On Fri, 8 May 1998, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Richard Marens wrote:
> >re: sociology and thought policing. Sociologists are getting better at
> >it. The availability of easy-to-use statistical packages are giving the
> >quantoids a great deal of leverage in the academic profession. That
> >itself might not seem so terrible, except that as a group that tend to be
> >politically stupid and intellectually shallow and envy the hell out of the
> >cache commanded by economists. There are exceptions. Mark Mizruchi is a
> >sophisticated statistician who certainly leans left and I can list others,
> >but the more successful these become, the more they get caught into
> >publishing these nitpicky tests of significance and the more they avoid
> >"big picture kind" of work.
>
> Interesting. Besides the availability of user-friendly stats packages,
> shortage of tenure-track academic jobs in sociology (as in many other
> disciplines) might motivate many students of sociology to avoid "big
> picture kind" of work. After all, those who are known for quantitative work
> may find non-academic employment more easily than those who seek to produce
> better social theories do.
>
> Yoshie
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