https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0SZX4zU7BzjqjdUDk6ShUG7bWpFbRrpHfoF5mT2wnDZhxNua4Mt2WBgmr7tAY2zHZl&id=1447752724

SUB-DUNBAR E SUPER-DUNBAR

SUB-DUNBAR E SUPER-DUNBAR

Il primatologo Robin Dunbar ha teorizzato che il numero di persone con cui possiamo mantenere relazioni sociali personali è limitato dalle dimensioni del nostro cervello a circa 150 individui. Molte caratteristiche sociali cambiano quando le persone si organizzano in gruppi più numerosi.

In un ambiente sub-Dunbar, il principio morale di base è prendersi cura dell’altro: ama il tuo prossimo come te stesso. Nella società super-Dunbar, questo principio morale di base non è né necessario né sufficiente. Come ha sottolineato Adam Smith, l'interesse personale diventa la forza propulsiva centrale.

https://medium.com/@arnoldkling/three-fundamental-concepts-of-social-science-b0c5f177293a

Cosa caratterizza le scienze sociali?

1) la complessità: l'ordine catturabile solo da più intelligenze che interagiscono.
2) la variabilità: specie la distinzione tra società sub-Durban e società siper-Dunbar

CHAPTER 13 Self-Deception and the Structure of the Social Sciences

CHAPTER 13 Self-Deception and the Structure of the Social Sciences
Note:13@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

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social biology and the social sciences, economics, cultural anthropology, and psychology.
Note:LE MATERIE TRATTATE

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we expect knowledge to be more deformed, the more deformation is advantageous to those in control.
Note:ASPETTATIVA

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If you are trying to land a missile
Note:OPERAZIONE NN INQUINATA DA DALLE NTERESSI

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the enormous success of science
Note:INTEREST FREE

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the greater the social content of a discipline, especially human, the greater will be the biases
Note:LEGGE GENERALE

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It may be that the intrinsic complexity of social phenomena impedes rapid scientific progress, but modern physics is very complex, and its findings were unearthed
Note:NN È LA COMPLESSITÀ CHE BLOCCA

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Another possibility regarding the development of social disciplines is that a prior moral stance regarding a subject may influence the development of theory and knowledge
Note:ALTERNATIVA

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PRECEDENCE OF JUSTICE OVER TRUTH?
Note:Ntttttttttttttt

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we will derive a theory of justice from our larger theory of the truth.
Note:L ORTODOSSIA

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an unconscious bias toward an unjust stance will invite cognitive biases in favor of this stance.
Note:IL RISCHIO SEMPRE IN AGGUATO

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at the microlevel, marriage, family, job; at the macrolevel, society, war, etc.
Note:MATERIE SEMPRE A RISCHIO

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SUCCESS OF SCIENCE IS BASED ON ANTI-SELF-DECEPTION DEVICES
Note:Ttttttttttt

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Famous mathematical proofs (Godel’s theorem) begin with a set of all the symbols used and what they mean.
Note:DEFINIZIONI CHIARE

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entire subdisciplines may flourish in the interstices of poorly defined words.
Note:NELLE SS

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repeating work to see whether the same results emerge.
Note:PRIMO ESPEDIENTE DELLA VERA SC

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full-time hoaxes, such as psychoanalysis, preclude experimental tests
Note:RADDRIZZA LE ANTENNE

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exact description permitting exact repetition
Note:RIPETIAMO

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data that can be generated by chance more than 5 percent of the time are rejected as unreliable.
Note:CONVENZIONE

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1 percent
Note:NELLA RICERCA MEDICA

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meta-analyses can be performed on large numbers of related studies to see what statistically valid generalizations
Note:IN PIÙ

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The acid test of science is its ability to predict the future,
Note:EPEDIENTE DUE

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light really is bent by gravity (per Einstein); in an eclipse of the sun, the apparent position of stars in the nearby background was altered by the sun’s gravity.
Note:ESEMPIO

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ants produce a 1:3 ratio of investment in the sexes (unlike almost all other animals)
Note:ALTRO ESEMPIO

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“predictions” lack any foreknowledge,
Note:NON RAZIONALIZZARE

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This is the beauty of Einstein’s prediction
Note:OVVIO NN POTESSE SAPERE

