Stephen T. Ziliak's Safe Place on the Web

	Stephen T. Ziliak econ, stats, poetry & justice

TROPOLOGICAL

BROTHER JAMES! Professor, Economist, & Grill-Master

Read my book, "Black Metropolis"
ST. CLAIR DRAKE WAS SUPERFLY

Read my posthumously published "Letters to Father Flye," Love, James Agee

aRNOLD ZELLNER (1927-2010):

HE FOUGHT THE POWER . . . WITH POWER CURVES!

(read this reflection on Zellner and his role in modern statistics, by andrew gelman)

"No one understands me" Sincerely, Student's t

Jane Addams was one serious sister

| GO TO TOP |

Follow the visible hand, and click!

Drunk on RCTs? Try Guinnessometrics.

Read Ziliak's take on Levitt and List (2009) and the randomization school.

Published in the inaugural issue of the Review of Behavioral Economics (vol 1, no 1, 2014).

Click on the title:

Balanced versus Randomized Field Experiments in Economics: Why W.S.Gosset aka "Student" Matters

Stephen T. Ziliak gave a keynote address at the prestigious Gordon Research Conference on Computer Aided Drug Design, Mount Snow Resort, Vermont, July 21st, 2013. Ziliak talked about “The Cult of Statistical Significance and the Future of Biometrics after Gosset, Fisher, and Matrixx v. Siracusano".

Read more at Anthony Nicholls' A Different Conference and OpenEye

The Cult of Statistical Significance is featured in a New York Times article by Casey Mulligan, “The Perils of Significant Misunderstandings in Evaluating Medicaid” (June 26, 2013).

Comment by David McKenzie at The World Bank (June 27, 2013)and Dean Baker at CEPR

Article by Steve Ziliak, "Unsignificant Statistics," launches Junk Science Week at The Financial Post (June 11, 2013).

Ziliak's "Unsignificant Statistics" is featured by the American Statistical Association, "Statisticians in the News"

Comments on Ziliak's "Unsignificant Statistics" by statistician William M. Briggs aka The Statistician to the Stars (June 13, 2013) and by physicist Lubos Motl in The Reference Frame (June 17th, 2013).

And: Normal Deviate (Larry Wasserman, June 14th, 2013); Economist's View (link, June 13th 2013) Mathblogging (June 14th).

Ask me Anything on reddit, Thursday March 28, 2013 at 6:00 PM ET. Proof of my identity is here.

Ziliak and McCloskey publish rejoinder to Thomas Mayer, "We Agree that Statistical Significance Proves Essentially Nothing," Econ Journal Watch, January 2013.

Join the conversation at Olle Häggström's hävdar and Deborah Mayo's Error Statistics blog.

Ziliak on reddit's Ask Me Anything/Ask Social Science, Feb. 28, 2013, 6 PM Eastern.

Does Statistical Significance Stink?

The U.S. Supreme Court decided yes, it does, 9-0, in Matrixx vs. Siracuano - the "Zicam" case (March 22, 2011).

Ziliak and McCloskey - authors of The Cult of Statistical Significance - were invited to file with the Court a brief of amici curiae, which you can find here and here.

Read more at Economist's View (Mark Thoma), BBC Radio 4 "More or Less" (Tim Harford), and The Wall Street Journal (Carl Bialik).

Ziliak-McCloskey research on statistical significance, the Supreme Court, and "the standard error of science," is featured in Big Think (Dec. 11, 2012).

...and in Slate,"Why do people love to say that correlation does not imply causation?" by Daniel Engber (Oct. 2, 2012).

Article by Stephen T. Ziliak forthcoming in Significance magazine (Royal Statistical Society): "Visualizing Uncertainty: Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Regressions?"

Article by Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey published in September 2012 issue of Econ Journal Watch: "Statistical Significance in the New Tom and the Old Tom: A Reply to Thomas Mayer"

Here is the original article by Thomas Mayer: "Ziliak and McCloskey's Criticisms of Significance Tests: An Assessment"

Ziliak on Higgs boson and statistical significance, in The Wall Street Journal: "The Particle Proof," by Carl Bialik, July 6, 2012.

Ziliak article on behavioral econometrics, published in the July 2012 issue of the International Journal of Forecasting.

