Academic Identity
I am assistant professor of Sociology at Barnard College. My book (and my dissertation research) is a comparative study of technology and futures trading, an ethnography of open outcry and electronic traders. My current research is on how art specialists price cultural commodities, particularly how categories and commensuration work in the secondary/resale fine arts market. I teach courses in economic sociology, organizations, and gender.
Professional Identity
I occasionally consult, focusing on organizational change, the future of technology and financial markets, and environmental markets. I do strategic assessments of markets, technology and organizational design, with qualitative and quantitative components. If you are interested, please email me.
Personal Identity
I grew up outside Chicago, and went to school(s) at Wesleyan University, USC, and Northwestern University. I currently live in New York, with a partner who is a marketing manager for an educational nonprofit. I love movies, like to cook, and I can do a mean lindy swing out. I am INTP.
January 7, 2008
Falsefiability
Filed under: Ramble — Peter @ 3:50 pm
This is a bit far afield of my own expertise, but I’m curious: if I predict that an event in the future is a causal outcome, but it was an event that has already occurred that was causal, how can I be proven correct or wrong? I’m thinking about Obama and the Democratic primary, Iowa/NH, and the Feb. 5 2008 primary. Fabio has made the case that Super Tuesday is the crux of the primary, though he’s certainly not alone. And the specific question is more interesting as a broader question of history, evidence, and causation.
Now, if someone else (Clinton or Edwards) wins on Feb. 5 and goes on to win the primary, it seems pretty clear that Feb. 5 would be at least more decisive than Iowa/NH if not completely decisive. But if Obama wins on Feb. 5 and goes on to win the nomination, does that mean that he won because of Feb. 5? Or because of his wins in Iowa/NH?
In other words, if I bet that Obama wins not because of Feb 5. but because of Iowa, and Bowers/Rojas bet that Obama wins because of Feb. 5, what would it take to win or lose my money? Obviously Iowa affects Feb. 5, so they are conjunctive determinants, but is there an actual methodological answer to this question? How do we know decisive, causal, historical events?
3 Responses to “Falsefiability”
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This site is hand-woven, and heavily borrows from the wonderful blueprint framwork. Rock on, grids!
Not quite
, but getting there..
January 8th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Welp, I guess the NH primary makes this a moot point vis-a-vis Obama/Clinton…
January 9th, 2008 at 11:38 am
It’s still an interesting question, though. There are a host of turning point / tipping point dynamics that are still in play, though I’d think that any single argument would depend on narrative plausibility rather than strict standards of falsifiability.
What I like about the question is the implied nesting of temporal perspectives: how would we interpret a present claim made about the significance of a contingent future event from the perspective of an even more future state from which the present claim is a past event?
January 15th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Yes, this is what I was trying to get at. The issue comes up in my work on futures markets, as it turns out that the tipping point from face-to-face to electronic trading actually happened sometime in the recent past years but it’s not clear when. In retrospect you can look backwards and say ‘it was Eurex’ or ‘9/11′ or the rise of hedge funds. But while it was occurring, it was not at all clear that any of these events was inevitable or even significant.
Or rather, there were enough misses and non-changing events to mask the seeming-significance of the real tipping-point events.
Tricksy