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Science asks that, whenever possible, knowledge be built on preexisting knowledge.
Note:TERZO ESPEDIENTE

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Physics rests on mathematics, chemistry on physics, biology on chemistry, and, in principle, the social sciences on biology.
Note:STRUTTURA UNITARIA DELLE SCIENZE

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mathematics gave physics rigor, physics gave chemistry an exact atomic model, and chemistry gave biology an exact molecular model. And biology?
Note:LA GRANDE CONNESSIONE

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You would think it would have much to give
Note:LA BIOLOGIA HA MOLTO DA DARE ALLE SS

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THE MORE SOCIAL THE DISCIPLINE, THE MORE RETARDED ITS DEVELOPMENT
Note:Tttttttttttt

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What difference does it make for everyday life whether the gravitational effect of the mu meson is positive or negative?
Note:IN FISICA NIENTE AUTOINGANNI

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Physicists will overemphasize the importance and value of their work to others.
Note:UNICA TENTAZIONE...TEORIA DEL TUTTO

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their social utility, in my opinion, is primarily connected to warfare.
Note:CONNESSIONE TRA FISICA E SOCIETÀ

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build bigger bombs,
Note:Cccccc

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When I read of nine billion euros spent on a supercollider in which tiny particles are accelerated to incredible speeds and then run into one another, I think “bombs.”
Note:SUPERCOLLIDER

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the greater the social content of a discipline, the more slowly it will develop,
Note:UNA BUONA LEGGE

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psychology, sociology, anthropology, and economics have direct implications for our view of ourselves and of others,

Note | Page: 308

PURTROPPO

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SELF-DECEPTION IN BIOLOGY
Note:Ttttttttttttttt

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natural selection favored what was good for the group or the species, when in fact it favors what is good for the individual
Note:PER UN SECOLO LA B HA VISTO.IL MONDO AL CONTRARIO

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This theory also can be used to justify individual behavior by claiming that such behavior serves group benefit
Note:FORSE SOTO L ERRORE C ERANO MOTIVAZIONI SOCIALI

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take the classic case of male infanticide, first studied in depth in the langur monkeys of India,
Note:UN EZSEMPIO CHE RIGUARDA 100 SPECIE

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was rationalized as a population-control mechanism
Note:PRIMA INTERPRET

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Since a nursing infant inhibits its mother’s ovulation, murder of the infant brought the bereaved mother into reproductive readiness quicker,
Note:INTERPRETAZIONE CORRETTA...EGO

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In some populations, as many as 10 percent of all young are murdered by adult males
Note:LA SPECIE A VOLTE NE RISENTE...GLI INTERESSI NN SONO ALLINEATI

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These deaths are unrelated to population density
Note:INOLTRE

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Perhaps the success of aggressive males spreads genes only for aggressiveness,
Note:INOLTRE

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Close relationships are also easily imagined to be conflict-free.
Note:ALTRO ESEMPIO DI ANTI INDIVIDUALISMO

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Even in the formation of the placenta, the mother does not help the invading fetal tissue
Note:MA L IPOTESI È INFONDATA

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rates of extra-pair paternity exceeding 20 percent were regularly reported.
Note:TRA LE AMOREVOLE COPPOE DEI VOLATILI INSEPARABILI

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Anthropologists soon rationalized warfare itself as favored by evolution because it too was such a nifty population-regulation device.
Note:ALTRO ESEMPIO DI ERRORE X PREGIUDIZI

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Of course, at the individual level, altruism is a problem to explain and requires special conditions, such as kinship or reciprocal relations, with internal conflict in both cases.
Note:IL CASO RISOLTO DELL ALTRUISMO

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IS ECONOMICS A SCIENCE?
Note:Tttttttttttttt

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The short answer is no.
Note:SI SARÀ GIÀ CAPITO

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Economics acts like a science and quacks like one—it has developed an impressive mathematical apparatus and awards itself a Nobel Prize each year—but it is not yet a science.
Note:PRETESE

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It fails to ground itself in underlying knowledge (in this case, biology).
Note:COSA MANCA

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What are we trying to maximize?
Note:L EC PARTE CON LA DOMANDA GIUSYA

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what is utility? Well, anything people wish to maximize.
Note:POI ENTRA IN CIRCOLO

