"...the field has real standards of scholarly validity."

[Darin Boville]

I burst into laughter reading this one.

"Despite the popular belief that anything goes in literary criticism, the field has real standards of scholarly validity."

MICHAEL SUK-YOUNG CHWE, author of "Jane Austin, Game Theorist" in today's NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/op...w&rref=opinion

Literary criticism has, of course, deeply infected* contemporary art and photography.

He is suggesting that the hard sciences look to the literary critics as models to emulate if they wish to to raise the scientists' low scholarly standards.

--Darin

* Not an auto-spell error.

[jcoldslabs]

As a former English major whose degree has only been good for filling the frame I bought for it, maybe there's hope for me yet.

"Ansel Adams: Quantum Theorist." I'm going to start working on the manuscript right away!

Jonathan

[Heroique]

Poor Michael Suk-Young Chwe.

I can see to the bottom of this.

It troubles him that he's a game theorist who read some Jane Austen and wrote a book saying she's a game theorist.

When he gazes up at the clouds, I bet he sees game theory.

[Mark Sawyer]

It troubles him that he's a game theorist who read some Jane Austen and wrote a book saying she's a game theorist...

Game theorists always think that game theorists are the most intelligent beings in the universe. We large format photographers know better...

[gleaf]

Game theorists have come up with some interesting models explained with convoluted jargon... Seems to be a copy cat effort and a century behind photography.

[Jody_S]

He is suggesting that the hard sciences look to the literary critics as models to emulate if they wish to to raise the scientists' low scholarly standards.

Thank you for this. I didn't realize what was wrong with all those papers I read in college. Dry, boring, no plot, no metaphors or post-modern jargon, poorly developed (or nonexistent) characters. Not to mention, what was with all the statistics? I swore, if I had to read P>0.05 one more time, I would just burn the whole stack of them. There has to be a better way of saying "This is significant!"

[Peter De Smidt]

The whole anti-truth/anti-realism movement in philosophy, which leaked over into other fields, was a huge mistake. It was a response to skepticism, and the cure was worse than the disease.

[MDR]

The whole anti-truth/anti-realism movement in philosophy, which leaked over into other fields, was a huge mistake. It was a response to skepticism, and the cure was worse than the disease.

When you're right you're right, can't agree more. The Cure is the new disease

[Dan Fromm]

Game theory is a subset of operations research. It gives advice on what to do in a situation, has nothing to say about what animals of any sort actually do. In other words, it has little to do with reality.

I read the article. The author seems to think that validating a model with the data used to build it is legitimate. Not so.

It is all nonsense from a young academic on the make.

[Oren Grad]

Game theory is a subset of operations research.

Economists like to claim it. Chwe's undergraduate and graduate degrees are in economics. He's found a shiny hammer, is out hunting nails.

The NYT piece is pretty confused. Possibly some of that is an editor having ineptly trimmed something longer that Chwe wrote.