Social science is quite bad. Reporters on, KQED for example, will cite a single study to bolster their opinion on something. It'll go along the lines of, "UC Davis ran a study which concluded giving money directly to the homeless with no strings attached had the best results". But they won't say how many people were involved, what other studies this was compared to, how it was conducted, were there studies with opposite conclusions, etc., etc.

My favorite is when there is a legitimate controversy in the field, and outsiders cherry pick which side to listen to. Person A references a study that just so happens to support his existing opinion. Person B searches and finds a study that contradicts it. Person A finds some criticism of that study and claims it's been "debunked". And so on, back and forth.

You end up with 2 sides that believe their opinions have been absolutely confirmed by science, and have impressive sounding statistics and studies to reference. When in reality the facts are still uncertain and there is no consensus.

IIRC something like this happened with minimum wage debates. With some studies showing the effect of a higher minimum wage was positive, and others showing it was negative. Almost any political issue will have some of this.

Those are good points about the whole thing. People who have little contextual understanding and take one thing, as you mention, and use that to prove their point.

Another thing some people miss is the tradeoffs involved.

higher minimum wages as well as lower minimum wages have consequences --some contrary to what the proponents would like. For example, while I am for higher minimum wages, I understand that while this will help many people, it has the potential to have negative effects on people at the periphery. More things getting automated could result functionally illiterate people who have little besides manual labor to offer to be sidelined even more. Who does a poultry farmer hire, now that the rate is $15, a local worker or an illegal worker now that a local is attracted by the $15/hr?

> When in reality the facts are still uncertain and there is no consensus.

And sometimes there is a consensus and it still doesn't prevent people from finding studies to back up their point of view. Take climate change for instance. When people aren't intellectual honest or have an agenda (e.g. politician), it's not even worth arguing.

That being said, I noticed that while it's pretty easy to find studies about anything, it's more difficult to assess the pertinence of those studies or to know what the current scientific consensus is.

Well there was a time when the climate change debate wasn't a consensus. That's when this started. There were legitimate criticisms and contrary studies. One side cherry picked those and came to believe that science had proved global warming wasn't real.

So even long after a consensus has formed, they still believe that.

I've heard that actual scientists and economists are just a type of professional writer, as they must "publish or perish". I've even heard that in those publications, there is a push towards constructing narratives and telling stories.

Do you know of scientists or economists who aren't paid to write that I can read from?

> scientists and economists are just a type of professional writer

While true, they're only supposed to write things that can be independently reproduced and verified. If they have to layer narratives on top of their work to get people to care, I don't see any harm in that as long as it doesn't stray outside of the lines of fact.

A problem I've seen myself is that the original scientists aren't always the ones marketing their work. There's someone else (a layperson) at the university paid to do that, and they will often make claims that aren't substantiated by the original research.

> While true, they're only supposed to write things that can be independently reproduced and verified.

That's in published, peer reviewed papers. The OP was talking about their blogs, which don't have any requirements like that.

But better not to confuse economists and scientists.

Don't economists empirically test mathematical models of the economy? How is this not science?

Economists work with data about people's behaviors. Their results don't remain constant, and vary depending on social or cultural trends. So they do social sciences (which is not actually science). It used to be called "social studies" in your grade school.

> Do you know of scientists or economists who aren't paid to write that I can read from?

What a weird selection criterion. It rejects all the professional scientists, by your description.

It doesn't if the scientist's income isn't directly tied to their writing, or the opinions they reach.

I would exclude, on that basis, a research scientist for an organisation, particularly a conflicts or regulatory-opposing organisation (advocacy, litigation).

A teaching position that doesn't require publication, and a fair number of governmental organisations, might qualify. The latter depending much on the institutional incentives.

I'd also be somewhat more partial to independent research groups not immediately supported by industrial concerns, though again in the field of politics you're going to have numerous incentives.

I'm finding Robert Anton Wilson's formulation, Celine's 2nd Law, useful: accurate information is only possible in a non-punishing situation. I'd extend that: the only reward for information can be based on accuracy of that information, not the suitability of its results (e.g., shoot and/or fete the messenger).

Well, almost all research doctors, engineers and scientists are rewarded indirectly for publishing research. It's a part of the job description. We aren't paid directly for papers but may be for books. But if we don't publish, no one can benefit from the work so it would be wasted.

Downvalue professionally published work if you wish, but you'd be ignoring many of the most important papers in history.

For what it's worth I have never felt the slightest pressure from editorial boards about the content of my papers, apart from issues of methodology and clarity that usually improve the final paper. My work has little political impact though. Other's experience may vary.

Project Syndicate, while filled with opinion pieces, are opinion pieces by people who don't necessarily get paid. They have other agendas. That said, it's a forum for their essays as opposed to a left / right paper. People like Roubini and Stephen Roach, essayist economists, get published there. The comments there are in the same genre of intelligent and interesting as Hacker News.

Good point. I thought about this a bit more and, to be honest, I read very few academics. Not intentionally, but it worked out that way.

Strangely, some of the smarter, best informed people I read are just regular people without any journalistic or academic qualifications in the field they write on.

On second thought, maybe that's not as strange as it seems.

It's important to understand that practicing researchers are targeting each other as the audience, and not laypeople. It's simply not the scientist's job to inform or entertain you when they work in that mode. Some choose to do popular writing as well - Carl Sagan is a very successful example. But not all, and that's OK.

Most excellent scientists are busy doing useful things other than popular blogs and magazine articles. Same for judges, doctors, engineers and other busy, specialized professionals.

This is only three quaters true. The rules of any funding commmitee will include public outreach, and getting yourself published in the popular really will help you get your next grant.

But all that often has an artificial feel to it, and day to day the job of scientists is to explain things too, and compete with, one another.

> This is only three quaters true.

I said 'when they work in that mode'.

stop and think for a minute about what you are saying. Did you go to college, and did you learn anything? High school? Those books are all written by academics; very few of the smarter better informed people you're reading could write a single textbook without spending a stupid amout of time studying the field first.

Nothing wrong with you being interested in reading what smart, well-informed people have to say on a variety of topics, and nothing wrong with being interested in everyday practical stuff over the edges of academia... but there is a little something wrong with thinking that your preferences indicate something "interesting" about academic writing; I read a lot of blogs too, but get a grip, man!

I wasn't talking about formal academic writing in this post. I was talking about academics.

what I wrote was also about academics, taught by academics who also write academic papers. They're the same people. You don't have to read them

All journalism is pretty bad. Non-experts are producing content under severe time constraints. Most newspapers barely have a budget for copy editing, let alone fact checking. Take journalism for what it is - disposable content written in a hurry.

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel...

> I can read real-time thoughts/opinions from actual scientists and economists now instead of having to rely on professional writers and media.

Who do you read, and have you seen this?

https://github.com/j2kun/blogs-by-experts

Too many to list easily, but I've found over time that I read fewer and fewer professional pundits, opiners, and journalists.

Yes, please, contributions are welcome!