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determining all of the preference functions by measurement in all the relevant situations is hopeless from the outset,
Note:UN LAVORACCIO INAFFIDABILE

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individual’s inclusive fitness, that is, the number of its surviving offspring plus effects (positive and negative) on the reproductive success of relatives, each devalued by its relatedness to them.
Note:EPPURE LA BIOLOGIA HA UNA RISPOSYA

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economists miss out on a whole series of linkages that may be critical.
Note:ESITO DI QS TRASCURAYEZZA

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One recent effort by economics to link up with allied disciplines is called behavioral economics, a link with psychology that is most welcome.
Note:UNA FLEBILE SPERANZA

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assume that our behavior evolved specifically to fit artificial economic games. To imagine how bizarre this is, consider the ultimatum game
Note:ERRORE RICORENTE ANCHE TRA GLI EC EVOLUZIONISTI

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People often reject unfair offers of a split of money by anonymous others (for example, 80 percent to the proposer and 20 percent to the recipient)
Note:INTERPRET ERRATA: SEGNO DI GENEROSITÀINTERPRET CORRETTA: STRATEGIA INTERNALIZZATA VALIDA IN CONTESTO DI GIOCHI RIPETUTI

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infatuation with beautiful mathematics at the cost of attention to reality.
Note:UN BIAS DI MOLTA ECONOMIA

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they should pay attention to—and this has been obvious for some thirty years now—is biology, in particular evolutionary theory.
Note:COME RIMEDIARE

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“Our advice was good but you failed to follow it closely enough.”
Note:DI FRONTE ALLE POLITICHE FALLIMENTARI

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CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Note:Tttttttttttttt

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Cultural anthropology made a tragic left turn in the mid-1970s
Note:LA GAFFE

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in the early 1970s, strong social theory emerged from biology and a variety of subjects were addressed seriously for the first time: kinship theory, including parent/offspring relations, relative parental investment, and the evolution of sex differences, the sex ratio, reciprocal altruism and a sense of fairness, and so on.
Note:COS ERA SUCCESSO

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accept the new work, master it, and rewrite their own discipline along the new lines,
Note:PRIMA OPZIONE X OGNI ANTROPOLOGO

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reject the new work and protect their own expertise (such as it was).
Note:SECONDA OPZ MOLTO PIÙ FACILE

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You have invested twenty years of your life in mastering social anthropology.
Note:CONSIDERA LA SCELTA DA UN PUNTO DI VISTA EC ED ESISTENZIALE

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Even in physics, it was famously said that the field advanced one funeral at a time—
Note:NELL ACCADEMIA SI SA

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the social anthropologists rose to the challenge, even renaming their field “cultural anthropology” to more explicitly rule out the relevance of biology in advance. Now we were no longer social organisms but cultural ones.
Note:IL PARADOSSO

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Out of biological thinking flowed biological determinism (the notion that genetics influences daily life), whose downstream effects included fascism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other odious “isms.”
Note:GIUST MORALE

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Once you remove biology from human social life, what do you have? Words. Not even language,
Note:TUTTAVIA

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Thirty-five wasted years and counting.
Note:ESITO

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As a result, most US anthropology departments consist of two completely separate sections, in which, as one biological colleague put it, “they think we’re Nazis and we think they are idiots”
Note:NN UNIVERSITÀ

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PSYCHOLOGY
Note:Tttttttttttttt

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In the 1960s, psychologists often explicitly disavowed the importance of biology.
Note:ALLA LARGA DALLA SCIENZA

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No biology was required.
Note:HARVARD

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learning theory made far-reaching and implausible claims about the ability of reinforcement to mold all behavior adaptively.
Note:UN AMBITO CHE PRODUSSE PARECCHI ERRORI

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On the positive side, psychology has always concentrated on the individual
Note:UN ASPETTO CHE AIUTÒ

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Recently a school of evolutionary psychology has developed, while psychology has been increasingly integrated with other areas of biology,

Note | Page: 316

SPERANZA

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method was that of self-reports, or questionnaire-answering behavior—what people say about themselves.
Note:IL METODI INAFFIDABILI DELLA PSICH SOCIALE

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For one thing, forces of deceit and self-deception—or call them issues of self-presentation and self-perception, if you prefer—loom large.
Note:PRIMO RISCH

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PSYCHOANALYSIS: SELF-DECEPTION IN THE STUDY OF SELF-DECEPTION
Note:Ttttttttttttt

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science of self-deception
Note:LA PRETESA DI FREUD

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the empirical foundation for developments in the field was something called clinical lore, essentially what psychiatrists told one another over drinks after a day’s work.
Note:LA PARTE EMPIRICA?