When forecasting economic variables are scatter plots better than standard regression output, such as R-squared and t-stats?

See "Visualizing Economic Uncertainty: On the Soyer-Hogarth Experiment," posted at Economist's View (July 11, 2012).

And read articles in the same issue by J. Scott Armstrong, Daniel G. Goldstein, Robin Hogarth, Keith Ord, Emre Soyer, Nassim N. Taleb and Stephen T. Ziliak

Fermenting Knowledge

Lavoisier Gosset

What scientific discovery was made by an economist doing a study of fermentation?

a. Oxygen, b. Carbon Dioxide, c. Chemistry's Balanced Equation and the Principle of Conservation of Mass, d. Small Sample Theory and Analysis, e. The Advantage of Balanced over Random Designs of Experiments, or f. All of the Above?

Yes, amazingly, "f. All of the Above," is correct.

Read more in Stephen T. Ziliak's "W.S. Gosset and Some Neglected Concepts in Experimental Statistics: Guinnessometrics II," Journal of Wine Economics 6, 255-277.

And: Sarah Kliff in Ezra Klein's Wonkblog, "Guinnesses's Big Contribution to Economics Research,The Washington Post;

"Recommended economics writing," at The Economist;

"The Statistical Significance of Beer," Freakonomics

"Guinnessometrics: Saving Science and Statistics with Beer,"Chicago Magazine

"Beer and Stats," The University of Michigan Press

"Beer, Statistics, and Quality," Minitab

"Beerometrics: Econometrics and the Science of Beer,"Beeronomics

"We Know Now," The Irish Times

"In the News," American Association of Wine Economists

Steve Ziliak and the Roosevelt University Department of Economics are featured in the March 7th, 2012 issue of Remapping Debate, "Reform Agenda: Classes That Make You Think," by Mike Alberti.

And by the same author, in the March 8th issue of Remapping Debate: "Don't Know Much About History, Don't Know Much Economy"

Invisible hand;
Mother of inflated hope,
Mistress of despair!

- S.T. Ziliak, "Haiku Economics," Poetry CXCVII, No. 4 [Jan. 2011], p. 314

"Haiku Economics", by Stephen T. Ziliak, was cited by Poetry as one of the ten "most-read articles" of 2011.

Ziliak's article, on the relation between haiku and economics, appears in the January 2011 "The View From Here" column. And according to the Associate Editor of Poetry, "Haiku Economics" is probably the most-read article in that column's history.

Previous contributors to "The View From Here" column include Richard Rorty, Christopher Hitchens, Lynda Barry, Neko Case, and John Wooden -- the poet and legendary UCLA basketball coach.

Listen in at "Haiku and You" at Boston NPR's On Point program (with Tom Ashbrook)

See "On Haiku and 'The Invisible Hand,' by Ariel Ramchandani (The Economist, Jan. '11)

Review of Ziliak's and McCloskey's best-selling book at The University of Michigan Press---The Cult of Statistical Significance--- by Terry Weight, in the November 2011 issue of Significance magazine (Royal Statistical Society and American Statistical Association).

Read more at Gosset Laboratory and here.

[November 2nd, 2011, Cambridge, MA]

Seventy Harvard [students]walked out of Professor Greg Mankiw's Introductory Economics class in "protest", the students said, of "the bias inherent" in his course.

We at [Roosevelt University]and [INET] - the Institute for New Economic Thinking - are not surprised by student discontent, and wish to help.

Here, for example, is a syllabus for The Grapes of Wrath course I've taught since 1996, offering a pluralistic alternative to Mankiw.

A good protest needs a good protest novel. Steinbeck's couldn't be more relevant to the current milieu [video].

Read more at [AntiCap], "We are not Mankiw," by David Ruccio;

[Better Living Through Beowulf], "Steinbeck makes Microeconomics Real," by Robin Bates; and

[Economist's View], "A Bluesy Road-Novel with a Lot of Economic Theory and Analysis," by Mark Thoma.

#Occupy yourself, with Limericks

What is rhetoric and why do people dread it?

Read Ziliak's essay on "Rhetoric" in the Second Edition of the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Gale), William A. Darity, Jr. Ed.

