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don’t look now, but the campaign is working
According to a lasting view of American politics, the Big Conversation should be about the role of government in the economy: the extent to which government should be engaged in taxation,...
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the fact-checking craze is bad for democracy
Yesterday, someone called “Lewis McBatman” tweeted: Joe Biden fact-raped Paul Ryan last week. About time someone did. Now, there are all sorts of things wrong with the imagery and metaphor in that...
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snarky qotd about voting and economics
The prize goes to Peter T: [Steven] Levitt has millions of brain cells. The activity of any one of them cannot possibly matter. So he doesn’t bother thinking. It’s all part of a(nother) post by Andrew...
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the chronicle’s wasted opportunity
The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a reader contest recently, inviting readers to design their ideal college, from the ground up. The results are here (sorry for the paywall). This could have been a...
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no austrians near fiscal cliffs
The commonplace saying “there are no atheists in foxholes” — while probably technically false — seems apt to describe the so-called “fiscal cliff” situation the United States government finds itself...
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ask a scatterbrain: post-review changes not suggested by reviewers
On behalf of an anonymous reader: After submitting an article to a journal, I have received a revise & resubmit decision along with two reviewer reports. The changes suggested by the reviewers and...
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preparation for shared governance
Some of the most rewarding things I’ve done since leaving graduate school are under the umbrella of shared governance: faculty input on the direction and operation of the university. UNC is fortunate...
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the celarent reviews
Quick question – what’s the deal with the “Barbara Celarent” reviews from 2050 in AJS? I find them opaque and have no idea what they’re supposed to be doing. What am I missing? Is it some elaborate...
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dog bites person; right winger endorses ignorance
North Carolina is “blessed” with a statewide center dedicated to right-wing attacks on higher education, the John W Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. One of their more prolific commentators is...
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snarky: what is it about a new century?
When I was book review editor at Social Forces, I developed a pet peeve: book titles that used phrases like “for a new century,” “for the 21st century,” and so on. If the only reason your book is of...
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fairness and high-risk, high-reward
I have heard recently two concerns about training for job markets that might be called high-risk, high-reward jobs. The implication is that such training programs are unfair because they aim too high...
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biernacki, “reinventing evidence”
OrgTheory’s current book forum is on Richard Biernacki‘s Reinventing Evidence in Social Inquiry. I provide my views here to contribute to the discussion. Biernacki attempts a wholesale indictment of...
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will $500 billion make america feel secure?
I am reposting an important analysis by my colleague, Charlie Kurzman. Original here. On the subject of national security, two unexpected calms lie hidden amid the headlines of conflict. One calm is in...
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the nas’s hundred great ideas
A couple of months ago, the right-wing National Association of Scholars pulled together and published a list of “100 Ideas for Reforming Higher Education.” The ideas are presented, one per contributor...
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counterfactuals and historical logic
One of my favorite articles to teach in graduate theory is Richard Ned Lebow’s “If Mozart Had Died at Your Age,” (paywall, sorry) which very cleverly lays out a counterfactual theory in which Mozart...
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is obesity a problem?
I started this post as a reply to the OrgTheory thread on obesity but it got long enough I decided to move it here. With all due respect, I think the claim that “obesity is not the problem” is...
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racial coding in the skies
On the way to a wonderful vacation this summer, I flew Delta RDU-ATL-SEA and SEA-MSP-RDU. The flights in and out of SEA showed Delta’s edgy new safety videos, a version of one of which is here: (The...
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elysium and the fact/value distinction
I saw the new Matt Damon movie, Elysium, this summer. I loved the prior movie by the same director (Neill Bloemkamp), District 9, which is a dystopian alien-visitation movie wrapped up in an extended...
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beyond the existence proof
In response to Fabio’s defense of nonrepresentative sampling, Sam Lucas sent his paper, “Beyond the Existence Proof,” published last year. Fabio mentions Lucas’s article in his follow-up, but doesn’t...
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that faculty impact “study”
I got a call this morning from the Daily Tar Heel because, while UNC was dead last among the 94 universities covered in the study Kieran has been mocking for its invention of an MIT sociology...
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