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the basis was shared experiences, assumptions, and assertions among psychoanalysts about what went on during psychotherapy
Note:LA BASE DI CONCETTO COME L INVIDIA DEL PENE O IL COMPLESSO D EDIPO

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denial, projection, reaction formation, ego defense mechanism, and so on,
Note:CONCETTI DA SALVARE

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id
Note:CONCETTI DA BUTTARE

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ego
Note:Ccccccc

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superego
Note:Ccccccccc

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Almost all species of animals are selected to avoid close inbreeding, which has real genetic costs, and they have evolved mechanisms—for example, early exposure to parents and siblings causes sexual disinterest—that minimize inbreeding.
Note:TEORIA DELO SVIILUPO PSICH...INCENTRATA SULLE ATTRAZIONI SESS IN FAMIGLIA...FIGLI GENOT

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fathers may gain in relatedness by forcing sex on a daughter (and therefore a child) sufficient to offset the genetic cost, but the daughter is unlikely to benefit sufficiently in relatedness to offset her cost.
Note:E POI....CASOMAI POTREBBE ESSERE VERO IL CONTRARI

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selection would be weak at best, the one ending her reproduction while the other is beginning his, and there are other very good reasons for showing deference to one’s mother (especially for a male’s maternal genes).
Note:ATTRAZIONE DI EDIPO

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He was also obtuse to harsh parental treatment as a cause of offspring malfunction.
Note:SI FINISCE X ACCISARE LE VITTIME

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One of Freud’s celebrated analyses was that of “Wolf Man,”
Note:LO PSICOPATICO A CUI SI DIAGNOSTICO UNO SVILUPPO PSICHICO PROBLEMATICO...IN REALTÀ ERA REGOLARMENTE BASTONATO DAL PADRE

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cocaine abuse
Note:FREUD...UN TIPO STRANO

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the number twenty-nine played a recurring and decisive role in human life,
Note:Ccccccccc

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thought could be transported instantaneously across wide distances without the use of electrical devices,
Note:Ccccccccc

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The wealth of dependable observations on which these assertions rest, make them independent of experimental verification.
Note:FREUD SULLE VERIFICHE FATTUALI DELLA TEORIA...

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It doesn’t matter how beautiful the guess is, or how smart the guesser is, or how famous the guesser is; if the experiment disagrees with the guess, the guess is wrong. That’s all there is to it.
Note:FEYMAN SULLO STESSO NPUNTO

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SELF-DECEPTION DEFORMS DISCIPLINES
Note:Tttttttttt

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Not genes but individuals, not individuals but groups, not groups but species, not species but ecosystems, and, with a little extra energy, not ecosystems but the entire universe.
L ERRORE PIÙ COMUNI

Postulato

Riccardo Mariani

1 h · 

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La regola più trascurata delle scienze sociali: a volte le cose vanno in un modo, altre volte in un altro.
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The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

When it was first released in 2013, Arnold Kling’s The Three Languages of Politics was a prescient exploration of political communication, detailing the “three tribal…

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CHAPTER 9 Nonexperimental Social Science - Uncontrolled jim manzi

CHAPTER 9 Nonexperimental Social ScienceRead more at location 1574

Note: 9@@@@@@@@@@@@§@ Edit

A Physicist, a Historian, and an EconomistRead more at location 1576

Note: T Edit

Imagine that a hypothetical US president is considering his options vis-à-vis Iran’s rapidly developing nuclear weapons program. First a science adviser enters the room and predicts that if the Iranians take a certain quantity of fissile material and compress it into a sphere of a particular size under specific conditions, then it will cause an explosion large enough to destroy a major city. Next a historian enters the room and predicts that if external attempts are made to thwart Iranian nuclear ambitions, then a popular uprising will ensue sooner or later, and force changes in governments until Iran has achieved nuclear capability. The president would be incredibly irresponsible to begin debating nuclear physics with his science adviser, even if the president happened to have trained as a physicist. Conversely, the president would be incredibly irresponsible not to begin a debate with the historian. This likely would include having several historians present different perspectives,Read more at location 1577

