Seth's Blog

I like this essay by Brad DeLong about the failure of economics professors. They didn’t just fail to predict the recent economics crisis but they have failed, as far as he can tell, to learn from it. If you are naive, of course this is astonishing — but DeLong is not naive. Yet he is “astonished”. That’s interesting.

It’s hard to imagine DeLong doesn’t know what I am about to say. I imagine anybody with any academic sophistication is aware of it — especially economists. As Thorstein Veblen (an economist) pointed out in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), a great deal of what professors do, including economics professors, is about signaling high status. In economics, this is done by being highly mathematical. (Same in statistics. In art history, it is done by using big words. In engineering it is done by being theoretical. In many areas of science, it is done by using expensive equipment and having a large lab. In many fields it is done by being useless — e.g., preferring “pure” research over “applied” research.) This is no mystery. Economists think a lot about signaling. Michael Spence wrote an influential paper (which included Veblen’s phrase “conspicuous consumption”) and book about it, for example, for which he won a Nobel Prize. (More examples from economics.) But DeLong ignores the signaling of economists. Let me propose why economists haven’t taken the steps DeLong is astonished they haven’t taken: Because it would make them more useful and less mathematical. Thereby signaling lower status.

Why is signaling so common? It is basic biology, yes. But it is also convenient. Here is what Veblen didn’t say: It is so much easier to signal than to make progress. Among animals, it is much easier to signal you will win a fight than to actually win one. Among professors, it is easier to use big words than to write clearly. DeLong wants economists to choose progress over signaling. Shouldn’t an economist not be astonished when the lower-priced option is chosen?

Recently I had dinner with two Tsinghua students I advise.

ME Do you know what “science fiction” is?

BOTH OF THEM Yes.

ME I have an idea for a science-fiction story. Five years from now, Tsinghua and Beida [Beijing University] students get together and decide to change the government. What do you think?

They were amused by this idea. However, here’s what they said:

BOTH OF THEM Where’s the science?

I explained that science fiction often takes place in the future.

• wacky computer model predictions
• excellent magazine article about a Los Angeles murder investigation
• The enablers of Michael Mann: words versus action at the University of Virginia, his employer
• new use for kombucha: clothes
• graduate school rankings, including psychology department rankings

For an article about self-experimentation and self-tracking to appear in Men’s Fitness UK this summer, Mark Bailey sent me several questions.

In what ways have the results of your self-experimentation directly affected your daily life e.g. health / work / lifestyle changes?

1. Acne. My dermatologist prescribed two medicines. I found that one worked , the other didn’t.
2. Weight. Found new ways to lose weight (e.g., nose-clipping).
3. Sleep. Found new ways to sleep more deeply, avoid early awakening (e.g., one-legged standing).
4. Mood, energy, serenity. Found that morning faces make me more cheerful, more energetic, and more serene.
5. Productivity. After I started to track when I was working, I discovered that a certain feedback system made me work more, goof off less.
6. Inflammation. Self-experimentation led me to take flaxseed oil. In the right dose — which I determined via self-experimentation — it greatly reduces inflammation. As a result, my gums are pink instead of red. They no longer bleed when I floss.
7. Balance, reflexes. Flaxseed oil improved my balance and quickened my reflexes — I catch what I would have dropped.
8. Blood sugar. I found that walking a lot improves my blood sugar level.
9. Mental clarity. I found that flaxseed oil and butter improve how well my brain works in several ways.

Changes 1-6 are/were obvious. The rest are more subtle.

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After the fantastic success of To Kill a Mockingbird, its author, Nelle Harper Lee, never wrote another book. She gave her last interview in 1965. A BBC documentary recently visited her hometown and recorded this:

They say if you meet her [Harper Lee] and don’t recognize her, she is not happy. If you meet her and recognize her, she is not happy.