See also: The Economist, Johnson blog, "Did the Internet Kill Rhetoric?"

The Cult of Statistical Significance: Health Science after Matrixx v Siracusano, lecture and discussion, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Medicine and Public Health & Robert Wood Johnson Scholars, Oct. 10, 2011. [video]

And see: Stephen T. Ziliak, "Matrixx v. Siracusano and Student v. Fisher: Statistical Significance on Trial,"in Significance 8 (3, 2011), pp. 131-134, Royal Statistical Society and American Statistical Association (September issue).

[Did the Crisis Affect My Teaching?]

"Not much," I explain in a recent video interview. I've always taught from conflict and crisis, starting in 1996 when I first assigned John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Studs Terkel's Hard Times to students of economics. Tom Joad is not a simple utility maximizer, true; but he has a moral conscience and love, even better.

Learn more in this short video on The Teaching of Economics, produced by the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)History of Economics Playground & The Kids, Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, NH, April 8-11, 2011.

[Should Economists Sign a Code of Ethics?]

"I think I would like that class."

Ziliak says "yes" but not every economist agrees. Watch this short video on Ethics in Economics, produced by the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)History of Economics Playground & The Kids, Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, NH, April 8-11, 2011

The History of Economics Society is pleased to invite nominations for "Best Article in the History of Economics", 2011-2012.

Send nominations to the Chair, Prof. Stephen T. Ziliak (sziliak@roosevelt.edu). Details are here.

Lavoisier

Economic Science Trivia Question:

What scientific discovery was made by an economist during a routine analysis of fermentation?

a. Oxygen, b. Carbon Dioxide, c. Chemistry's Balanced Equation and the Principle of Conservation of Mass, d. Small Sample Theory and Analysis (Statistics), e. All of the Above.

Yes, amazingly, "e. All of the Above," is correct! The discoveries were made by Priestley (beer), Priestley (beer), Lavoisier (wine), and Gosset aka "Student" (beer), an Oxford-trained chemist who pioneered econometric theory and analysis in his job as experimental brewer of Guinness, St. James's Gate, Dublin.

Source: "W.S. Gosset and Some Neglected Concepts in Experimental Statistics: Guinnessometrics II," by Stephen T. Ziliak, Journal of Wine Economics (Fall 2011) mini-symposium on Beeronomics.

The second conference on Beeronomics: the Economics of Beer and Brewing is being held this September 21-24, 2011, in Freising, Germany. "Hop" on over! I can "barley" wait.

Statisticians discuss the future of statistical significance testing in light of the March 22nd, 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Matrixx v. Siracusano, in a late-breaking session of the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) 2011

Supreme Court Finds Statistical Significance Is Not Necessary for Causation

Authors: Stephen T. Ziliak* (Roosevelt), Joseph "Jay" Kadane (Carnegie Mellon), Donald Rubin (Harvard) and Daniel T. Kaplan (Macalester College)

* Downloadable pdf of Ziliak's JSM 2011, Miami Beach talk:

"Matrixx v. Siracusano and Student v. Fisher: Statistical Significance on Trial"

* Read more, at Milo Schield's StatLit.org

"Matrixx v. Siracusano and Student v. Fisher: Statistical Significance on Trial" appears in Significance 8 (3, 2011), pp. 131-134, Royal Statistical Society and American Statistical Association (September issue).

Here is the Brief of Amici Curiae by McCloskey and Ziliak (2010), on the crucial difference between statistical significance and practical importance, filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Respondents.

For the full story, see Ziliak and McCloskey, The Cult of Statistical Significance:

What's wrong with randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in economics, medicine, and other fields of science?

What is "valid" in experimental design and evaluation, and how did randomization plus significance become the gold standard?