Note: CONSIGLIERI DEL PRESIDENTE Edit

Next an economist walks into the room.Read more at location 1585

Note: ECONOMISTA Edit

Superficially she might sound a lot more like the physicist. She would use lots of empirical data, equations, and technical language.Read more at location 1588

Note: c Edit

But lots of things would arguably remain outside the grasp of formal models.Read more at location 1590

Note: c Edit

(1) a priori beliefs about human nature, and conclusions that are believed to be logically derivable from them, (2) analysis of historical data, which is to say, data-driven theory-building, and (3) a review of the track record of prior predictions made using the predictive rule in question.Read more at location 1595

Note: COME SI GIUSTIFICA L ECONOMISTA Edit

Please view the following film taken from a long series of huge explosions that result when independent evaluators combine the materials I described in the manner I described.Read more at location 1598

Note: COME SI GOUSTIFICA IL FISICO Edit

The reason the physicist need concentrate only on controlled experiments is that these are accepted as the scientific gold standard for testing theories.Read more at location 1602

Note: GOLD STANDARD Edit

so many things change in a macroeconomic event that it is not realistic to isolate the causal impact of any one factor.Read more at location 1605

Note: IL PROB DELL ECONOMISTA Edit

dress up rhetoric in analytical language.Read more at location 1607

Add a note

Mankiw summarized fourteen findings that have achieved widespread acceptance among economists. Among them are: Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. In fact, 10 to 20 percent of practicing economists disagree with each of these assertions; but more fundamentally, even if we assume them to be correct, they are too vague to really help settle policy arguments.Read more at location 1617

Note: LA CERTEZZA DEGLI ECONOMISTI Edit

These limitations are inherent to the methodology of nonexperimental social science.Read more at location 1636

Note: NN EXP Edit

although experiments can help and should be aggressively pursued, our scientific knowledge of any human social organization will remain extremely limited even when these experiments are deployed extensively.Read more at location 1644

Note: ACCANIMENTO SPERIMENTALE Edit

The Development of Nonexperimental Quantitative Social ScienceRead more at location 1653

Note: T Edit

causal densityRead more at location 1655

Note: x Edit

making the Problem of Induction ever more centralRead more at location 1655

Note: x Edit

The maze of causationRead more at location 1662

Note: x Edit

Prior to the creation of modern social science, we simply had history, with its tradition of recording facts and making assertions based on these facts plus narrative appeals to commonly held understandings of human motivations and experiences. This was nonscientific, in that it did not make claims for the kinds of reliable, nonobvious, and useful predictive rules that characterize science. In the terms of this book, history is informed common sense.Read more at location 1663

Note: IN PRINCIPIO FU LA STORIA Edit

Note: COMMON SENSE Edit

numerous thinkers attempted to apply scientific methods to the study of human social behavior. The French Enlightenment, in particular, was central to the creation of the modern social science ideology. Auguste Comte and Henri de Saint-Simon were explicit in arguing that the methods of natural science provided the model for developing predictive laws for human society. Comte argued that human understanding in various fields proceeded in three stages: theological, metaphysical, and finally, positive.Read more at location 1667

Note: I PRECURSORI DELLO SCIENTISMO SOCIALE Edit

we would say that knowledge proceeds from mythology to philosophy to science.Read more at location 1671

Note: c Edit

Comte believed that humanity had achieved “positive” (i.e., scientific) understanding in various fields in the order of their complexity: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and finally sociology.Read more at location 1672

Note: LE TAPPE Edit

It was clear to the earliest social scientists that the natural sciences of their era (astronomy, chemistry, and physics) achieved spectacular success by discovering and stating physical laws as equationsRead more at location 1673

Note: IL TRIONFO DELL EQUAZIONE Edit

He argued that despite the inability to conduct controlled experiments in social sciences, thinkers could reason from introspection to general predictive rules—sayingRead more at location 1679

