t argue for the theory
of special relativity by appealing to his expertise in theoretical
physics. Rather, scientists usually appeal to observations and
experiments, among other things, not to expertise." (67)

First of all, apparently when an expert doesn't refer to his own statements as being based on his expertise, he cannot be considered an expert. Secondly, apparently scientific observation and experiments are not grounded in expertise. This would narrow expertise as understood by the author down to self-referential authorities' truth statements, divorced from any of the expertise behind the problem formulation and methodology.

In conclusion, the article is unclear in its definitions, leaves many relevant distinctions (domain of knowledge, complex vs complicated problems etc.) undiscussed, has selective and often inappropriate examples and hinges on a main argument that is self-defeating and betraying a highly ambiguous attitude toward expertise, science and epistemic standards.
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Last edited by Callipygian; 09-25-2014 at 06:20 PM..
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Old 10-1-2014, 04:16 AM   #9
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Default Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread

seriously one of the best replies I've ever received on this website. awesome.
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Old 10-25-2014, 11:17 PM   #10
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Default Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread

https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-y...w-e11ce4b88bdb

You’re 16. You’re a Pedophile. You Don’t Want to Hurt Anyone. What Do You Do Now?

sorry it's not really academic at all but i like it

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Old 10-26-2014, 05:08 AM   #11
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Default Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread

longform is good, even if it's not academic
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Old 03-13-2016, 09:21 PM   #12
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Default Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread

I found this to be really interesting.

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/...is_stupid.html
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Old 03-14-2016, 04:53 AM   #13
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Default Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread

Is this restricted to any subjects or topics? It seems like everything discussed so far is either social science or philosophy-ish.
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