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*Behavioral psychology + a real theoretical framework + rigorous empirical techniques

There's a reason the Replication Crisis was so much worse in psychology than in economics:

  • Economists throw spaghetti at the wall and see what stuck. Sure they do it more than once and write about the one they liked more.
  • Psychologists throw spaghetti at the wall and pretend it supports what they wanted to say in the first place. Sometimes they just pretend that they threw the spaghetti.

I didn’t tell my joke correctly

I was making fun of behavioral economics by Thaler

Ariely makes some interesting points

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Wasn't Ariely one of Francesca Geno's coauthors on one of her fraudulent studies? I wonder if he made a statement.

For some reason I never trusted Ariely, he seems like a smooth talker. I admit that my suspicions are entirely aesthetic

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The softer the social science, the more likely it is to be hokum.

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Oh, sorry. I thought they were all hokum and magic.

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I think your instincts about Ariely are correct

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I'm trying to make fun of both, but psychology is much worse, despite how bad econ can be.

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I think it depends on which school of economics you are thinking of and of which brand of psychology you are thinking of.

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I guess you can inject nuance into the discussion. This is the internet, though, so tread lightly.

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If you put nuance in, most people, including me, miss it because we are so used to being beaten over the head with hammers not plushy dolls.

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It goes differently if you use logic and a priori premises. It is not quite the same as spaghetti on the wall (Keynesianism).

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I’m describing what economists actually do, not what they should do.

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LOL! Ok, that I can understand. You never know which way to take these things. :)

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