06-1-2014, 10:25 PM | #1 | |
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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:
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06-2-2014, 01:57 AM | #2 | |
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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:
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06-2-2014, 02:10 AM | #3 | |
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Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...act_id=1175042
The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth Quote:
"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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06-2-2014, 02:15 AM | #4 | |
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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:
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06-2-2014, 02:31 AM | #5 | |
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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:
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06-2-2014, 02:56 AM | #6 | |
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Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread
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:
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06-15-2014, 09:54 PM | #7 |
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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. |
09-25-2014, 06:20 PM | #8 | |
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Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread
Quote:
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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Sick nature Last edited by Callipygian; 09-25-2014 at 06:20 PM.. |
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10-1-2014, 04:16 AM | #9 |
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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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10-25-2014, 11:17 PM | #10 |
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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 Last edited by MikeShinoda12345; 10-25-2014 at 11:20 PM.. |
10-26-2014, 05:08 AM | #11 |
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Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread
longform is good, even if it's not academic
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03-13-2016, 09:21 PM | #12 |
I'm okay I guess
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Re: Interesting Studies and/or Longform Writing Thread
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03-14-2016, 04:53 AM | #13 |
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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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