{"id":201607,"date":"2026-08-29T22:37:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T06:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=201607"},"modified":"2026-08-29T05:49:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T13:49:17","slug":"andrew-gelman-computer-scientists-today-are-like-economists-in-the-early-2000s-and-freudian-psychiatrists-in-the-1950s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=201607","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Gelman: ‘Computer scientists today are like economists in the early 2000s and Freudian psychiatrists in the 1950s’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gelman writes<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Back in the early part of this century, economists were riding high: they were the country\u2019s all-purpose pundits, they had tons of influence but were lamenting that they didn\u2019t have enough, and they were going on and on about how special they were, most amusingly in the self-contradictory argument that they were different because they \u201cassume everyone is fundamentally alike; we believe circumstances, not culture, drive people\u2019s decisions.\u201d I\u2019m still not sure what is the difference between \u201ccircumstance\u201d and \u201cculture\u201d except that maybe talking about the former is associated with overconfidence.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, though, economics is just one more social science. OK, I don\u2019t want to overstate things. I assume they still get paid more than sociologists and political scientists, and, yeah, there\u2019s a Council of Economic Advisers but no Council of Sociology Advisers. Still, I think that economics has lost some of its standing in the past twenty years, partly as a result of the crash of 2008 and its aftermath (political polarization, Brexit, etc.) and partly just the natural ebb and flow of influence, the inevitable cycle of hype and disappointment. Econ hero Steven Levitt was supplanted by data analyst Nate Silver (who identifies as a poker player, not an economist), and we\u2019re not hearing from economists so much anymore, except to hear them fighting in vain against tariffs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gelman nails the pattern. Freudian psychiatry in the 1950s, neoclassical economics around 2000, and computer science now each supplied the era’s all-purpose pundit. Each sold the same self-image: cold rationality, willingness to say what others won’t. <\/p>\n

He flags the disanalogy but does not develop it. Freud (1856-1939) and neoclassical economics offered theories of everything. Computer science built tools. That difference predicts a different ending. Psychoanalysis lost standing when its efficacy claims collapsed and drugs worked better. Economics lost standing as its tools and biases towards mathematical modeling that appeared objective failed to reflect reality, particularly in 2008. Computer science rests on products that keep working. The phone works. The search engine works. Whatever happens to the punditry, nobody stops using the products. The correction, when it comes, hits the guru layer.<\/p>\n

Gelman does not ask what moves prestige between fields? He offers 2008 plus the natural ebb and flow of influence. Ebb and flow explains nothing. A better account: a discipline holds prestige when elites believe it holds the key to the era’s dominant anxiety, and loses it when a public event shows it doesn’t. Unhappiness and the mind for Freud. Prosperity and incentives for economics. Machines and intelligence now. On that account the fall comes from a visible failure at the promise.<\/p>\n

Academic computer science and the tech industry have different standing. Star economists stayed at Chicago and Harvard. Star computer scientists leave for labs paying ten times the professor salary. The pundits are founders, investors, and a handful of lab heads. So the field sits at apex cultural prestige while its departments lose their best people to firms borrowing the name. Economics had no equivalent.<\/p>\n

Gelman says all-encompassing theories can be fine because they supply a framework by which the social world can be studied rather than predictions. From a man who spends most days as a methods cop, that is a large door to leave open. He is generous to Freud and to neoclassical economics on a point where he would be merciless toward a psychology paper. Where does he draw the line?<\/p>\n

Statistics watched its subject get renamed data science and machine learning and rehoused in better-funded departments. He has written for years about machine learning rediscovering old statistical results. Gelman comes from a field that lost the prestige contest to the field being described.<\/p>\n

Steven Levitt (b. 1967) was the theory man who made economics fun. Nate Silver (b. 1978) was the data man who didn’t need the theory. Their standing rises and falls on their ability to meet needs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gelman writes: Back in the early part of this century, economists were riding high: they were the country\u2019s all-purpose pundits, they had tons of influence but were lamenting that they didn\u2019t have enough, and they were going on and on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-andrew-gelman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=201607"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201609,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201607\/revisions\/201609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=201607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=201607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=201607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}