Uh, Someone Dies. Look at my equation.

I'll spare myself from writing the full tale here, but suffice it to say that a very notable professor gave a talk here the other day, and i was entirely incredulous. The talk was crap, the math was a thin veil with which he attempted to hide the fact that he simply had no content--no contribution at all in this paper of his.

The paper was supposed to model the transition to democracy, or the stability of the democratic state after transition or the purpose of elections. These are three very different concepts. But he wasn't sure which one he was speaking about. Huh.

Question from colleague:
"So, you're saying that elections serve to coordinate the electorate to rebel if the leader 'misbehaves,' and without elections, the citizens wouldn't be able to stage a revolt. Well, then, sir, why would leaders ever allow elections? Doesn't that open the door to rebellions and accountability on his part?"

His reponse:
"Um, Someone dies."

Now, I wouldn't have been so affected had this guy been a lowly graduate student, or perhaps a struggling junior professor, or perhaps a senile tenured professor who is just delivering papers to get the free airline ticket to San Diego. But this guy is huge in our field. And only about 40 years old--so senility ain't the problem.

Now why does this upset me so? Well, his paper is crap, but it is filled to the brim with worthless--though pretty and delightfully complicated--math. He is huge, respected, published, tenured. I do not write crap papers. I keep my math as simple as possible, and only use it to actually further my understanding of a problem. Perhaps I am not what the rest of the field is looking for.

But also:

When I was an anthropology student in dear old Saint Louis, I was often angered at the use of language, or academic-speak, to obscure the argument being made by the author. In other words--hopefully simply enough that everyone can damn me if they disagree--most of the seminal works I had to read seemed entirely devoid of content, but 'gussied up' with verbal condiments to hide the taste. As though the author thought, "If I use more complicated language, and extend the length of all of my sentences, then perhaps they will be confused into believing that this something worthwhile." And what is most disheartening is that the trick has seemed to work in a great many areas for a great many authors.

Now, when I decided that one major wasn't enough, I picked up economics. I found more egregious sins there. Not so much as applied to straight micro/business problems, but rather, when economists attempted to flex their mathematical muscles in other fields of inquiry--read: political economy/political science. Building fancy mathematical models into one's work seems to buy credibility--whether it is deserved or not. How often have do social scientists report statistics that are in no way significant, or strategically omit the information which would report significance, banking on the fact that most people see the statistical tables and their eyes glaze over, their breathing becomes regular and deep, and drool peaks out the corners of their mouths, therefore leaving the audience catatonic enough to "buy" the piss-poor argument bolstered by shit-poor statistics? Too often.

While it may be merely irksome that academics are flexing this kind of muscle to confuse other academics, many times, these works have real policy implications. For instance, The Bell Curve, which basically told America that race is the sole determinant of intellectual capability, and well, no amount of education can change the rankings (which, the book claimed were: Chinese>White>Black>Latino), became a NYT best seller! But while other academics, at the very least, are responsible for weeding out the bullshit (read: looking through the appendix, and noting that all the statistics are absolute crap), the authors knew that the rest of America would feel no compunction to grab a statistics text to enrich their reading of the book. However, the numbers, and the manner in which they were presented to the ignorant citizenry, actually convinced people to swallow this jaw-droppingly stupid argument.

It's irreponsible, and it's pervasive in academia. And this is why, this week, I have been sad to be an academic, myself.