
Fuck Nuance [pdf] - networked
http://kieranhealy.org/files/papers/fuck-nuance.pdf
======
unabst
I call this the "abstraction paradox".

There is no way that an abstraction can fully equate what it abstracts.
"Apple" could never equal a real apple. But abstraction allows us to think
about real apples. In science, all theories and models are abstractions.
Hence, they are always approximations, and can be invalidated or nullified
with edge cases that can indeed be backed by evidence.

But the opposite is also true. If a theory is based on evidence, then it will
always be an approximation of the truth to some degree. Hence, there will
always be hard evidence that validates the theory also -- ideally the evidence
the theory is based on.

The ultimate test is application. If a theory or model has purpose, as in, has
a use, then the value of that theory can be measured by its consequences.
Otherwise, frankly, academics arguing over what has no consequence will have
no consequence outside the circles of those who argue over it. I sense "fuck
nuance" as a message to them.

We still use Newtonian mechanics where objects are big and slow enough. But we
also use general relativity, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, etc,
where more accuracy is required. So we already know theories have limits and
degrade with constraints, and we switch theories.

This is true of EVERY THEORY. And that is the abstraction paradox.

If you're arguing over someone _just_ to prove them wrong, congratulations,
you've just proved you're completely redundant. So fuck you. (in the spirit of
the author)

~~~
wyager
Abstractions need not be approximations. Schroedinger's equation is an
abstraction, but as far as we know it's exact.

~~~
smaddox
Schrodinger's equation doesn't even include special relativistic effects. It's
not exact (at least not if you mean it exactly describes nature in general).
Neither is Dirac's equation; it includes special relativistic effects for a
single particle, but not general relativistic effects or multi-particle
interactions (at least as far as I understand it).

~~~
wyager
The general form using the unspecified Hamiltonian operator is compatible with
relativity.

------
twoodfin
I realized as I was reading this that I know very little about sociology as a
discipline. In particular, I'm unaware of any of its "Great Theories", _a la_
General Relativity for physics, or Darwinian Evolution for biology.

Any candidates? I'm not trying to be snide, I really would like to learn more
about this. The Wikipedia page for sociology describes "theories" that sound
more like schools of thought.

~~~
p4wnc6
I would posit the social signalling theories of Robin Hanson as perhaps a
theory of this magnitude.

The problem is, though most of Hanson's theories have plausible explanations
and "feel" right, there is very little experimental evidence and very few
studies are directed in that area. In fact, you might even say it is a symptom
of that type of signalling itself: as homo-hypocritus, we _don 't want
signalling theories to be proven true_ so we make up reasons for deriding
signalling explanations as not rigorous enough to even merit being properly
tested or studied. Of course, this too is no better, because then do we just
actually have no evidence to believe in signalling explanations, or are we
using signalling excuses to suppress the meaning of that evidence? It's
somewhat self-defeating.

The next most important theory I would posit is Prospect Theory by Kahneman
and Tversky. But there again, many aspects of it have not been successfully
replicated, and too often limited experiments are generalized too much.

One set of social theories that I would love to see given more quantitative
foundations is the research from the book _Moral Mazes_. Robert Jackall
carried out some lengthy longitudinal studies in which he collected anecdotal
narrative and interview data from employees at all seniority levels through a
couple different firms. He was able to see people rise up the corporate
ladder, people get fired, executives fired and replaced, large layoffs, etc.,
and conduct informal interviews with employees all up and down the ladder.

Based on his interviews, he put together a series of theories about how
morality and ethical identity form within bureaucracy, and particularly how
managers develop an understanding of ethical obligations to subordinates, and
how certain factions of an organization (notably HR) come to function when
there are competing concerns between ethical expectations and bureaucratic
mandates.

In every job I've had, it's been a frustrating experience of basically saying,
"Yep, I know this chapter from Moral Mazes ..." because companies operate
almost as if they've read the book as a field guide.

Yet at the same time, it's still just a qualitative study that is scaffolded
by academic sociology. If it were actually possible to collect that kind of
data from corporations, I'd love to see some theories from the book explored
more quantitatively.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Great comment. I'm saving it for when I look this stuff up. :)

------
yummyfajitas
This article is a truly fantastic critique of how modern social sciences
(besides economics) are carried out and publicized in modern society. Any
critique one dislikes - typically "your theory predicts X which is false" \-
can be dismissed by "nuance", "things are more complicated", "that's different
in unspecified way", etc.

In statistical terms, these dismissals are little more than a call for
overfitting - if I can arbitrarily add more dimensions to a theory, I can make
it fit any data set.

This is a fantastic article that can be applied in so many places.

