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No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias

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Re: No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias

#231

Post by rayiner »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #229
rayiner wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you just want it renamed to "social studies" or what? What is your proposal, that nobody research this topic, or that they be separated in journals etc Yes. And that the rest of us stop treating it as science, citing it as science, and relying on it as science. For example, there is a major trend in the law of treating social sciences as having truth value the way real sciences do. That’s the kind of thing we ne…

I found the hard/soft science discussion here [1] to be informative. It seems unlikely that all of social science will one day be declared as "not science". Aristotle's methods, for example, did not require a certain sample size. You're applying far too strict of a definition to science. Basic forms of science can be practiced by a child at home. Journals publish more in-depth analyses, and it's up to them what to pu…

> You're applying far too strict of a definition to science.

This isn’t a fun theoretical exercise. In the public sphere, “science” tends to get invoked with dispositive weight. And it should in many cases. But for that to work, “science” must meet the level of rigor people associate with “science.” To be called “science” it should be like physics in terms of providing truth value, not psychology.

Aristotle didn’t do “science.” He was a philosopher. His ideas were precursors to science, but weren’t science.

Re: No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias

#232

Post by unityByFreedom »

rayiner wrote: post #231
unityByFreedom wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found the hard/soft science discussion here [1] to be informative. It seems unlikely that all of social science will one day be declared as "not science". Aristotle's methods, for example, did not require a certain sample size. You're applying far too strict of a definition to science. Basic forms of science can be practiced by a child at home. Journals publish more in-depth analyses, and it's up to them what to pu…

> You're applying far too strict of a definition to science. This isn’t a fun theoretical exercise. In the public sphere, “science” tends to get invoked with dispositive weight. And it should in many cases. But for that to work, “science” must meet the level of rigor people associate with “science.” To be called “science” it should be like physics in terms of providing truth value, not psychology. Aristotle didn’t do…

> To be called “science” it should be like physics in terms of providing truth value, not psychology.

It's possible to form a truth about human behavior, for example, I did X because Y. If someone points my behavior out to me, then in the future I may do Z in response to Y. Human behavior can change upon observation [1]. That doesn't make the study of human behavior "not science" in my opinion.

> Aristotle didn’t do “science.” He was a philosopher. His ideas were precursors to science, but weren’t science.

In that case, I suppose you will acknowledge that Galileo did science, despite not having a lot of data points. I think Aristotle did too, because I draw the line at hypothesis, observation and conclusion, which may or may not result in some ultimate truth that remains constant.

I suppose you would also say that the double slit test is science. Yet that result changes, and there is no truth value that we can explain, except by noting that the result changes when the experiment is observed.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32233420

Re: No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias

#233

Post by JusticeJuice »

richdougherty wrote: post #207
JusticeJuice wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nudge has to push the user towards one certain decision over another, that's the whole point. It's opinionated. The factors I listed aren't inherently opinionated, we could've tried to improve them without pushing the user to a specific choice: E.g. speed: We could've removed earlier parts of the onboarding to make the overall experience less long, or compacted the UI so it was visually easier to skim the choices.…

There are some good points you raise, and I think you're really testing the nuance of what nudging is. But nudges are perhaps more basic than you're thinking. Nudges don't need to steer the user to a specific choice, just a behaviour change. Sticking with a conversion flow counts as a behaviour change. Nudges don't need to be simple or understandable. They can be a set of complex changes where causation isn't clear.…

Oh interesting, I had no idea it had such a wide scope, thanks for the explanation. I learnt about nudges via a uni course, it sounds like parts were lost in translation. I should check out the original book.

Re: No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias

#234

Post by unityByFreedom »

harry8 wrote: post #227
TameAntelope wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I know enough to have an opinion about that; what I've been commenting about is the "nudge is dead" attitude that I don't think is warranted.

and yet here you are responding in a thread with the conclusion clearly stated: >means it’s past time to reform a large chunk of academia. And you're taking exception to it, but now just claiming you're actually not, that these one sentence "you're wrong" responses are really something much more modest. Out of interest do you work in the field? Have ties as a graduate to one of the departments? Or are you completely…

> past time to reform a large chunk of academia

>> And you're taking exception to it

TameAntelope was addressing premises to that conclusionary comment.