Note: MILL. PRIMO EC SCIENZIATO Edit

In an argument somewhat akin to Sir Karl Popper’s doctrine of falsification, Mill argued that one role of empirical observation is to “verify” a given causal rule by “by comparing,Read more at location 1681

Note: MILL VERIFICAZIONISTA Edit

For example, a social scientist might promulgate a predictive rule that a US president will fail to win reelection if the unemployment rate exceeds 10 percent. If, in a specific future election, a president were to win reelection with 11 percent unemployment, the social scientist might observe that there was a disturbing cause created by the fact that the nation was at war and the president was viewed as an indispensable leader.Read more at location 1685

Note: ESEMPIO Edit

But what if there are myriad “disturbing causes,” many of which are as important as the cause of interest in determining the outcome of the situation?Read more at location 1688

Note: KO Edit

The problem of how we can develop nonobvious, reliable predictive rules without controlled experiments has so far been deadly to Comte and Mill’s dream of rational social science.Read more at location 1696

Note: MORTE DELLE SCIENZE SOCIALI Edit

First, both asserted findings are nonobvious, but plausible.Read more at location 1700

Note: x CARATTERI DEI CASI ESAMINATI Edit

Second, each of these should be a very high-quality analysis,Read more at location 1705

Note: x Edit

Have Republican Presidents Caused Income Inequality?Read more at location 1711

Note: T Edit

The first example is a regression model presented by Princeton public policy professor Larry M. Bartels in his 2008 book, Unequal Democracy.Read more at location 1711

Note: BARTEL Edit

Kammerer Award from the American Political Science Association (APSA)Read more at location 1713

Add a note

The citation for the award specifically calls out “the care taken in the analysis” and “the rigorous application of controls.”Read more at location 1714

Note: MOTIVAZIONE DEI PREMI Edit

The most widely discussed finding in the book was a regression analysis, based in part on an updated version of analysis from his 2004 academic paper, “Partisan Politics and the US Income Distribution,” which reviews the changes in incomes for the rich versus the poor under Democratic versus Republican presidents from 1948 to 2005. Bartels asserts that the differences in the behavior of Republican versus Democratic presidents have been a leading cause of the rich gaining relative income versus the poor, saying these presidential differences were “the most important single influence on the changing US income distribution over the past half-century.”Read more at location 1715

Note: TESI DI BARTEL Edit

decisions by the Congress, Supreme Court, and Federal Reserve; changes in international economic competition; technological developments that enhance some people over others; changes in immigration rates and sources; changes in social mores and beliefs; and being at war or peace.Read more at location 1721

Note: VARIABILI DI UN QUALCHE INTERESSE Edit

“The price of oil and the increasing participation of women in the labor forceRead more at location 1724

Note: c Edit

because these long-term trends have been so glacial, and so intertwined, it is very difficult to discern their distinct effects on the shape of the income distribution.”Read more at location 1727

Note: BARTEL RICONOSCE IL PROBLEMA Edit

“Fortunately, from the standpoint of political analysis, the very fact that these social and economic trends have been gradual and fairly steady implies that their effects are unlikely to be confounded with the effects of alterations in control of the White House.”Read more at location 1729

Note: MA POI MISTERIOSAMENTE MINIMIZZA Edit

The obvious question is how we know the net causal effect of a great many intertwined social and economic forces has been gradual, fairly steady, and not confounded.Read more at location 1730

Note: x Edit

Based on these assertions, Bartels builds a set of regression models that attempts to explain changes in income inequality in any given year as a function of six variables.Read more at location 1732

Note: 6 VARIABILI Edit

One of these variables is last year’s party of the president.Read more at location 1734

Note: PRIMA Edit

last year’s change in the price of oil, and last year’s change in female labor force participation.Read more at location 1736

Note: SECONDA E TERZA Edit

The fourth variable is last year’s income growth at the 95th percentile (i.e., growth “trickles down”).Read more at location 1737

Note: QUARTA Edit

Finally, he understands that this short list of four factors cannot conceivably describe all of the “great many economic and social forces”Read more at location 1739

Note: c Edit

he adds two variables to his equations to fit his curves to the historical trend of the data, rather than to explain this historical trend as a function of underlying causes. One of these trend variables is the number of years since 1948 for each year, and the final variable in the model is the square of the number of years since 1948 for each year. And that’s it.Read more at location 1742

