Justin Wolfers writes:
Dick [Easterlin] was the first economist to start taking subjective well-being data seriously. While this sort of research is now pretty mainstream, I have to imagine that it took a fair bit of courage back in the early 1970’s.
This was interesting to me: the idea that it would take courage to study a particular research topic. Especially something such as subjective well-being, which doesn’t have any direct political connections. I mean, it’s not like we’re talking about the economic benefits of torture, or whatever. “Subjective well-being” seems pretty innocuous to me: whatever objections made it courageous to study this topic must have been intellectual and stylistic rather than political.
P.S. Back when I taught at Berkeley, I did get some flak for doing research on Bayesian statistics–some students told me that other faculty had told them not to take my course–but I wouldn’t describe my decision to do work on that topic as “courageous.” I think the atmosphere in economics in the 1970s must have been much different than anything I’ve ever experienced.
Really?! Rent Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker.
I intend to do research on human sexuality. Colleagues of mine look at gender based violence. VERY few federal funding sources want to touch our topics.
Sure, I can see that research into sex or a politically-charged topic could be controversial. What struck me was the idea that it would be considered courageous to study something as inoffensive as "subjective well-being."
I remember, around 2001, in a economic undergrad class, when a student asked something about measuring subjective happiness and everybody laughed of him (after all, everyone "knows" there is no way to measure happiness).
I think it is thinking about this kind of courage. Also, I would suggest you to read Ducan Foley's autobiography "The ins and outs"…
Manoel
ps.: I lived in Brazil at the time I took my undergrad class.
Just to correct, at the second paragraph, HE (not "it") is thinking…
It kind of depends on how you define courage. In an academic environment, to go in a new direction is a risk, and being willing to take risks is a kind of courage. Were any Bayesians tenured while you were at Berkeley?
In addition to the potential criticism that such research is wrongheaded, I can also imagine that many economists might regard it as unimportant. There were still a lot of radical behaviorists in the 70s and economics perhaps more than any other area of behavioral science has regarded private experience as inappropriate for scientific study.
Considering that scientists often regard the stimulation of counterargument as meritorious, perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a researcher is for their work to be ignored. I can imagine reactions to this sort of work ranging from "It isn't even wrong." to "Don't know and don't care – all I know about it is that isn't economics."
But controversy is in the eye of current members of a discipline as is their decision to ostracize or isolate those they view as unduly bringing discredit to their discipline.
I personally ran into this as a graduate student when some in my faculty felt I had been irresponsible to suggest that clinical researchers undertake meta-analyses of RCTs as well as publish basic material on how to do it.
Probably would seem pretty strange today but there was some real personal and social costs incurred at the time.
Academics is a bit "tribal"
Keith
I echo the sentiment tht "unimportant" is the greater issue than "offensive." It is not courageous in the sense that people would call for your head. It is courageous in the sense of risking obscurity and a lack of success.
Starting a new business with uncertain prospects for profitability is a type of courage (or foolhardiness). It is not that your business is offensive, but that you might fail and go broke for taking this risk, when there is a clearer corporate path available. Ken is spot on.
I think it is instructive to remember that the popular term for non-mainstream economics is very close to "heresy" :-)
For research courage, try this analysis of Hugo Chavez's database:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolut…
I don't think "courage" should be bandied about unless there is substantial risk of real harm (physical, economic). Hurt feelings don't apply.
ZBicyclist: Agree there are more serious things than academic ostracism…
I did have an example of someone being so severely critized at a famous statistics department for presenting a plot of a likelihood function that some one claimed their later death soon after by a heart attack was the result. Found the publication on line, but the attribution of causing death was apparently edited out.
But people are people and perhaps it should be described as a need for "thick skin" rather than courage
Keith
There's also the matter of a grad student's job prospects.
I was a grad student in a group that developed the now-standard method of analyzing data in our field. We'd present papers at symposia and get an auditorium full of blank faces. The questions, if any, indicated a total failure to grasp what we were doing. And a substantial fraction of all the people who might hire grad students like us were in the audience.
Fortunately for me, the method went from "Huh?" to standard in one year, just before I graduated. (It still took me 6 more years to get a permanent job. But at least I was able to get postdocs.)