Obama Analytics Not only Nate Silver crunches numbers Marijuana Use and Driving Incidents More of these weird correlations Registry for Research Designs Why it’s not such a great idea The oldest town in Europe Unearthed Bubbles. Jason Tozer [via Colossal]
‘Science is like sex – it might have practical consequences but that’s not why you do it!’ This seems to be a modified version of a quote by the physicist Richard Feynman that I heard last week at a meeting organized by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (the major research funding agency in the Netherlands). It kind of sums up the attitudes of natural scientists to the increasing pressures all researchers face to justify their grant applications in terms of the possible practical use (utilization, or valorization) of their research results. Which is totally fine by me. I perfectly understand that it is impossible to anticipate all the possible future practical consequences of fundmental research. On the other hand, I see no harm in forcing researchers to, at the very least, think about the possible real-world applications of their work. The current equilibrium in which reflection on possible practical applications is required, but ‘utilization’ is neither necessary nor sufficient for getting a grant, seems like a good compromise. Of course, I come from a field (public administration) where demonstrating the scientific contribution is usually more difficult than showing the practical applicability of the results: so my view might be biased. I am not even sure what fundamental research in the social sciences looks like. Even rather esoteric work on non-cooperative game theory has been directly spurred by practical concerns related to the Cold War (and sponsored by the RAND corporation) and has rather directly led to the design of real-world social instituions (like the…
This is a guest post by Markus Haverland, Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam and author of a recent book on research methods. *** Causal knowledge about the world proceeds by testing hypotheses. The context of discovery precedes the context of justification. We all know that journalists and pundits often do it the other way around: providing for an explanation after the fact. A particularly hilarious example can be found in today’s issue of “Spits”, a Dutch daily newspaper. Anticipating that the result of the elections for the president of the US would arrive after the newspapers went to press, the newspaper prepared for both situations. It has turned the backpage into a second frontpage. Depending on the results the reader is advised to either read the frontpage or the backpage. On both pages the well-known Dutch journalists, a former correspondent in Washington, Charles Groenhuijsen analyses the results. On the “Obama wins” page he explains that it was evident that Obama would win, because he is a better campaigner and Romney’s economic program is inconsistent. On the “Romney wins” page he explains this outcome, by stating that, ultimately, the US is a conservative country, that voters were afraid of a turn to the left, laws against gun possession, and tolerance towards gay marriage, and that voters thought he was not effectively dealing with the economic crisis.
I have more than one reason to care about job discrimination based on ethnicity in the Netherlands. A new study shows that there is plenty to worry about. In short, the researchers sent identical job applications varying only the name – Dutch vs. ethnic (Antillean, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan). The ‘Dutch’ applicants had a higher chance of being invited for a job interview. The effect is rather small in size (5-8 percentage points), but is robust and statistically significant. Furthermore, discrimination is greater for ethnic males (20 percentage points), and for the lower-educated. This study investigates ethnic discrimination in the Dutch labor market, using field experiments. Two thousand eighty applications were sent to 1340 job vacancies; one applicant had a Dutch-sounding name, the other a name that signaled immigrant descent. Our aims were (a) to test for the persistence of discrimination in the Dutch labor market; (b) to study the interactions of ethnic background with job characteristics; (c) to study the complexity of discrimination against a background of multiple group membership. Results indicate that discrimination continues to be a problem in selection procedures. Interactions with job characteristics and multiple group membership are discussed. [full text (gated) here] Andriessen, Iris, Eline Nievers, Jaco Dagevos, and Laila Faulk. “Ethnic Discrimination in the Dutch Labor Market: Its Relationship with Job Characteristics and Multiple Group Membership.” Work and Occupations 39, no. 3 (2012): 237-69.