Read Stephen T. Ziliak's,

"Field Experiments in Economics: Comment on an Article by Levitt and List"

(CREATES Research Paper No. 2011-25)

And, "The Validus Medicus and a new gold standard," Lancet (vol. 376, July 31, 2010)

Visit Mark Thoma's Economist's View, and read:

"Randomized Field Experiments were Tried and Rejected More Than a Century Ago"*

*= "Recommended Economics Writing", by The Economist, July 20th 2011

*= "Statisticians in the News,"American Statistical Association, July 2011

Here is Ziliak's reply to Stephen Senn, "Significant errors-Author's Reply", Lancet (vol.376, Oct 23, 2010)

For a Bayesian view and further discussion, read Ziliak's & McCloskey's article published in Biological Theory

Enjoy this p-value video posted by Tim Harford, the one and only "Undercover Economist":

Listen to BBC Radio 4, More or Less, this Friday, April 15 and Sunday, April 17. Tim and I talk about the "significance" of the Supreme Court decision, Matrixx v. Siracusano, rejecting "statistical significance".

Read a companion article, "Statistically Significant: The U.S. Supreme Court Takes a View," by Open University's Kevin McConway

And read a blog post by Shaun Manning at the University of Michigan Press

Ziliak's and McCloskey's research on statistical significance is featured in the Wall Street Journal, by Carl Bialik (aka "The Numbers Guy").

*Read Mr. Bialik's blog

*And the print edition

As Mr. Bialik explains, on March 22, 2011, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously rejected the claim by Petitioners, Matrixx,Inc., that a bright-line standard of "statistical significance" - a fixed and pre-determined level of Type I error - is necessary for proving a fact. The Court's strong ruling against "significance" is particularly relevant to big pharmaceutical and other biomedical firms which have to report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on "adverse effects" from product consumption.

On November 12, 2010, McCloskey and Ziliak filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, explaining to the Court the difference between "statistical" significance and "practical" importance. In oral argument on January 10, 2011, Justice Sotomayor thanked "amici" for doing a "wonderful job".

In other words, the Supreme Court agrees unanimously with a view well- established by McCloskey and Ziliak, that statistical significance is neither necessary nor sufficient for proving a commercial or scientific result.

Read more at Mark Thoma's blog: Economist's View

Andrew Gelman's blog &

The University of Michigan Press

Watch videos from the April 2011 Bretton Woods conference here, at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET):

Ziliak appointed to the Economics Curriculum Committee Task Force, at the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Q: Did Keynes and Morgenthau appear 67 years later, for the Bretton Woods conference?

A: Ask the incredibly visible hand.

Bretton Woods haiku

Chicago memory; Crashing sounds are fading The snow capped mountain.

Share value 'It'-list: It is not a strategy, It is a result.

Late-night Bretton Woods; Sleepless, Morgenthau dreams of Maynard's pirouettes.

On a slick white slope Epistemological Inequality.

O Lady Justice What did you hear when Adair Whispered to the sky?

Our famished nations do not understand the rules IMF, confess!

Read Stephen T. Ziliak's "Haiku Economics", in the January 2011 issue of Poetry:

Listen in at "Haiku and You" at Boston NPR's On Point program (with Tom Ashbrook)

Enjoy "On Haiku and 'The Invisible Hand,' by Ariel Ramchandani (The Economist, Jan. '11)

Ziliak and McCloskey file amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, explaining the difference between "statistical" significance and "practical" importance:

The argument is scheduled for January 10, 2011.

Read more at Mark Thoma's blog, Economist's View

Consider submitting a paper to the second Beeronomics conference ("The Economics of Beer and Brewing"), Freising, Germany, September 21-24, 2011.

Breaking news on Peace, Love & Happiness:

Raymond Smullyan repairs big holes in Chicago streets and logic-bringing order, music & smiles to all! October 21-23, 2010

Learn more right here.

Ziliak's and McCloskey's The Cult of Statistical Significance is featured in Notices of the American Mathematical Society - reviewed by Olle Häggström

What's wrong with randomized controlled trials? How did RCTs become the standard for statistically-based experimental science?

