This thread demonstrates that a lot of academic writing that *looks* like utter nonsense is merely scholars dressing up a useful but mundane point with a ton of unnecessary jargon.https://twitter.com/JeffreyASachs/status/1051097280030396417 …
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In econ, a similar thing is accomplished by what recent Nobel prize winner Paul Romer calls "mathiness": https://paulromer.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Mathiness.pdf … But mathiness and jargon are not quite the same...
Jargon usually doesn't force you to change the substance of your central point. Mathiness often does. By forcing you to write your model in a way that's mathematically tractable (easy to work with), mathiness often impoverishes your understanding of how the world really works.
@Undercoverhist has written about this problem:https://beatricecherrier.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/what-price-did-economists-pay-for-tractability/ …
Jargon sounds sillier than mathiness. It looks worse to the public, because most of the public thinks they should be able to understand English but doesn't assume they can understand math. But mathiness, ultimately, is probably more pernicious. (end)
I don't share many of the opinions of the firebrands who want to completely destroy these studies, but this has always bothered me: it's an exclusionary element in fields where such elements undercut their whole legitimacy and it smacks so much of classism
And some of their conclusions smack of a savior complex. Speaking on behalf of groups w/ supposedly a marginalized voice...yet many in these groups haven’t had the vocab training to contribute to the exclusive field of study.
It goes to show those without the opportunity or means to attempt higher education are likely the most marginalized no mater the phenotype on average. No field of study changes this reality.
I’ve read this article carefully. It’s an illustrative example of another important role of jargon - to dress up basic observations to make them seem more profound than they actually are.
You might get excused from work with a subdermal hematoma on your patella. A bruised knee however?
Using long sentences containing numerous grammatical parts also helped lawyers! And let's not forget the sprinkling of Latin and French to further confuse laymen. Mia culpa and honi soit qui mal y pense.
I back this theory 100%. Corporate culture is full of this and it’s a Machiavellian tactic by creating an over inflated value for control. Any outsider that attempts to enter the domain would have submit to the barrier controller.
Love this tweet. So many groups would visit our editorial board and speak their language, instead of making an effort to be understood our readers. What’s the point, other than signaling to colleagues that they’re in the know?
On the other hand, it does make communication with other knowledgeable people in your field much more efficient. The problem seems to be more in its misuse than with jargon itself. It developed naturally, after all.
I did my urban planning masters a few years ago and this brought back bad memories. Although I feel like I have to say that there is a lot of very, very good research in urban planning.
But wasn't that one of the things the hoax sought to prove ? That it is jargon to disguise political advocacy, and thus jargon that can easily be mastered in a limited time as long as you stick to the broader advoc. - and so the barrier is about politics, not scholarship value.
it’s especially annoying when the jargon has lots of misnomers in it. I sometimes think it’s because there are lots of non-native English speakers in academia
Well, unfortunately not. The “grievance study” hoax is such a hard hitter because is was done so easily by people in no sense experts or marinated in the respective field. There was no proof of work requirement for entry. Just read a couple of papers and you can do it...
Mathiness not only clears up ones thinking and acts as a bullshit detector, as you say, but also requires some proof of work to pull off. It is hard to give this PoW and easy to detect/verify. Classic P v NP
The logical but awkward result is that people feel that the only route open to save their discipline from hoaxes like this is to bite the bullet and declare the hoaxers unwitting geniuses of the field who actually made valuable contributions..
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