• "Well written, well researched, and the thesis put forth is well argued.... Woods has opened up an area of historical analysis that should invite further study."
    -Journal of American History

  • "During these times that challenge our freedoms there is no one more qualified to make U.S. history relevant to the fight against big government than Thomas Woods."
    -Barry Goldwater Jr.
    Former Member of Congress

  • "I strongly recommend Woods's work."
    -The Honorable Ron Paul,
    U.S. House of Representatives

  • "Written with great clarity and fluency, making the complex philosophical and theological concepts approachable."
    -Journal of American Studies

  • "A must-read."
    -Barron's

  • "An excellent reading source for anyone interested in financial markets, and much more so for anyone interested in learning about capitalism without all the misinterpretations being thrown about in the financial media."
    -Asia Times

  • "Provocative, well-written, and deserves to be read."
    -Catholic Historical Review

  • "An engaging and important contribution to scholarship on the history of American Catholicism."
    -Journal of the Historical Society

  • "Woods and [co-author Kevin] Gutzman appeal to both left and right in this constitutionalist jeremiad…. The authors' exegeses of the Constitution and court decisions, heavy on original intent arguments, are lucid and telling."
    -Publishers Weekly

  • "A marvelous read. Every chapter taught me something new and unexpected."
    -Tom Bethell, senior editor,
    The American Spectator

  • "The hottest book today is Meltdown, by my friend Tom Woods."
    -Judge Andrew Napolitano, senior judicial analyst,
    FOX News Channel

  • "Should be required reading."
    -Economic Affairs (London)

  • "Woods, one of the best classical liberal [libertarian] scholars of his generation, has once more placed us in his debt with this lucid and tightly argued book."
    -David Gordon, The Mises Review

  • "Tom Woods is one of my dearest allies in the struggle against wrong-headed and dangerous economic policy."
    -Peter Schiff

The Math Intimidation Effect

A new study published in the journal Judgment and Decision Making has shown what most of us already suspected: social scientists are so ga-ga over math that even inserting completely irrelevant, nonsense math into an academic paper earns it higher marks in research quality from academics evaluating it. According to the study’s author, Kimmo Eriksson:

In those disciplines where most researchers do not master mathematics, the use of mathematics may be held in too much awe. To demonstrate this I conducted an online experiment with 200 participants, all of which had experience of reading research reports and a postgraduate degree (in any subject). Participants were presented with the abstracts from two published papers (one in evolutionary anthropology and one in sociology). Based on these abstracts, participants were asked to judge the quality of the research. Either one or the other of the two abstracts was manipulated through the inclusion of an extra sentence taken from a completely unrelated paper and presenting an equation that made no sense in the context. The abstract that included the meaningless mathematics tended to be judged of higher quality. However, this “nonsense math effect” was not found among participants with degrees in mathematics, science, technology….

(Thanks to EconomicPolicyJournal.com.)

Unlearn the Propaganda!

  • VInce

    Academics now need to write academic papers about academic papers.

  • Anonymous

    Does this fear of math perhaps explain why mainstream economics is cast in a higher light than the Austrian methodology?

    People see that Keynesians throw a lot of statistics, mathematics, and empiricism onto the table (that has very little relevance in explaining an actual phenomenon) and Austrians focus on deductive logic to explain the world.

    To an outside observer who hasn’t studied economics, it looks like the guy who is throwing a lot of numbers around is the one to be taken seriously and who has actually studied hard problems. Even though Austrians are objectively right, the person looking at their respective arguments sees one guy throwing a lot of numbers and math and statistics around and the other guy does not.

  • JackofSpades

    As a recovering “quant jock” in a social science, I can agree with this 100 percent. So much of the “math movement” is pathological in nature, and meant to confuse, in order for the powers that be to advance their agenda. It’s easy to do when you have a monoply on aggression (or serve the ones that do) and speak an entirely different langugage that is complicated. Most people won’t bother to understand the language and see that your statistics are almost certainly not able to do what you think they can do (in the social sciences, that is) and challenge you.
    The gun control issue is a great example of this, even when the statistics in play are very simple (mostly just means and rates). How many times have you heard some variant of “Hip/Chic/Intellectual European country had x gun deaths and bumpkin/redneck/dummy America had x+some number gun deaths, ergo gun control laws will lead to reduced gun crime rates?
    Jesus!
    Confounding variables? Within vs. between groups analysis? Causation? Controlling for population size differences? Equivalent, but differently named outcomes of gun control laws (i.e.- fewer gun deaths but more stabbing deaths)? These are very simple things!
    Even if you want to avoid arguments about rights and focus solely on utility, you need to have a strong theory and a proper understanding of statistics so that you don’t overreach yourself with what they can and can’t do.
    *rant off*

  • JackofSpades

    If you think that is bad, read a meta-analysis (basically a study that combines a bunch of studies on some relationship to find the “true” effect) of meta-analyses.
    So, you have a study that studies a lot of studies that studied a lot of studies in turn. Neat, eh? Can I have some more public funding now? lol

  • Joel Poindexter

    I was curious to see how much math the author would insert into his paper on math in papers….

  • JFF

    I call it the “English majors who learn science from New York Times bestsellers” phenomenon.

  • Anonymous

    Of course, this is why progressives always “think” they have “won” an argument and are therefore never wrong. They throw charts and figures around like children in a room full of toys. Sure, verifiable data always helps, but, they never take into account the many variables that are play, nor do they want YOU to know. They never look at the broader picture.

  • Frank M

    Reminds me of one of Matt Walsh’s satires (Brilliant Neo-Con Argument Against Ron Paul) where he says, “Anytime that information is on a chart, it means that it is true! Okay? That’s just a scientific fact. Einstein said that, I think.”

    If you’ve never seen any of these, they’re a scream…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeP2SU6ah6Q

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