Read: "The Validus Medicus and a new gold standard," Lancet (vol. 376, July 31, 2010)

Read Ziliak's reply to Stephen Senn, "Significant errors-Author's Reply", Lancet (vol.376, Oct 23, 2010)

Ziliak's & McCloskey's book, The Cult of Statistical Significance, featured in Science News (vol. 177, no. 7, 2010):

"Odds are, it's wrong," by Tom Siegfried

<Read more at: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Statistical Modeling (Andrew Gelman), Psychology Today, Marginal Revolution, Wall Street Blips, William Briggs, Geary Behavioural Economics Blog & Scholarly Kitchen>

How much would you gamble to get a new pill, pesticide or field experimental result? Consider the typical losses in the Winter 2009 issue of Biological Theory 4 (The MIT Press & Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research)

+ This way to the t-table +

[Read more at Forecasting Principles]

Ziliak's & McCloskey's book, The Cult of Statistical Significance, featured in an article on the statistics of global warming, in The Vancouver Sun (Feb. 22, 2010), by Peter McKnight

Guinness: 250 years of clever counting

Click on Lavoisier to discover the "significance" of Guinness to science

Read more at: Economist's View, Economist.com, Salon.com, Schumpeter's Century

[Noted as a "Highlight" of the 2009 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM 2009)]

"The Cult of Statistical Significance"

from Amstat.org, [Statisticians of Interest]:

"Steve Ziliak's session at JSM is titled the same as his book [with Deirdre N. McCloskey]: The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives. The book, published in 2008, has been reviewed by Science, Nature Medicine, BBC Radio, Financial Times, the Economist, Cato Journal, and many others. Ziliak will be available for interviews between August 1, Saturday morning, and August 3, Monday afternoon."

Reviews of Ziliak's and McCloskey's

The Cult of Statistical Significance

(University of Michigan Press, 2008)

in Science, by Theodore M. Porter

in Nature Medicine, by Jessica Ancker

in Journal of Economic Literature,

by Saul Hymans

in Monthly Labor Review,

by Bruce Bergman, BLS

in SIAM News, by James Case

in Notices of the American

Mathematical Society,

by Olle Häggström

in Times Higher Ed, Steve Fuller

in Law & Social Inquiry,

Richard Lempert

in London Book Review

in Statistical Papers,

Walter Krämer

in EH-Net (Economic History),

Philip Coelho

in Administrative Science Quarterly,

Xueguang Zhou

in European Journal of Epidemiology,

Olli Miettinen

in Canadian Journal of Sociology,

Victor Thiessen

in Skeptical Inquirer,

Peter Lamal

in Journal of Economic Issues,

Ron Smith

in Journal of Economic Methodology,

by Tom Engsted

in Cato Journal, by Peter Van Doren

in Economic Affairs, by Art Carden

in Erasmus Journal for Economics &Philosophy,

by Aris Spanos

in Hungarian Economic Review (Közgazdasági Szemle), by Tamás Dusek

"Guinnessometrics" and The Cult discussed on BBC Radio's "More or Less," with Tim Harford. Listen to a podcast of the Jan. 23rd, 2009 episode.

Image copyright: BBC Radio 4

The Cult of Statistical Significance lands on the top shelf at StatLit

. . . and at the Eastern Book Company, "Outstanding Academic Title of 2008, Social and Behavioral Sciences"

What do Guinness and "Student's" t-test have in common? Read about W. S. Gosset (aka "Student"), R. A. Fisher, and The Cult of Statistical Significance in Tim Harford's "The Undercover Economist," Financial Times, Feb. 7., '09.

"Lovely day for a Regression!"

"Gosset for Strength!"

Image copyright: Financial Times

Listen to Deirdre McCloskey's podcast lecture on The Cult at the National Economists Club (NEC), Washington, DC, Dec. 4, 2008.

Blog reviews and interviews:

by Andrew Gelman,

at Statistical Modeling

by Mark Thoma,

at Economist's View

by Leland Teschler,

at Machine Design

by Tom Leinster,

at The n-Category Cafe

by Charles Annis,

at Statistical Engineering

by John D. Cook,

at The Endeavor

by Arnold Kling,

at EconLib

by Cliff Norman

at Profound Knowledge (Deming)

by Jacob Grier, at Liquidity Preference

and: World Association of Medical Editors

Voice of the Employee

Converge

by Jane Davidson, at Genuine Evaluation

Jules and James (Climate Change)

Chance

Trinidad & Tobago Review ("Throwing a Book at Crime," by Kevin Baldeosingh)

LSE's Cognition & Culture Blog (Olivier Morin)

John Myles White

University of Michigan Press

The Bayesian Heresy

William M. Briggs

The Bayesian Investor

Christopher Hayes

Homo Phileconomicus

Coert Visser

David Pannell

Common Tragedies (Environment)