Note: TREND VARIABLE Edit

Bartels is claiming he has isolated the effect of presidential party on inequality with those six variables.Read more at location 1745

Note: LA PRETESA Edit

assumption that presidential actions affect income distributions for only one yearRead more at location 1747

Note: ASSUNTI PROBLEMATICI Edit

There are plausible long-term causal mechanisms that could have almost no effect for years,Read more at location 1748

Note: c Edit

obviously including appointments to the Supreme Court and Federal Reserve,Read more at location 1749

Note: c Edit

Did Reagan’s effects on the change in distribution of incomes in America really end in 1989?Read more at location 1750

Note: c Edit

assumption that out of all the potential confounding causes for inequality, only oil prices and female labor participation should be included in the model as specific causes, and that the model has captured all of the other possible causal factors through his “linear and quadratic trend terms.”Read more at location 1751

Note: ASSUNTO: CATTURARE TUTTE LE VARIABILI CON VARIABILI TREND Edit

Using the raw Census data tables, I observed that income inequality does tend to rise under Republican presidents (lagged one year—e.g., Jimmy Carter gets credit for 1981) and fall under Democratic presidents (lagged one year). But when I did the simple test of changing the lag to two years, the entire apparent effect disappears:Read more at location 1760

Note: LAG. UN ANNO DUE ANNI Edit

he cites two academic papers that he believes show his assumption is “consistent with macroeconomic evidence regarding the timing of economic responses to monetary and fiscal policy changes.” But first note that a president can affect a far broader range of policies than monetary and fiscal policy—for example, regulatory decisions, Supreme Court and Federal Reserve appointments, negotiating trade treaties, antitrust enforcement, seeking out or settling wars,Read more at location 1766

Note: LA GIYSTIFICA NN STA IN PIEDI Edit

And these papers don’t appear to claim a one-year rather than a two-year window for the impacts they do analyze. One paper estimates that (1) the peak impact of a tax shock on GDP should be reached by one to two years after the taxes change, and thereafter continue indefinitely; and (2) the peak impact of a spending shock should not be reached until two to four years after the spending change, and then continue indefinitely. The other paper estimates that numerous effects of monetary shocks extend for two years or more.Read more at location 1772

Note: c Edit

For this kind of a social reality, such model-tuning (for example, the one-year lag versus a two-year lag; including oil prices and female labor force participation versus the myriad other potential control variables; using a linear plus quadratic trend terms versus searching for additional explicit control variables, etc.) is inevitable, because the complexity of the real world overwhelms the tool of regression analysis.Read more at location 1780

Note: MODELLO INEVITABILMENTE SCARSO Edit

Did Legalized Abortion Cause a Reduction in Crime?Read more at location 1785

Note: T Edit

Steven Levitt, a distinguished economics professor at the University of Chicago. Levitt was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal as the best American economist under forty.Read more at location 1788

Note: CHI SEC ESEMPIO Edit

Among the most widely discussed passages in Freakonomics was Levitt’s assertion that a significant fraction of US crime reduction in the 1990s can be linked to changes set in motion by Roe v. Wade in 1973. The basic asserted causal mechanism is that the increase in abortions disproportionately eliminated potential future criminals.Read more at location 1789

Note: TESI DISCUSSA Edit

several fertility control technologies—most importantly the birth control pill—plus a huge variety of social trends that plausibly affect abortion rates and/or crime emerged in the same era as legalized abortion. The argument Levitt makes in his professional publications is that we can control for these other effects. But this is extremely difficult if these other effects became evident at the times, in the places, and for the population subgroups where abortion legalization had its first effects.Read more at location 1798

Note: CONFOUNDS Edit

Freakonomics presents the results of a natural experiment: the five states that liberalized abortion laws prior to Roe (Levitt terms these “early legalizers”) experienced a crime reduction prior to the nonrepeal states.Read more at location 1803

Note: ESP NATURALE Edit

showing that the states with the highest abortion rates in the 1970s experienced the greatest crime dropsRead more at location 1805

Note: ALTRO ESP A SUPPORTO Edit

Finally, they note that Australia and Canada have seen similar results.Read more at location 1807