In applied social sciences this critique is far easier to work around. "Yeah,
my theory is pretty one-dimensional and does lack nuance. My code is in $REPO
- feel free to run an experiment and see if your multidimensional theory
generates any alpha over mine."

~~~
p4wnc6
Why do you exclude economics? I see economics as practically leading the way
with regard to dismissals like you suggest.

One example I have first-hand experience with is the low-volatility anomaly.
CAPM-like theories predict a roughly linear, positive-sloping relationship
between risk and return.

Yet decades worth of various empirical measurements of the riskiness of assets
and portfolios unequivocally demonstrates that it is a negative-sloping
relationship (e.g. for your willingness to bear an additional unit of risk,
you actually receive _less_ return).

But everyone says basically the same thing. "Things are more complicated in
real markets."

It would be reasonable to say that CAPM is a mathematical result, and the
evidence suggests the mathematical model required for CAPM simply fails to
correspond to reality. But many finance folks, especially in academia, won't
admit it. For them, CAPM must also be a _descriptive_ theory.

Two sources that illustrate what I'm talking about:

[0] Baker, Bradley, and Wurgler, "Benchmarks as Limits to Arbitrage:
Understanding the Low-Volatility Anomaly" FAJ Volume 61, 2011. <
[http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/pdf/10.2469/faj.v67.n1.4](http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/pdf/10.2469/faj.v67.n1.4)
>

[1] Baker, Malcolm P. and Bradley, Brendan and Taliaferro, Ryan, The Low Risk
Anomaly: A Decomposition into Micro and Macro Effects (September 13, 2013).
Financial Analysts Journal. <
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2210003](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2210003)
>

*disclaimer: The authors of these two papers were my bosses in a previous role, and I wrote the code and generated the results for the second paper.

~~~
ryanmonroe
>t would be reasonable to say that CAPM is a mathematical result, and the
evidence suggests the mathematical model required for CAPM simply fails to
correspond to reality. But many finance folks, especially in academia, won't
admit it.

In other words, "Things are more complicated in real markets". I don't see any
problem with wanting descriptive theories. Economists are interested in
building models whose parameters can be tweaked in ways that correspond in a
clear meaningful way to a possible actions (e.g. change government expenditure
on X by Y). If you try to just maximize predictive power you're missing the
point. Economics can be used to predict the future, but I would say the main
goal of the field is to produce theory that will provide valid methods of
altering the future.

~~~
p4wnc6
This doesn't make a lot of sense in this example with CAPM. The economic
theory provides something that is abjectly wrong. It is literally claiming
there is a positive relationship between two quantities when the evidence
suggests the relationship is negative.

The theory is grossly _qualitatively_ wrong, not merely just on the edge of
being quantitatively wrong in a few cases or something.

------
emmelaich
I would distill my understanding of this paper as "Strong Opinions, Weakly
Held"

[http://www.saffo.com/02008/07/26/strong-opinions-weakly-
held...](http://www.saffo.com/02008/07/26/strong-opinions-weakly-held/)

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
... with Weird capitalization.

------
c0da

      By calling for a theory to be more comprehensive, or for an explanation to
      include additional dimensions, or a concept to become more flexible and
      multifaceted, we paradoxically end up with less clarity. A further odd
      consequence is that the apparent scope of theories increases even
      as the range of their explanatory application narrows.
    

This seems analogous to poor imperative programming to me: as your code
becomes more complicated, the range of it's application narrows.

~~~
ezrosent
I think this is better understood as a consequence of Bonini's paradox
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonini%27s_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonini%27s_paradox)).

~~~
solidsnack9000
I thought of the map-territory jawn, as well.

------
linhchi
I think when debate comes down to differences in ideology and idiosyncracy,
it's at the end of debating because these differences are impossible to
compromise (they are all legitimate).

And the world is at a point that everybody can believe in everything and all
these beliefs are all grounded and justificable (using the available tools and
knowledge we've accumulated).

To deal with the somewhat disturbing thought that the world doesn't need to be
saved, I resort to the mantra that: eventually, the reason we read, the reason
we write, the choice we make, everyday, is just because we feel like.

------
im3w1l
I assume simple theories are very good for advancing the science itself. But I
don't think they are as actionable as complex ones, because reality _is_
complex, and you need to account for that when creating policy.

~~~
marcosdumay
Nuance is lethal for scientists, but lack of it is lethal to practitioners.

And practical experience consist mostly of knowing what kinds of nuance are
important for what kinds of problems.

------
omarforgotpwd
I thought this was going to be a rant about voice recognition

------
shas3
Can we un-capitalize "Nuance"? For a second I thought it refers to the speech
technologies company.

~~~
ctoth
Same. I actually clicked hoping to read a rant against my least favorite
speech company and their bad habit of buying up competition for the patents
and then sitting on the technology. They own the rights to the speech
synthesizer I use every day, Eloquence, which is no longer developed and will
probably never improve, but is easily the most intelligible synthesizer at
high speed.

~~~
rdtsc
Yap same here ;-) They squeezed us with their pricing model for years. I was
nodding as I was reading the title, then found something else. Oh well.

------
ktRolster
The amount of nuance in this article is overwhelming.

(The abstract/text ratio is ridiculous)