History of Economics Playground

ALISE (Library and Information Science)

[The Haiku Connection]

"Economists embrace haiku," by Erica Alini, The Wall Street Journal, Real Time Economics blog, July 2, 2009

[Read more at Mark Thoma's blog, Economist's View]

[Read "Drinking the Haiku Economics Kool Aid," at Open Economics]

[Read Fred Lee's Heterodox Economics Newsletter]

[Read Laura Janota's article in Roosevelt Review]

[Read Tina Owen's article in Iowa Insider]

See Ziliak's "Haiku Economics," in The Wall Street Journal (Dec. 31, '08, page one): "Fannie, Freddie, Bear & Hard Times: Wall Street's Collapse, Told in Rhymes," by Mary Pilon.

Post a poem at Mary's blog, "The Wallet"

. . . and at Steve Levitt's and Stephen Dubner's Freakonomics-New York Times blog.

Enjoy a little haiku Q & A in "Verses of Economy," by Steve Kolowich, The Chronicle of Higher Education (May 22, 2009, A6),

Step up to NPR's "Recession Haiku Challenge," at Planet Money

Keep the flow going with West Wing Writers of haiku, at Podium Pundits

. . .and read Haiku Economics: Little Teaching Aids for Big Economic Pluralists, forthcoming in International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education

Wall Street Journal; New York Times and itchys

"Limeraiku" is the marriage - or elopement - of haiku and limerick. See page 291, The New Oxford Book of English Light Verse (1978), edited by Kingsley Amis. What is financial or economic limeraiku? As Shaw and Amis remind us, limerick poems (unlike haiku) are strictly made by breaking taboo.

There was an old man

from Lehman, who yanks Big Hank's . . .

Jewels? No way, man.

Recessional plea

from Treasury: "Fax the tax,

int'rest, usury!"

There's a crude old cow

from Camdentown, who spits chips:

"Curry! Mayo! Now!"

Recent articles by Ziliak about Gosset, Fisher, & the history of "statistical significance":

Guinnessometrics: The Economic Foundation of Student's t, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2008

Size Matters: The Standard Error of Regressions in the American Economic Review, Journal of Socio-Economics

On R. A. Fisher and the Copyright History of Student's t (Note: an early version of this article was titled "The Great Skew")

The Fallacy of the Transposed Conditional in Medical and Biological Research

McCloskey and Ziliak reply to critics Hoover and Siegler, in Journal of Economic Methodology.

Ziliak and McCloskey reply to critics Elliott, Granger, Horowitz, Leamer, Thorbecke, Wooldridge, Zellner, and others, in Journal of Socio-economics

Ziliak and McCloskey reply to Schelling, in Econ Journal Watch

McCloskey and Ziliak reply to Spanos, in Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics

Recent articles by Ziliak on the collapse of the welfare state, on the collapse of the fact/value split, and on teaching pluralism in economics:

Ziliak (with Klamer and McCloskey) launches unusual economics textbook

What is the history of self-reliance? Has abolishing welfare helped out in the past?

On the positive/normative distinction: what's new about the old collapse of it? "Nothing," as Ziliak explains in the new International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by William Darity, Jr.

Ziliak (with Joan Hannon) on 400 years of public welfare in America: perspective by incongruity!

Ziliak, working in collaboration with the economic historians Joan Hannon and Price Fishback, published there a "time-line" of significant events and legislation in U.S. social welfare history, from 1588 to 1997. The unusual table will be of interest to any worker in the areas of social welfare history and philanthropy.

U.S. Welfare History Time-line

New Course, Roosevelt University, Spring 2008:

ECON 426 THEORIES OF JUSTICE IN ECONOMICS (Ziliak) CHANGE: IT'S AN M.A.-LEVEL COURSE

Syllabus

The course will ask and examine fundamental questions about economic justice in a dialogical and inter-disciplinary context. Students will read selections from classic texts (Aristotle to Sen) and original journal articles by contemporary theorists. Ideas about economic "self reliance" - what it is and how to achieve it -- will be central to our inquiry.

Prerequisites: ECON 323

New Book, March 2008:

The Cult of Statistical Significance is the place to begin your post-Fisherian, post-Kuhnian statistical education.

