The hottest Social Sciences Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Technology Topics

Quantifying Curriculum Degradation: Evidence from the University of Chicago

Heterodox STEM • 192 implied HN points • 15 Mar 26
🚌 Education Social Sciences
  1. A keyword-based method can flag courses as engaging with progressive ideas or the Western canon, and while this approach is blunt and prone to errors or manipulation, it is useful for tracking changes over time and comparing institutions.
  2. At the University of Chicago (2012–2025) the share of courses matching progressive keywords rose from about 12.7% to 28.3% while canon-related courses stayed near 12%, so progressive signals now outpace canon signals especially in humanities and social sciences and even show up in STEM.
  3. A public Curriculum Content Index built from catalogs, syllabi, and enrollment could give families, donors, and policymakers transparent comparisons across universities, but such an index should be treated as a noisy first pass and not as a basis for micromanaging curricula or replacing careful evaluation.

On Earning Trust: The Case for the Social Sciences

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 199 implied HN points • 13 Dec 25
🚌 Education Social Sciences
  1. Universities must earn public trust by being institutionally trustworthy: fix internal monocultures and focus teaching on real, demonstrable skills that give students access to useful knowledge.
  2. The true ‘super‑intelligence’ is the five‑millennia corpus of human ideas, and modern text‑processing systems are valuable mainly as translators or front ends to curated knowledge rather than infallible oracles.
  3. Education should train people to connect to, interpret, and extend the collective human mind by teaching durable methods, literacies, Popperian testability, and epistemic humility while updating practical skills for new media.

Never mind the quality, feel the speed

imperfect offerings • 239 implied HN points • 02 Feb 24
🚌 Education Social Sciences
  1. The research economy is increasingly focused on speed over quality, especially with the rise of generative AI, which can have negative impacts on reproducibility and diverse fields of knowledge.
  2. Data models in research need to be carefully scrutinized for accuracy and not blindly relied upon, even in specialized areas like protein folding, climate science, or medical diagnostics.
  3. Speed and heuristics shouldn't overshadow the importance of deliberation, qualitative research, and embracing complexity in arriving at meaningful solutions to multidimensional problems.

Fixing Higher Ed: The Bailey-Caplan Convo

Bet On It • 105 implied HN points • 22 Aug 25
🚌 Education Social Sciences
  1. There's concern about the increasing politicization of universities, which some liken to past political eras like McCarthyism. This raises questions about how knowledge and education are being influenced by ideology.
  2. Many feel that government funding for higher education may actually be contributing to wasted time for students. It's important to think about how much funding should be given and how it should be used.
  3. The debate about what to save in higher education includes discussions on faculty hiring and the importance of ideological diversity. Ensuring a range of viewpoints can help foster a more open inquiry in academic settings.
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Disruptive science has declined (might have bigger implications for social sciences)

An Africanist Perspective • 138 implied HN points • 11 Jan 23
🔬 Science Social Sciences
  1. Science is publishing more, but the disruptive nature of research papers has decreased, focusing more on incremental progress.
  2. The decline in disruptive science may have significant implications for social sciences, affecting the breadth and depth of new discoveries.
  3. To optimize 'real' discoveries in Africanist social sciences, researchers should embrace diverse research approaches, read and cite more African-based research, write more comprehensive books, and maintain long-term study in specific regions.

Psychology Findings You Can Bank On

Unsafe Science • 54 implied HN points • 24 Dec 24
🔬 Science Social Sciences
  1. Psychological research has produced valuable insights that can enhance our understanding of human behavior. It's important to pay attention to these findings.
  2. Some claims made in the social sciences are questionable and need to be critically evaluated. Not everything that is published is reliable.
  3. There's ongoing debate about the quality of psychological studies, so it's good to be skeptical and look for well-supported evidence.

My Class About Causal Inference

By Reason Alone • 42 implied HN points • 13 Feb 25
🚌 Education Social Sciences
  1. Teaching causal inference helps students understand the relationship between cause and effect in social sciences. It's important to make complex ideas relatable to engage younger audiences.
  2. Using visual aids, like graphs, can enhance understanding of complicated topics, especially in a classroom setting. Students can connect better with the material when it’s presented visually.
  3. Recommended readings and real-world examples, like the draft lottery, can spark curiosity in students. Sharing interesting studies can help them see the relevance of these concepts in everyday life.

