“A small group of mathematicians . . .” | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

This came up from a few years back, in reaction to Paul Krugman writing of Isaac Asimov’s classic story: “In Foundation, we learn that a small group of mathematicians have developed ‘psychohistory,’ the aforementioned rigorous science of society.” I wrote: I read the Foundation books as a child. I remember the “psychohistory” part, of course, but not that it was invented by mathematicians. That seems so retro! Back in the day, there were only a few sorts of technical academic fields, and one of these was mathematics. Thus you had Mandelbrot inventing fractals, Turing inventing computer science, and Ulam inventing the H-bomb. Nowadays, I think of mathematicians as a sort of eccentric band of specialists, working for decades on problems that only they care about, while earning money teaching intro calc and training graduate students to work for Steven A. Cohen. I’m not saying that’s a fair impression–it would be just as correct for a mathematician to describe statisticians as an eccentri

This came up from a few years back, in reaction to Paul Krugman writing of Isaac Asimov’s classic story: “In Foundation, we learn that a small group of mathematicians have developed ‘psychohistory,’ the aforementioned rigorous science of society.” I wrote: I read the Foundation books as a child. I remember the “psychohistory” part, of course, but not that it was invented by mathematicians. That seems so retro! Back in the day, there were only a few sorts of technical academic fields, and one of these was mathematics. Thus you had Mandelbrot inventing fractals, Turing inventing computer science