Deconstructing Larry Summers

The Economist mounted a predictable defense of the Harvard president it its latest issue. To paraphrase--He's economist, of course he's a scientist, and of course he knows what he's talking about. The faculty of Harvard should stop their PC whining.--

The problem with this position is that economists aren't scientists. Yes, they do have lots of graphs and numbers. But they don't have the luxury of conducting studies according to the scientific method. And they constantly have to make judgment calls about their numbers. Economics is at best a social science and economists in particular seem to love fudging the issue by claiming to be scientists.

The other piece of earth shattering news is that academics don't tend to admit what they don't know. Actually, I'll qualify that statement. Academics who are not scientists don't tend to admit what they don't know. I've seen a physics professor admit that he hadn't read anything by Shakespeare with a look along the lines of "and why would you think I waste my time on that?" But Academics in general are not prone to admitting that they aren't qualified to evaluate something.

The final piece of the puzzle is that Americans and the American press have lately had a weird and regressive respect for authority. It probably comes from having a total boob in the white house. The press seems to have been forced into operating on the assumption that GW is competent. And since questioning this premise would be unpatriotic, we are left with day after day of news reports that imply that the president is a rational, thinking, and empathetic person. Apparently because any other kind of reporting would implicate the journalists in a massive fraud on the American people. Since Larry Summers is the president of Harvard, he also has a position of authority and therefore in our current hyper-respectful phase, the press will act from the assumption that he knows what he's talking about.

I've been weirdly fascinated with this story and I think it's because it points to larger issues in our culture. We've become a culture obsessed with things that are unquestionable and a culture uncomfortable with ambiguity. Because most people aren't educated in the sciences, things that are "scientific" are largely unquestionable for most people. For religious people, their faith is unquestionable. For liberals, racial and sexual equality is unquestionable.

If you are debating about two unquestionables, there is no room for judgment. For example, evolution vs. creationism. Either you believe in science or you believe in the Bible. The red state/blue state thing is another example. We've all picked our unquestionable standards and we follow our standard bearers.

When your ability to judge and sift through grey areas becomes rusty, any attempts at judgment are likely to be crude at best. Larry Summers' speech was objectionable on a number of levels but it is particularly notable for anecdotal evidence, a lack of consideration of alternatives, and an attempt to cloak his prejudices as scientific fact through use of scientific language without accompanying scientific rigor. Interestingly, all faults of economics as a profession with the possible exception of anecdotal evidence.

What I'm worried about is that Larry Summers is our future. If the president of Harvard is unable to coherently analyze and choose between alternatives, what does that say about our educational system? I don't think this is an idle question. Apparently, he is considered to be a brilliant man and a brilliant economist. If this is the intellectual peak, what is going on in the valleys?