tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6598831864333990375.post1042475637346851139..comments2023-05-08T04:01:34.561-08:00Comments on Students Who Enjoy Economic Thinking: The Invisible Beaker of the LaboratoryAdam Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15257124483756325652noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6598831864333990375.post-49168571177813209382010-02-16T22:02:08.581-09:002010-02-16T22:02:08.581-09:00While you manufacture certainty about your feeling...While you manufacture certainty about your feelings as to the usefulness of the puzzle metaphor, let me make it more useful by adding the following:<br /><br />It's a group of giant puzzles that we are all trying to solve at once. It might be possible that it's just one super giant puzzle, but at the moment it seems unlikely. So far, in the Indiana Jones warehouse where we are keeping the completed puzzles we have about a half dozen groups of connected pieces that may or may not join together sometime in the future. Adding pieces to one completed bit doesn't really help the guys working on the other bits.<br /><br />We have an unlimited number of puzzle pieces in the warehouse with us, but in order to handle any given piece, and examine whether or not it fits in our completed section we have to spend anywhere from a few tens of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars. There are a few groups that are willing to loan or give us the necessary funds to play with our puzzles, but we are in competition with all other scientists as to how much of the puzzle fund we have access to. <br /><br />Some of the already completed sections of the puzzle have cute pictures of puppies and babies, and the jerks that control the puzzle money seem to favor completing those sections.<br /><br />Other sections of the puzzle look like treasure maps, and private companies occasionally chip in to the puzzle fund to see if they can find exactly what spot 'x' marks.<br /><br />Some partially completed sections of the puzzle don't look like too much of anything at all, but the pieces themselves are intriguing and they capture the attention of some of the scientists. These sections don't get much money from the puzzle fund, but these sections have what appear to be the borders of the bigger puzzle.<br /><br />Often times what determines what sections of the puzzle get the most effort is the charisma of the people working the puzzle, and whether they can sweet-talk the keepers of the puzzle fund out of some money.<br /><br />One more thing, the people who hold the purse strings to the puzzle fund, are usually color blind, totally blind, and often brain damaged as well. They couldn't tell the difference between a puzzle and a pizza.UDOhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16797455822014965844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6598831864333990375.post-1282432081626911432010-02-16T20:57:24.684-09:002010-02-16T20:57:24.684-09:00I'm not sure I think the puzzle metaphor is as...I'm not sure I think the puzzle metaphor is as completely worthless as you seem to.<br /><br />1) I'm sure Polanyi recognizes that "the puzzle" is likely unfinishable, but that doesn't negate the point about cooperating to attempt and assemble the available pieces. The puzzle metaphor helps illustrate the importance of collaboration and interdisciplinary studies.<br /><br />2) Scientists face incentives just like everyone else.<br /><br />a) If a problem is outside of their area of specialty (too hard) they will likely not pursue it. To attempt to do so would require years of costly re-training. Scientists have an incentive to perform research within their disciplines as determined by their comparative advantage. Scientists do tend to approach their area of study selectively according to specialization (i.e through the division of labor).<br /><br />b) scientists may not always be aware of exactly how long their research might take but they do have a general idea about the depth of a research problem and the amount of work involved in testing their hypotheses.<br /><br />c) If a scientist anticipates that a problem is too simple there can still be a variety of reasons they choose not to pursue it. For one if the problem was as easy as it seemed the scientist would assume one or more competing researchers were already working on the problem at hand and nearly ready to publish their results. To attempt to pursue the simple problem as well would be a waste of time if the researcher was certain another was also on the verge of publishing. Economists call this the "No Cash on the Table Principle".<br /><br />http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=ab-financialpln&tid=236<br /><br />d) Also if the problem was simple enough the scientist might simply choose to defer it to one of their starving graduate students for a quick research project so the fully fledged scientist can devote their efforts to more advanced and prestigious problems.Richard Raineshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00804936689427520573noreply@blogger.com