Anyway, mathematicians and physicists are rather different (as both would be eager to tell you). Mathematicians do not have a strong opinion on empirics, while physicists do. While there may be physicists out there who think economics is A-OK, there is a cottage industry of physicists publishing papers on how economics is completely stupid. As far as I know, there is no comparable effort for psychology or sociology.

No effective theory of language, no effective social science.

And this is also a crazy generalization. Certainly not all mathematicians have contempt for economics:
http://www.mth.kcl.ac.uk/~pushn/cm354x-page-0607/Franklin.pdf

(via Michael’s blog:
http://yetanothersheep.blogspot.com/2007/04/whither-economics-sin-no1.html)

But this is really a matter of definitions. If you emphasize the similarities between the various streams within the “mainstream” and lump’em all together then you can say that all but one stream get ignored. If you emphasize the differences within the “mainstream” then you can say that many different streams are represented. So it’s a matter of taxonomy, which is at least somewhat subjective.

Are you saying they have less contempt for other social scientists?

The article also does a good job at describing my own ambivalence about general equilibirum theory. If I look at it from a social study point of view, I find it absurd, human beings don’t have strictly convex independant transitive preferences: that’s whence all the fun in social studies comes. If I look at it from a mathematical point of view, I find it fascinating, but in a self-destructing way. Of course a mapping from a space with many dimensions to a space with few dimensions can have quite a bizarre image: that’s whence all the fun in (this part of) math comes.

I strongly disagree. As I’ve already explained—and as everyone here seems to recognize—academic disciplines are very good at expunging methodologically flawed work, but not so good at fostering new and legitimate approaches. The boundaries between disciplines are one of the very few protections available to someone (like Ingrid, for example) who wants to buck the conventions of a particular discipline. If those come down, then there will be one narrow set of standards for, say, all of social science—and woe betide a future Ingrid with a new and different approach.

Since economists freely attack all other social sciences already, and openly admit they plan on supplanting them, I don’t think anyone has to be too concerned with the reaction of economists to outside criticism.

Criticism—of course. If Ingrid, or anyone else, wants to predict that today’s economics research is all destined for the dustbin of history, that’s fine too—healthy, even—and we’ll know soon enough anyway who’s right. As for reforming economics from the outside, though (as opposed to hoping to “supplant” them once they’ve decayed into irrelevance), bear in mind that if the economists tried to retaliate, they’d likely have the entirety of the hard sciences backing them up…

Dan, the point was not that certain streams were being ignored, but that ALL streams but one are being ignored. There’s no other social science for which this is true.

One person’s “ALL streams but one are being ignored” is another’s “ALL streams but one are welcomed”. It’s a question of which collection of research directions one chooses to lump together as one undifferentiated pile of garbage, and which collection of research directions one respectfully subdivides into equally valid but distinct approaches.

Your suggestion that people who identify with one discipline should not criticize practices elsewhere lest they be criticized themselves is a recipe for mediocrity. Social science is a single project.

Well, if there aren’t also at least a half-dozen alternative streams (or sub-streams within those two main streams) whose embittered adherents can’t get a second look at a top school, then philosophy is a very unusual discipline indeed.

it may be a good solution for one individual (me), but what about (a) all the others,

Most of them, as I said, are doomed, unless they knuckle under and accept the orthodoxy. A few will follow your path, though, and find sanctuary as you did. You can do your part by encouraging them to do so. And perhaps one day a particularly gifted and industrious scholar (or a small coterie of them) will eventually succeed in getting a new, “heterodox” stream of thought established as mainstream.

and (b) the effects on the discipline (and consequentally its influence in society etc.) ?

There are three obvious possibilities: the current orthodoxy will be found in the long run to be worthwhile after all, and will thrive; or it will be found to be a dead end, and a new orthodoxy (perhaps yours, perhaps somebody else’s) will take over; or it will be found to be a dead end, and the entire field will decay into irrelevance, while the useful work is done elsewhere—in your department, perhaps.

But again, I offer this caution: before you let your perfectly understandable pot-shot-taking escalate into a genuine, vigorous campaign for “reform” of your former discipline from the outside, consider that they may have similar designs on your current discipline, and ask yourself just what kind of precedent you really want to set regarding external criticism of an established field…

This is not true. It is not the case in mathematics. Cue to autonomous and heteronomous fields…

Of course, I do count myself very lucky (though it’s not as if my own agency had no role to play in this at all – I bascially created my own jobs through applying for research grants, which gave me the time to prove to political scientists what I can do, and I did also forgot to mention earlier on that before doing my MScE I studied one year gender studies within social and political science, so that made the transition easier too). And the reason why I haven’t blogged on this before was precisely that for me these heterodox struggels are a thing of the past. I am enjoying my new life and don’t want to be stuck in these negative energies. But as I conclude my post, it may be a good solution for one individual (me), but what about (a) all the others, and (b) the effects on the discipline (and consequentally its influence in society etc.) ?

You should consider yourself extremely lucky, Ingrid—you were able to find an alternative research community in which your approach was welcome. Most researchers with “heterodox” methods are simply confused, and most of the rest never find an accepting home for even their worthy ideas. If I were you, I’d celebrate my good fortune, concentrate on my new environs, and leave the worrying about my former discipline to all those silly, hidebound former colleagues. After all, I doubt you’d want them meddling too much in your current discipline…