Seth's Blog

SOPA is an example of what Thorstein Veblen called “the vested interests” trying to prevent change. In an essay called “The Vested Interests and the Common Man” he pointed out “the existence of powerful vested interests which stand to gain from the persistence of the existing, but outdated system of law and custom.” Jane Jacobs said much the same thing. The most important conflict in any society, she wrote at the end of The Economy of Cities, isn’t between the rich and poor or management and labor; it is between those who benefit from the status quo and those who benefit from change. If those who benefit from the status quo usually win, problems stack up unsolved.

Thorstein Veblen might have gloated that this 2011 article — about the uselessness of law schools and legal scholarship — so thoroughly supports what he wrote in a book published in 1899 (see the last chapter of The Theory of the Leisure Class). Why are law schools useless? Because law professors feel compelled to imitate the rest of academia, which glorifies uselessness:

“Law school has a kind of intellectual inferiority complex, and it’s built into the idea of law school itself,” says W. Bradley Wendel of the Cornell University Law School, a professor who has written about landing a law school teaching job. “People who teach at law school are part of a profession and part of a university. So we’re always worried that other parts of the academy are going to look down on us and say: ‘You’re just a trade school, like those schools that advertise on late-night TV. You don’t write dissertations. You don’t write articles that nobody reads.’ And the response of law school professors is to say: ‘That’s not true. We do all of that. We’re scholars [i.e., useless], just like you.’ ”

Yeah. As I’ve said, there’s a reason for the term ivory tower. And seemingly useless research has value. Glorifying useless research has the useful result of diversifying research, causing a wider range of research directions to be explored. Many of my highly-useful self-experimental findings started or received a big boost from apparently useless research.

The pendulum can swing too far, however, and it has. A large fraction of health researchers, especially medical school researchers, have spent their entire careers refusing to admit, at least in public, the uselessness of what they do. Biology professors have some justification for useless research; medical school professors have none, especially given all the public money they get. Like law professors, they prefer prestige and conformity. The rest of us pay an enormous price for their self-satisfaction (“I’m scientific!” they tell themselves) and peace of mind. The price we pay is stagnation in the understanding of health. Like clockwork, every year the Nobel Prize in Medicine is given to research that has done nothing or very close to nothing to improve our health. And every year, like clockwork, science journalists (all of them!) fail to notice this. If someone can write the article I just quoted about law schools, why can’t even one science journalist write the same thing about medical schools — where it matters far more? What’s their excuse?

To rehabilitate his reputation, Alfred Nobel, in his will, established the Nobel Prizes, the crucial element of which was that they honor the most useful research. Nobel wanted to be associated with good works. This has become a considerable problem for the committee that awards the Physiology and Medicine prize because, if you haven’t noticed, the most prestigious research — the stuff done at great expense in gleaming new laboratories — isn’t useful. The uselessness of high-prestige academic research was emphasized  by Thorstein Veblen in The Theory of the Leisure Class. Unfortunately Nobel died shortly before it was published.

For a long time, the Nobel prize-winning research in Medicine hasn’t provided significant help with major health problems (depression, obesity, diabetes, cancer, stroke, heart disease, etc.). Sometimes it has been a tiny bit helpful. Most often the prize-winning research has been, at the time of the award, no clear help at all. This is one of those years. The press release announcing the 2011 prize tries to hide this important truth. Here is the “what use is it?” section of this year’s press release:

From fundamental research to medical use

The discoveries that are awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize have provided novel insights into the activation and regulation of our immune system. They have made possible the development of new methods for preventing and treating disease, for instance with improved vaccines against infections and in attempts to stimulate the immune system to attack tumors. These discoveries also help us understand why the immune system can attack our own tissues, thus providing clues for novel treatment of inflammatory diseases.

“They have made possible the development of new methods for preventing and treating disease.” False (and, uh, just a wee bit grandiose). Such development was already possible. Note what isn’t said: “They led to new methods for preventing and treating disease.”

“Improved vaccines against infections.” I have heard nothing about this, in spite of the plural (vaccines rather than vaccine). In any case, this is faint praise because the improvement might be a small percentage. If you know whether this claim is true, please leave a comment. Again note what isn’t said: “New vaccines”. According to this article, the work led to a vaccine against prostate cancer. (With no noticeable benefit so far.) Does the press release writer think  prostate cancer is infectious?

“Attempts to stimulate the immune system to attack tumors.” Attempts? As in failed attempts? Apparently.

The final sentence (“These discoveries also help us understand . . . “) is out of place. The section is about actually helping people (“medical use”) not ivory-tower stuff like “providing clues”. Whoever wrote this is like a student with not enough to say trying to meet a teacher’s minimum word count.

There you have it. The practical value of the research awarded the most prestigious prize in the world — a prize that Alfred Nobel’s will said should be given to “those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”

To make your immune system work better, I am sure there are two simple, practical and powerful ways of doing so: deepen your sleep and eat fermented foods.

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?

Felix Salomon argues that fancy restaurants often manage to make their food a Veblen good — something that becomes more desirable when the price goes up. Restaurant food is a way to show off your wealth, in other words. (more…)