Has Mesquita no students?
response to Michael A.M. Lerner and Ethan Hill's post The New Nostradamus
I know nothing of political science but I do know a little about the scientific method. To science, it is not important that a man, such as Mesquita, can achieve good results; what is important is that other people can achieve the same results using the same method. This is conspicuously absent from the article. Has this man no students that have also made successful predictions?
What the article shows is that there is a man that predicts things well enough to command fairly high commissions for doing so. Presumably, the people paying him have some sense of a decent success rate for them to continue paying. Some people also pay Water Douser's to locate their well-drilling equipment. This does not make it science, nor does a positive success rate. Science is based on repeatability by others.
That Mesquita can adjust inputs to his mathematical models, metaphorically twiddling the dials until what he believes is the right answer pops out, only proves that he is somehow a political genius. It says nothing about his mathematical model, which could very well be nothing more than a fancy dousing-rod.
Besides, even if the mathematical models worked for everyone, it would only give political actors another tool to manipulate the results. They would start gaming the game theory, so to speak.
David...
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Should've stopped after the first sentence...
You begin your criticism of BdM (as he's known in the discipline) as stating you do not know much about political science. You should have stopped there. Instead you continue and ask the question: "has this man no students"?
This indicates that you probably did not read the article closely. 1) The article said that grad students in the discipline (of which I am one) are taking courses in these types of formal models. 2) He is a professor at a prestigious university. 3) His articles have appeared in the top peer reviewed journals of the discipline.
What this implies is that his methods are being tested and replicated. 1)Game theoretical methods are taught to graduate students in poli sci departments across the country. 2) As a professor he has graduate students who are replicating his models. 3) Since he has published a large number of articles in peer reviewed journals his methodology has been double checked by other political scientists. We are a weird bunch, I have friends who run data for fun.
What you fail to keep in mind during your criticism is the medium of the article. This is a e-magazine with popular appeal...not specifically targeted to academics or professionals in an individual field. Therefore the problems you are finding are not necessarily with the individual...but the scope of the source.
Posted on March 26, 2008 — by T_Mason
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