{"id":193,"date":"2011-12-02T17:07:54","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T17:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rulesofreason.wordpress.com\/?p=193"},"modified":"2011-12-02T17:07:54","modified_gmt":"2011-12-02T17:07:54","slug":"social-science-in-the-courtroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=193","title":{"rendered":"Social science in the courtroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone who is interested in\u00a0the sociology of science, causal inferences from observational data,\u00a0employment gender discrimination, judicial sagas, or academic spats should read the latest issue<\/a> of Sociological Methods & Research. The whole issue is devoted to the Wal-Mart Stores,Inc. v. Dukes et al. case<\/a> – “the largest class-action employment discrimination suit in history”, with a focus on the uses of social science evidence in the courtroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The focal point of\u00a0contestation\u00a0is the report <\/a>of Dr.\u00a0Bielby – an expert for the plaintiff.\u00a0In a nutshell, the report says that the\u00a0gender bias in promotion decisions at Wal-Mart can be attributed to the lack of efforts to create a strong\u00a0corporate culture and limit the discretion\u00a0managers have in promotion decisions, which in turn\u00a0allows for\u00a0biased decisions.\u00a0The evidence is mostly\u00a01) a literature review that supports the causal links between corporate policies and corporate culture, corporate culture and individual behavior, discretion and biased individual behavior, and corporate policies and outcomes, and 2) description of the corporate policies and culture at Wal-Mart which points to a relatively weak policy towards gender discrimination and considerable discretion for managers in promotion decisions. Dr. Bielby describes the method as follows: “…look at distinctive features of the firm’s policies and practices and \u2026 evaluate them against what social scientific research shows to be factors that create and sustain bias and those that minimize bias” [the method is designated as \u201csocial framework analysis\u201d].<\/p>\n

What\u00a0gives the case\u00a0broader significance (apart from the fact that it directly concerns between half a million and a million and a half current and former employees at Wal-Mart), is the letter<\/a> [amicus brief] the American Sociological Association (ASA) decided to send in support of Dr. Bielby’s report. In the letter, ASA states that “the methods Dr. Bielby used are those social scientists rely on in scientific research that is published in top-quality peer-reviewed journals” and that “well done case studies are methodologically valid”. However, the Supreme Court apparently begs to differ,\u00a0and rejected the plaintiffs\u2019 claim.<\/p>\n

The current issue of Sociological Research & Methods has two articles\u00a0which attack the decision of ASA to endorse Dr. Bielby’s methodology and two articles that support it. In my opinion, the former are right.\u00a0Mitchell,\u00a0Monahan, and\u00a0Walker characterize<\/a> Dr. Bielby’s approach as “subjective judgments about litigation materials collected and provided to the expert by the attorneys”, but even\u00a0if that goes too far, S\u00f8rensen and Sharkey definitely have a point in writing<\/a> that what Dr. Bielby does is engage in abductive reasoning<\/strong> – “generate a hypothesized explanation from an observed empirical phenomenon”. Hence, hardly a reliable way to make a\u00a0valid inference about causes and effects. Employment discrimination\u00a0might be\u00a0consistent with high managerial discretion but is not necessarily caused by it.<\/p>\n

What makes this academic exchange\u00a0particularly juicy is\u00a0the fact that most contributors (the editor of the journal included) have been opponents in the courtroom as well – well, not directly but as experts\u00a0for the\u00a0two sides in\u00a0numerous employment discrimination suites.\u00a0Which probably\u00a0raises the stakes, I guess. Here<\/a> is the editor describing the process of putting the special issue together:<\/p>\n

\u201cManaging\u201d these interchanges has been far more difficult than I had thought. Even around very technical issues, scholars can get very heated. Part of the problem, I believe, is that the academy and, certainly, the social sciences, and most specifically sociology, do not have a well-articulated set of norms about how to engage in constructive scientific discourse. Too often I have seen the following:
\n1. Claims that a person holds a position or has said something when he or she did not, that is, \u201cputting words in a person\u2019s mouth.\u201d
\n2. Misconstrual, intentionally or not, of the meaning of what a person has written.
\n3. Questioning the expertise, intelligence, motives, or morals of an author.
\n4. Obfuscation by bringing in irrelevant or tangential points or material.” (p.552-3)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Academic\u00a0discourse at its best.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone who is interested in\u00a0the sociology of science, causal inferences from observational data,\u00a0employment gender discrimination, judicial sagas, or academic spats should read the latest issue of Sociological Methods & Research. The whole issue is devoted to the Wal-Mart Stores,Inc. v. Dukes et al. case – “the largest class-action employment discrimination suit in history”, with a focus on the uses of social science evidence in the courtroom.\u00a0 The focal point of\u00a0contestation\u00a0is the report of Dr.\u00a0Bielby – an expert for the plaintiff.\u00a0In a nutshell, the report says that the\u00a0gender bias in promotion decisions at Wal-Mart can be attributed to the lack of efforts to create a strong\u00a0corporate culture and limit the discretion\u00a0managers have in promotion decisions, which in turn\u00a0allows for\u00a0biased decisions.\u00a0The evidence is mostly\u00a01) a literature review that supports the causal links between corporate policies and corporate culture, corporate culture and individual behavior, discretion and biased individual behavior, and corporate policies and outcomes, and 2) description of the corporate policies and culture at Wal-Mart which points to a relatively weak policy towards gender discrimination and considerable discretion for managers in promotion decisions. Dr. Bielby describes the method as follows: “…look at distinctive features of the firm’s policies and practices and \u2026 evaluate them against what social scientific research shows to be factors that create and sustain bias and those that minimize bias” [the method is designated as \u201csocial framework analysis\u201d]. What\u00a0gives the case\u00a0broader significance (apart from the fact that it directly concerns between half a million and a million and a half…<\/p>\n

Continue readingSocial science in the courtroom<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[33,42],"tags":[47,48,49,57,80,91,116,153,190,224,290,291,293,318,319,392,525,580,590,604,613,614,627,684,685],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7g3hj-37","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":331,"url":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=331","url_meta":{"origin":193,"position":0},"title":"Explanation and the quest for 'significant' relationships. Part I","date":"February 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The ultimate goal of social science is causal explanation*. The\u00a0actual goal of most\u00a0academic research is to discover significant relationships between variables. The two goals are supposed to be strongly related - by discovering (the) significant effects of exogenous (independent) variables, one\u00a0accounts for\u00a0the outcome of interest.\u00a0In fact, the working assumption of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Causality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1058,"url":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=1058","url_meta":{"origin":193,"position":1},"title":"Excess mortality in the Netherlands in 2020","date":"January 25, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"What has been the impact of COVID-19 on mortality in the Netherlands? Using the methods described here, I estimated excess mortality in the country during 2020. 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