See Contents / Order Now

What does the suppression of black unemployment rates have to do with statistical significance?

Read a blog interview to find out

Expert scientists believe they're testing hypotheses with their conventional tests of statistical significance. They’re not.

They think the “existence” of one kind of precision under conditions of random error--namely, statistical significance--can answer the scientific, quantitative question of estimation, which is a question of “size-matters/how much.” It can’t.

They think the null procedure routine since Fisher can answer the pragmatic question about the distribution of reasonable degrees of belief over a range of possibly believable if radically different hypotheses. It can’t, won’t, and never will. Today’s scientist neither tests nor estimates—he “testimates.”

"Student" (aka William Sealy Gosset, 1876-1937) worried about careless uses of his test. He had reason to.

After Fisher, testimation is the outcome. Testimation is the unhappy marriage of the fallacy of the transposed conditional to the sizeless stare of statistical significance. It is ruining the quantitative solidity of the sciences descended from Galton and Pearson and especially from Ronald A. Fisher. And its reckless policy recommendations are costing us jobs, justice, ecology, and even human lives.

In 1908 "Student" changed some sciences with his small sample test of significance. Now those sciences are stagnating or declining through their reckless and illogical deployments of "Student's" test, just as "Student" himself always warned they could.

Click here to learn about the neglected "Student" and the strange evolution of his test after Fisher picked it up and made it central to the sciences.

Stephen T. Ziliak is an economist whose work spans the fields of history, philosophy, rhetoric, statistics, and social policy.

He experiments with a kind of economic poetry or criticism, too, in what he calls haiku economics - "as if economics is so efficient". He learned haiku from a friend, the late Etheridge Knight, a great American poet & haiku master:

Invisible hand:

Mother of inflated hope,

Mistress of despair.

Cooling temperatures

Teens, chilly away from Lake

Ghetto kids rejoice!

From first principles

you find an end-state result:

The state should stop now.

Corrugated steel

Fence-links cap off prison wall/

Blackbird pecks at chains.

Click here to order Haiku Economics, No. 1 (Rethinking Marxism, vol. 14(3), 2002)

Etheridge Knight (1931-1991)

"America's greatest poet in the oral tradition."

- Robert Bly to Steve Ziliak, Denoument Gallery, Indianapolis, Jan. 1991

Ziliak earned graduate degrees from the University of Iowa in both Economics(Ph.D., 1996) and the Rhetoric of the Social Sciences (Ph.D. Certificate, 1996). A frequent collaborator with Deirdre McCloskey, Ziliak is the author or editor of three books (with McCloskey) and over sixty scholarly articles.

An expert at historical archival research, Ziliak is best known for his work on American social welfare and on the history, theory, and practice of hypothesis testing in the life and human sciences.

Ziliak has taught at a number of institutions around the United States, including Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology where, in 2002, he was awarded "Faculty Member of the Year" and, in the following year, "Most Intellectual Professor." He is currently Professor of Economics at Roosevelt University.

[If you are enrolled in a course taught by Prof. Z, please refer to the Blackboard site.]

A prize-winning teacher, Ziliak is the author of an unusual micro and macro textbook, The Economic Conversation(Palgrave/MacMillan), which aims to change the way economics is taught. Co-authored with Arjo Klamer and Deirdre McCloskey, nearly a third of The Economic Conversation is written in Socratic dialogue.

Ziliak's main project now is on the scientific character of William Sealy Gosset (1876-1937) aka "Student" of "Student's" t. Most scientists have learned about "Student's" t from Fisher or a Fisher disciple. This has been bad for "Student"--and science.

Fisher misled some sciences in the 20th century. From the very beginning, in 1904, "Student" took an economic approach to the logic of uncertainty. Karl Pearson, and then especially Ronald Fisher, wouldn't listen to "Student." In the 1920s and 1930s Gosset, this "Student," improved upon his own economic approach, inventing the statistical ideas of power and loss, which he gave to Egon S. Pearson and Jerzy Neyman to formalize. Gosset was in these and other regards a great scientist. His economic approach to for example the test of statistical significance and the statistical design of experiments can repair the damage done in science and policy by today's Fisherian methods.

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