Comments on: Appropriate empirical evidence? http://www.esztersblog.com/2006/07/03/appropriate-empirical-evidence/ social commentary, gadgets, art, travel and whatever else comes to mind Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:28:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: eszter http://www.esztersblog.com/2006/07/03/appropriate-empirical-evidence/#comment-13507 Mon, 03 Jul 2006 22:47:00 +0000 http://www.esztersblog.com/2006/07/03/appropriate-empirical-evidence/#comment-13507 Thanks, Steph, it's not surprising that the topic would resonate with you. As you say, there is not much basis for the assumptions those studies make, that's partly what is so frustrating. And as I noted, in the best of cases, the most you'll see is a brief acknowledgement about problems of generalizability at the end, but nothing to address them. And the entire article is still written in language that generalizes. There is a bit of discussion over on <a href="http://crookedtimber.org/2006/07/03/appropriate-empirical-evidence/#comments" rel="nofollow">Crooked Timber</a>, and there were some comments over at <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_07/009120.php" rel="nofollow">Political Animal</a> as well, after Kevin Drum picked it up. But careful with some of the latter, some of those comments are incredibly frustrating. Thanks, Steph, it’s not surprising that the topic would resonate with you. As you say, there is not much basis for the assumptions those studies make, that’s partly what is so frustrating. And as I noted, in the best of cases, the most you’ll see is a brief acknowledgement about problems of generalizability at the end, but nothing to address them. And the entire article is still written in language that generalizes.

There is a bit of discussion over on Crooked Timber, and there were some comments over at Political Animal as well, after Kevin Drum picked it up. But careful with some of the latter, some of those comments are incredibly frustrating.

]]> by: Steph http://www.esztersblog.com/2006/07/03/appropriate-empirical-evidence/#comment-13506 Mon, 03 Jul 2006 22:40:21 +0000 http://www.esztersblog.com/2006/07/03/appropriate-empirical-evidence/#comment-13506 This is a really interesting topic and one that I've been thinking about lately too. Given my field, I tend to think about nationally representative samples when confronted with any reserach question, though of course they are not always possible. bu tthere are some fields where it is common practice to assume that all hmans are interchangeable, because what is beign studied is a biological phenomenon. Psychology (where almost ALL research is based on first years enrolled in PSYCH101) and medicine are the fields that come to mind first. The problem is that the reserachers cannto evaluate their assumption that all people everywehere work the same, because they just do not have data that data to do that evaluation, i.e. they have only data from college first years, or people under treatment at major research hospitals). I could go on, but i'll see if this thread stimulates interest first. This is a really interesting topic and one that I’ve been thinking about lately too. Given my field, I tend to think about nationally representative samples when confronted with any reserach question, though of course they are not always possible. bu tthere are some fields where it is common practice to assume that all hmans are interchangeable, because what is beign studied is a biological phenomenon. Psychology (where almost ALL research is based on first years enrolled in PSYCH101) and medicine are the fields that come to mind first.

The problem is that the reserachers cannto evaluate their assumption that all people everywehere work the same, because they just do not have data that data to do that evaluation, i.e. they have only data from college first years, or people under treatment at major research hospitals).

I could go on, but i’ll see if this thread stimulates interest first.

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