An excellent article written by a real scientist.
It reminded me just how gameble and untrustworthy social science research can be.
As Scott Alexander puts it in his “Beware the man of one study” (which is basically one of the best essays I’ve ever read)
At some point in their education, most smart people usually learn not to credit arguments from authority. If someone says “Believe me about the minimum wage because I seem like a trustworthy guy,” most of them will have at least one neuron in their head that says “I should ask for some evidence”. If they’re really smart, they’ll use the magic words “peer-reviewed experimental studies.”
But I worry that most smart people have not learned that a list of dozens of studies, several meta-analyses, hundreds of experts, and expert surveys showing almost all academics support your thesis – can still be bullshit.
Which is too bad, because that’s exactly what people who want to bamboozle an educated audience are going to use.