And if they are being fair that should be their aim 😉

“What tool from their own discipline are they applying, and how does it
add breadth to the literature? That is the question to ask.”

I hope that’s what I’ve been saying all along 🙂

This could be because I’m running late for lunch.

Or it could be that I don’t completely agree. Writing on a subject that is in the defined scope of another discipline, asking questions they asked before, without appropriately covering their literature is relatively insulting to the people on the other side. And I think it does imply a certain level of “assuming idiocy” even if it isn’t intended to.

However, I also agree with the idea that writing is a good way of engaging 100% – but the context here is important. What tool from their own discipline are they applying, and how does it add breadth to the literature? That is the question to ask. Doing such things does not lead to the “policy relevant” conclusions we often get from groups doing this though!

You’re using extreme hyperbole and a lack of contextual information to justify an unlikely conclusion. Writing on the subject is a very reasonably way to engage with the profession, surely.

There will be a distribution of exposure though – just like there is in economics. My vicious oversimplification is that those with less of a methodological/philosophical background will be more willing to try to do the discipline without giving sufficient credence to past work within a field they are not from – instead of treating it like a potentially interdiscipinary field where we can build insights together.

There is acres of scope for disciplines to work together – but when it comes to hard scientists wanting to discuss social sciences the onus is on them to build something with economists and other social scientists … how can social scientists know in advance that a physist is trying to overturn estabilished theory?

Assuming that you can come in and overturn a whole field without looking at its specific literature – that is a clear signal of assuming that the people who wrote up said literature are idiots.

This is in the context of scientists – so presumably they use the scientific method and understand the level of work behind formulating theories and testing them.

The way to make their contribution more useful would be for them to actually engage economists as well – this is definitely not a one way street. Economists were guilty of this same thing when it came to other social sciences, and they received deserved criticism.

I don’t think that is either true or helpful. Because they are fairly ignorant about economics they (a) underestimate their level of ignorance, and (b) overestimate the value of their contribution. However, that doesn’t make their contribution useless. The question for us is how best to engage with them to make use of the helpful stuff that they do know.

Sane for them to expect that superior insight into their own field; not so much for other fields.

I have no clue how much philosophy of science goes on in other disciplines’ PhD programmes. I did a year-long hounours history of thought course, one-semester PhD history of thought, a one-semester PhD Economics & Philosophy (heavy on philosophy of science, welfare econ underpinnings), one-semester with Buchanan on Constitutional Political Economy that was heavy on history of thought. Wrong to assume that the bench scientists have similar background in philosophy of science?

Although that doesn’t account for the fact that some in the “hard sciences” simply believe that, by virtue of the discipline, they have superior knowledge and insight for the same given GRE score.

It comes with the general dislike of studying the philosophy of a discipline – I would be willing to wager that those from other discipines who try their hands at attacking economics have a weaker understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of science and social science than those that don’t. The more time you spend looking at issues of philosophy and methodology, the less faith you have in your own knowledge being “true” – and as a result, the less likely you are to impose your methods adhoc into other fields.

If that’s all it is, it wouldn’t be hard to put up the tables of incoming GRE scores so that economists and physicists can together turn in derision and scorn towards those in social work and education.