If the premises do not hold, then TameAntelope does not need to address that conclusion.

Re: No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias

#235

Post by wawjgreen »

enviclash wrote: post #204
wawjgreen wrote: post #76

There's a little-known theory (whose name eludes me) that states: any outcome in behaviour is highly dependent on the immediate and unpredictable interplay of various environment variables and their real and perceived effect on the person. this alone cancels the efficacy of any nudges (but some variables may be in the same direction as the nudge--hence the original but misguided nudge research: they were fooled by ra…

Environment variables are mostly underplayed in social science, but why?

No post body was provided.

Re: No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias

#236

Post by wawjgreen »

asdff wrote: post #138
wawjgreen wrote: post #76

There's a little-known theory (whose name eludes me) that states: any outcome in behaviour is highly dependent on the immediate and unpredictable interplay of various environment variables and their real and perceived effect on the person. this alone cancels the efficacy of any nudges (but some variables may be in the same direction as the nudge--hence the original but misguided nudge research: they were fooled by ra…

Wait until you start reading about genotype by environment interactions and realizing the implications that has on just about everything in biology and society

No post body was provided.

Re: No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias

#237

Post by TameAntelope »

harry8 wrote: post #227
TameAntelope wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I know enough to have an opinion about that; what I've been commenting about is the "nudge is dead" attitude that I don't think is warranted.

and yet here you are responding in a thread with the conclusion clearly stated: >means it’s past time to reform a large chunk of academia. And you're taking exception to it, but now just claiming you're actually not, that these one sentence "you're wrong" responses are really something much more modest. Out of interest do you work in the field? Have ties as a graduate to one of the departments? Or are you completely…

I think you’re on the wrong comment chain, friend…

Re: No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias

#238

Post by planck01 »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #232
rayiner wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're applying far too strict of a definition to science. This isn’t a fun theoretical exercise. In the public sphere, “science” tends to get invoked with dispositive weight. And it should in many cases. But for that to work, “science” must meet the level of rigor people associate with “science.” To be called “science” it should be like physics in terms of providing truth value, not psychology. Aristotle didn’t do…

> To be called “science” it should be like physics in terms of providing truth value, not psychology. It's possible to form a truth about human behavior, for example, I did X because Y. If someone points my behavior out to me, then in the future I may do Z in response to Y. Human behavior can change upon observation [1]. That doesn't make the study of human behavior "not science" in my opinion. > Aristotle didn’t do…

> That doesn't make the study of human behavior "not science" in my opinion.

It might be valuable and it might be worthwhile to do. But what you describe in itself is not science.

Re: No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias

#239

Post by planck01 »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #187
sacrosancty wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think social scientists have lost the right to the benefit of the doubt. They don't preregister their trials. They don't publish their negative results. They're notoriously bad at statistics, notoriously let their political beliefs distort their conclusions, notoriously scatter their work over thousands of arbitrary, hard-to-compare small-sample-size studies instead of concentrating their resources. I don't think i…

> They don't preregister their trials. First of all, preregistration is not a requirement for the scientific method, which has functioned well for centuries. That is a recent trend in response to the overflowing amount of haphazardly published science. Second, it is up to the individual scientist to decide to preregister or not. Some social scientists may preregister. Third, small sample size may be a fair critique,…

> however that overlooks how difficult it is to collect such data.

It is very difficult in physics as well. Do you know how hard it is and how much effort is involved in building the LHC? Or Ligo? Or the JWST? Or ITER? They cost billions of dollars, thousands of scientists and decades to plan and make before you even get science data. Science is hard! You need to put the work and effort in, because otherwise you can't say anything about the nature of things.

Re: No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias

#240

Post by unityByFreedom »

planck01 wrote: post #238
unityByFreedom wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be called “science” it should be like physics in terms of providing truth value, not psychology. It's possible to form a truth about human behavior, for example, I did X because Y. If someone points my behavior out to me, then in the future I may do Z in response to Y. Human behavior can change upon observation [1]. That doesn't make the study of human behavior "not science" in my opinion. > Aristotle didn’t do…

> That doesn't make the study of human behavior "not science" in my opinion. It might be valuable and it might be worthwhile to do. But what you describe in itself is not science.

> science: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. [1]

Given the definition, why wouldn't you consider observing human behavior to be science?

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=define+science

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