Correlation is not a percentage

inexactscience • 39 implied HN points • 22 Jul 23
🚌 Education Social Sciences
  1. Correlation does not mean one thing causes another. Just because two things are related doesn't mean one causes the other.
  2. Many people mistakenly think the correlation coefficient is a percentage. This can be misleading and lead to wrong conclusions.
  3. To understand how much one thing explains another, use the coefficient of determination, not the correlation. Squaring the correlation gives you a clearer picture of the relationship.

Techtopia. What it is & Why It’s Important

The Digital Anthropologist • 19 implied HN points • 20 Oct 23
🕹 Technology Social Sciences
  1. The concept of techtopia, a fusion of technology and human sociology, explores the idea of living an ideal life through advanced technologies.
  2. Techtopian thinking can be problematic as it tends to overlook human nature and relies too heavily on technology to solve all problems.
  3. Despite its flaws, exploring techtopia is crucial for understanding the potential risks and benefits of advanced digital technologies and envisioning how human societies can evolve.

The Wisdom To Choose Action or Inaction

Who is Robert Malone • 14 implied HN points • 04 Nov 24
📖 Philosophy Social Sciences
  1. It's important to understand the difference between complicated systems, like computers, and complex systems, like ecosystems or human societies. Complex systems are unpredictable and can't always be controlled with precise interventions.
  2. When dealing with complex systems, sometimes it's better to wait and observe rather than rush to act. Taking a careful, incremental approach can help prevent unintended consequences.
  3. Censorship and forced social engineering can hinder our ability to adapt and learn from experiences. Encouraging free communication and decentralized thinking is crucial for innovation and growth.

Quant Letter: December 2023, Week-2

The Parlour • 12 implied HN points • 13 Dec 23
🕹 Technology Social Sciences
  1. The ML-Quant website has been revamped and is now free for all users to enjoy the newsletter.
  2. Research papers on SSRN cover various topics like volatility modeling, portfolio asset selection, and sentiment analysis using machine learning.
  3. In the field of quantitative finance, there have been recent advancements in areas such as optimal portfolio selection, volatility forecasting, and financial sentiment analysis.

Academia as a Status Game

Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology • 15 implied HN points • 16 Aug 23
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Social Sciences
  1. In academia, citations reflect what the industry values and can lead to grants, tenure, and status.
  2. Research on Black Lives Matter often focuses on promoting radical causes rather than saving lives directly.
  3. There is a need for a major reorientation in social science research to prioritize studies that can save lives, especially in law enforcement.

2x2 games will change your life

Wyclif's Dust • 7 HN points • 24 Feb 24
🚌 Education Social Sciences
  1. Mathematics can change the way you think by showing how words correspond to underlying structures.
  2. 2x2 games, like the Prisoner's Dilemma, are simple models that offer powerful insights into cooperation, trade, and decision-making.
  3. Understanding game theory, particularly 2x2 games, can help in analyzing real-world scenarios such as economics, politics, and social interactions.

Book Review: The Sacred Project of American Sociology

Symbolic Capital(ism) • 19 implied HN points • 07 May 20
🚌 Education Social Sciences
  1. American sociology is a political, sacred, and spiritual project with a specific goal of emancipation, equality, and moral affirmation of individuals.
  2. Sociology's sacred project aims to venerate, protect, and advance a specific Durkheimian sacred regarding human autonomy, equality, and identity.
  3. Sociologists must critically assess and make explicit the sacred mission of American sociology to better understand the discipline's impacts, costs, and tradeoffs on academia and society.

And the Oscar for Economics Goes To... (2/2)

Some Unpleasant Arithmetic • 2 implied HN points • 08 Mar 24
🚌 Education Social Sciences
  1. Attending elite prep schools like the fictional Barton Academy can significantly impact future success, leading to better chances of admission to prestigious colleges and higher income levels.
  2. Distinctively Black names have always existed in the United States, and research shows that having these names does not necessarily imply disadvantages in the labor market.
  3. Moving to better neighborhoods during childhood can have a positive impact on future outcomes, such as higher education attainment and earnings, particularly if the move occurs at a young age.

Democracy of evidence

Hypertext • 0 implied HN points • 27 Mar 24
🚌 Education Social Sciences
  1. Econometrics helps to reveal truths in small-scale matters, but applying them to large societal issues requires many assumptions. Democratizing knowledge generation can be a social game-changer by putting economic tools in the hands of more people.
  2. Academics often focus on big questions about human nature, but the implementation of policies by governmental and social organizations could benefit from more hands-on and practical application of econometric tools to measure the impact of these policies.
  3. Government and social institutions should embrace a more incremental approach, like carpenters, making gradual improvements as opposed to sweeping changes. There's potential for significant social change when institutions start questioning and measuring the effectiveness of their own operations.