Note: TERZO Edit

The logic of the various regression analyses in the paper was (as with the Bartels analysis) to “hold all other factors equal” and isolate the causal change created by the change in the abortion rate.Read more at location 1812

Note: REGRESSIONE Edit

other academics published alternative versions of the same analysis, using slightly different assumptions, that did not show any such effect. Levitt and Donohue, of course, quickly replied by arguing that one should use their preferred specifications.Read more at location 1815

Note: NO REPLICA CON ASSUNTI SIMILI Edit

two Federal Reserve economists published a crucial criticism in which they showed that the software implementation of the equations presented in DL 2001 had an important error and that once this was corrected and some other technical changes were made, the asserted effect of abortion on crime was no longer evident.Read more at location 1817

Note: ERRORI SOFT Edit

using a different data set massaged differently to reflect better how people moved among various states after having abortions—inRead more at location 1821

Note: PERFEZIONAMENTO Edit

Other academics then attempted to replicate the same analysis for the effect of legalization of abortion in the United Kingdom. They also discovered that depending on the exact specification of data sets and assumptions made in the regression model, the effect on crime would sometimes appear, and sometimes not.Read more at location 1826

Note: UK Edit

The fragility of the results in this paper serve to emphasize the difficulty researchers have in identifying causal effects of social change such as abortion legalization on crime rates some years hence, particularly given the myriad of other social changes occurring over the same time and which may dilute any effect.Read more at location 1830

Note: PAROLE DEI RICERCATORI UK Edit

Once again, regression analysis cannot tell us the effects of abortion on crime, because different reasonable assumptions for the analysis lead to completely different answers.Read more at location 1833

Note: CONCLUSIONE Edit

One way to get around all of this confusion would be to run an experiment. A purposeful experiment to force a random sample of states to implement abortion legalization has never happened in American history, and almost certainly never will.Read more at location 1837

Note: L UNCA SOLUZIONE Edit

New York declines 35 percent, while Alaska increases 50 percent; California is down 14 percent, and Hawaii is up 11 percent; Washington is almost exactly flat. The total rate across the early legalizers goes down versus the rest of the country only because New York and California are so much larger than the other three states. The natural experiment cannot resolve the question of the causal impact of abortion on crime, either.Read more at location 1857

Note: DUBBI SUGLI EARLY LEGALIZER Edit

Note: ESP NAT FALLITO Edit

First, causal density is very high, so sample size is critical, but many natural experiments have far too few data points.Read more at location 1861

Note: PROBLEMA DEGLI ESP NAT Edit

Second, a national society is holistically integrated; therefore, it is hard to get causal impermeability between the test and control groups. In the abortion-crime debate, for example, I indicated that a significant technical issue was how to account for the reality that people move between states.Read more at location 1866

Note: PROB. DELL IMPEARMIBILITÀ Edit

“causal pollution”Read more at location 1872

Note: x Edit

Third is the possibility of systematic, unobserved bias between the individuals or places that are subject to the treatment in the natural experiment as compared to those that are not. Consider the abortion-crime example. All kinds of plausible differences in political culture, social evolution, rational expectation for future challenges, and so on could vary between the early legalization states and the rest of the country.Read more at location 1873

Note: PROB CON ESP NAT: NN CASUALITÀ DEL CTRL Edit

This is the irreducible problem for any such social natural experiment that does not use strict randomization for assignment to the test population, no matter how large the same size.Read more at location 1880

Note: NO RANDOM Edit

three problems: small sample size, integrated complexity, and potential selection bias.Read more at location 1882

Note: x Edit

The actual event that inspired this observation was that, one day in 1961, Lorenz entered .506 instead of .506127 for one parameter in a climate-forecasting model and discovered that it produced a wildly different long-term weather forecast.Read more at location 1887

Note: LE ALI DELLA FARFALLA E LE PREVISIONI DEL TEMPO Edit

Businesses are notoriously practical and results-oriented, and have sunk vast resources into trying to develop useful, reliable predictions for behavior in the absence of experiments. In doing so, they have run into the same problems and hit the same dead ends. I know, because I spent years doing it.Read more at location 1893

Note: CHI FA BUSINESS LO SA Edit