The social sciences are useless. So why do we study them? Here’s a good reason: | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

Back when I taught at Berkeley, you could always get a reaction from the students by invoking Stanford. The funny thing is, though, if you’re at Stanford and mention Berkeley, nobody cares. You have to bring up Harvard to get a reaction. Similarly, MIT students have a chip on their shoulder about Harvard, but Harvard students don’t really think much about MIT. There’s an asymmetry. Harvard and Yale, that’s more symmetric. This came up the other day in conversation with a biologist who was saying that, when they consider the scientific method, they think of physics as the gold standard. But when we do social science, we often look up to biology. The thing about social science is that it hasn’t produced much. We social scientists don’t have an inferiority complex; we really are inferior. Physics has produced locomotives, semiconductors, and the atomic bomb. Chemistry has produced amazing new materials. Biology has produced the coronavirus vaccine, and lots more. Social science has produc

Back when I taught at Berkeley, you could always get a reaction from the students by invoking Stanford. The funny thing is, though, if you’re at Stanford and mention Berkeley, nobody cares. You have to bring up Harvard to get a reaction. Similarly, MIT students have a chip on their shoulder about Harvard, but Harvard students don’t really think much about MIT. There’s an asymmetry. Harvard and Yale, that’s more symmetric. This came up the other day in conversation with a biologist who was saying that, when they consider the scientific method, they think of physics as the gold standard. But whe