A few people have mentioned that they think the title is inflammatory—it wasn’t intended as such. I had never thought that the term randomista is pejorative, e.g. you can find various examples of eg chris blattman owning it
I think even if it isn’t inflammatory, a different title might make the intended audience less defensive and more likely to change their minds as it isn’t about their identity, and more about how much weight to give RCTs versus other evaluation methods.
We did not use it in a name calling way but rather as a neutral term to describe the intellectual movement.
I have no doubt that the term was used in good faith. I apologise that my post was worded a bit poorly, so it sounded like I was accusing you of name-calling.
What’s your basis for claiming that ‘randomista’ is a non-neutral term?
The ‘-ista’ suffix sounds pejorative to me in English,like someone who is a zealous dogmatic advocate. Corbynista was the example I referred to, which is a term used often to in the UK to bash the left.
Etymologically, it sounds like my suspicion was correct (see Hauke’s post above). Of course these words often get reclaimed, and it appears that’s happened here too, hence why I asked whether the RCT proponents call themselves that.
It’s obviously not that important, and I don’t want to start a battle over words, but David makes a good point about how you engage your critics.
A few people have mentioned that they think the title is inflammatory—it wasn’t intended as such. I had never thought that the term randomista is pejorative, e.g. you can find various examples of eg chris blattman owning it
I think even if it isn’t inflammatory, a different title might make the intended audience less defensive and more likely to change their minds as it isn’t about their identity, and more about how much weight to give RCTs versus other evaluation methods.
Yes I think that’s a fair point
I have no doubt that the term was used in good faith. I apologise that my post was worded a bit poorly, so it sounded like I was accusing you of name-calling.
The ‘-ista’ suffix sounds pejorative to me in English,like someone who is a zealous dogmatic advocate. Corbynista was the example I referred to, which is a term used often to in the UK to bash the left.
Etymologically, it sounds like my suspicion was correct (see Hauke’s post above). Of course these words often get reclaimed, and it appears that’s happened here too, hence why I asked whether the RCT proponents call themselves that.
It’s obviously not that important, and I don’t want to start a battle over words, but David makes a good point about how you engage your critics.