Reading a classic in IT literature

I am writing an article on the philosophy of economics and how it relates to simulation, so I have found myself reading a bit of historical economics literature. I just got done reading (for the first time) a classic in IT literature, “Let’s take the con out of econometrics,” by Edward E. Leamer (The American Economic Review, 73(1):33-43 (March 1983)). Leamer discusses many problems with the art and practice of econometrics that should lead us to sharply limit our trust in the results and analyses produced by this method.

Yes, that’s what it is about, but it is both the way in which the article is written and the attitude of the author (that comes shining through) that make this article a classic.

Here is one quote (p. 37) in which Leamer takes a shot at the unscrupulousness of the econometrician:

“The econometrician’s shabby art is humorously and disparagingly labelled “data mining,” “fishing,” “grubbing,” “number crunching.” A joke evokes the Inquisition: “If you torture the data long enough, Nature will confess ” (Coase). Another suggests methodological fickleness: “Econometricians, like artists, tend to fall in love with their models” (wag unknown). Or how about: “There are two things you are better off not watching in the making: sausages and econometric estimates.””

This is hardly the formal writing style or detached attitude that is generally expressed within this highly esteemed journal.

He continues:

“This is a sad and decidedly unscientific state of affairs we find ourselves in. Hardly anyone takes data analyses seriously. Or perhaps more accurately, hardly anyone takes anyone else’s data analyses seriously. Like elaborately plumed birds who have long since lost the ability to procreate but not the desire, we preen and strut and display our t-values.”

Leamer goes on to provide many insights about the problems with the approach and even walks the reader through an econometric analysis of a set of data, pointing out difficulties with the inferences that might be drawn from the analysis.

I could go on but I won’t. I highly recommend this article and will probably go back and read it again, soon — for the jokes. It’s not often that something like this gets said about an article in the AER.

A little more about me

From 2004-11 I was the BBA Program Faculty Director. In the summer of 2011 I was assigned the role of BIT Area Chair. This has changed my life quite considerably, allowing me to have time during the day to think about (and actually do!) my research. Well, during parts of the year, anyway. This Winter semester (that's from January to April for those of you outside of the UM community) I will be teaching 2.5 classes so that time will basically be hijacked for a few months; however, for the rest of the year I should be relatively good to go.

That’s a long way of describing why I have started this blog. You can see from my profile on this blog a little bit (ha!) about what types of research I am interested in but here’s another take on it:

I am intrigued by the use of a computer as a tool for increasing personal productivity, improving decision making, and improving communication.

This view of IT research reflects my training (at Wharton’s OPIM department) in decision sciences. It has more of a personal than organizational bent.

This led me to teach classes in programming, Excel, and Web development. This has also led me to use simulation and complex systems to research a variety of areas. In the past I also developed both a tool to support Coast Guard personnel in the process of deploying cutters, and a communication language to support businesses in their routine message-passing activities.

You will also read snippets reflecting my love of technology and reading. I have quite the reading list right now and I plan on using this space to share some of my thoughts about both the good and the bad of what I read.

I hope you will join me on this trip.

A computer pioneer passes

One of the greats of computer science, John McCarthy, died on Monday at the age of 84. I had the privilege of seeing a presentation of his at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton while I was a PhD student at Wharton. I think it was in 1990. My primary memory of this presentation is that he was quite the character. He had boundless optimism and attitude.

Wouldn’t you if you saw in your rear view mirror what he saw?

Let's see...

1. Invented LISP. Only the coolest programming language ever. Especially if you learn it from this book! Anything fun that you can do with a programming language can be done better and more elegantly with LISP: functional programming, lambda functions, language processing, knowledge management...whatever.
2. Invented garbage collection. This is one of the techniques that frees programmers from having to manage memory explicitly --- the dreaded malloc from C programming and all those related terrors. It is used in many, if not all, scripting languages (like perl and python) and in Java as well.
3. Invented time-shared computing. This is the technique whereby very expensive computing resources could be shared by needy users far and wide. Before PCs were invented, if you got to use a computer, it was likely that you were sitting in front of a terminal connected to a time-shared computer.
4. And, really, as if that weren’t enough, he also gave impetus to the inventors of public key cryptography. So any time you, or anyone else, bought anything on the Internet, you should have thanked Dr. McCarthy.

In any case, we are all a little poorer today, but we are enriched for having him around.