David R. Hakes' chilling story
in Econ Journal Watch, David R. Hakes tells a funny or chilling story of a paper he co-wrote with a colleague.
I immersed myself in the literature for a few of months so that I could more precisely fit our contribution into the existing literature. We managed to reduce the equations in the paper to six. At this stage the paper was perfectly clear and was written at a level so that it could reach a broad audience. When we submitted the paper to risk, uncertainty, and insurance journals, the referees responded that the results were self-evident. After some degree of frustration, my coauthor suggested that the problem with the paper might be that we had made the argument too easy to follow, and thus referees and editors were not sufficiently impressed.... The resulting paper had fifteen equations, two propositions and proofs, dozens of additional mathematical expressions, and a mathematical appendix containing nineteen equations and even more mathematical expressions. I personally could no longer understand the paper and I could not possibly present the paper alone. The paper was published in the first journal to which we submitted.
Comments (13)
J Cortez
It's very telling that a paper gets rejected for not being opaque enough.
Published: October 5, 2009 8:35 AM
Lucas M. Engelhardt
Actually, I remember hearing Tom DiLorenzo telling a similar story about an article he wrote where he had virtually eliminated the math, and it got rejected - after adding in additional math, it got accepted.
It's really just silly - and sad.
Published: October 5, 2009 8:40 AM
anon
this is off the tangent, but jeffrey - this might be of interest:
Apple claims royalties to all apples
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/28206/1151/
Published: October 5, 2009 8:58 AM
Sean A
I'm reminded of the article linked a few weeks ago: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/07/priceless-how-the-federal_n_278805.html
It demonstrates how Fed "economists" control the gateway into almost any economic journal. Naturally, obscurity is necessary to get away with the crimes perpetrated by the Fed and its policy authors. Positivism holds that everything is hypothetical; thus if a...does not result in the desired b; simply add c to aid in the attainment of b. If c doesn't work add d, e, f, and so on. So ya, we get a lot of complex equations in what they call economics today. And for uniformity, they want anything simplified to be complicated; a sort of reverse Occam's Razor effect.
Published: October 5, 2009 8:58 AM
fundamentalist
I've seen something similar in literature. Obscurity passes for depth and insight. It's a sign of the decline of our civilization.
Published: October 5, 2009 11:03 AM
Ohhh Henry
It's called Occam's Shovel.
Published: October 5, 2009 11:50 AM
Bruce Koerber
Maybe I should try to publish the divine economy theory in the scientific journals as the following equation: DE = T + HS + L + O + E(L+A) + J + U.
Published: October 5, 2009 3:33 PM
Mrhuh
Extend it out a little and maybe you'll win a Nobel Prize. It is rather sad. There are more profound insights to be had in classic fables and fairytales such as "The Tortoise and the Hare" than in any of Paul Krugman's rantings.
Published: October 5, 2009 4:30 PM
steevo
When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as if it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
-- Orwell
Published: October 5, 2009 6:24 PM
Ken
It may not be the same species -- nor even the same genus -- as the Sokal hoax, but it certainly looks to belong to the same phylum and family.
Published: October 5, 2009 6:40 PM
Brian Macker
Sound's like the Sokal affair. Actually somebody should try the same thing. Write an economics paper that makes absolutely no sense mathematically but supports some common economic fallacy that is in favor, then spring the trap.
Published: October 6, 2009 12:51 AM
Seattle
Don't forget the famous equation,
E = 1/sqrt(1-G^2)-1
Where E is economic instability and G is the size of the state regulating it ;p
Published: October 6, 2009 1:17 AM
Mike C.
Artificial complexity is the favored tool of the pompous deceiver and it has been around since the first tribal witch doctors threw their magic powders onto the fires and pretended to speak for the gods. Many professions thrive on it – Education, law, accounting, medicine, and especially the government bureaucracy would be much smaller and less expensive without it.
Published: October 6, 2009 8:18 AM