Counterpoint: right now, “social and behavioral science” is the least neglected field on earth. It is a multi-trillion-dollar industry, possibly larger than all academia in human history (especially if you discount physics during the 20th century); and rather than merely paying for itself immediately after the research is finished, it pays for itself even earlier. Governments fight wars over it, and ludicrously large corporations fight to monopolize it.
If academia’s first-mover advantage (e.g. “psychology”, “statistics”) was enough to secure a large share of the future of social and behavioral R&D, then academic R&D on social and behavioral science would be fine, and this paper never would have been written.
It’s a very well written paper, and I’ll be saving it because it has good info for my open-source intelligence work. But academic behavioral sciences have stagnated because academia has stagnated, not because behavioral sciences have stagnated.
I think our point is more that there is not enough social and behavioral science R&D anywhere (in or out of academia) specifically targeted at EA goals, i.e., finding interventions that can generate >1000x ROI at scale. If that R&D were really happening outside of academia, then great! But the recent retrenchment at GiveWell to just 4 interventions with sufficient evidence to be “top charities” suggests that we are not in fact investing sufficiently in R&D to find highly cost-effective causes.
Without targeted funding, social and behavioral science R&D to find interventions that clear the >1000x ROI threshold won’t happen on its own: academic journals and public funders of science don’t prioritize that particular goal. But incentives matter! If we want to find those interventions, all we have to do is fund the work.
Counterpoint: right now, “social and behavioral science” is the least neglected field on earth. It is a multi-trillion-dollar industry, possibly larger than all academia in human history (especially if you discount physics during the 20th century); and rather than merely paying for itself immediately after the research is finished, it pays for itself even earlier. Governments fight wars over it, and ludicrously large corporations fight to monopolize it.
If academia’s first-mover advantage (e.g. “psychology”, “statistics”) was enough to secure a large share of the future of social and behavioral R&D, then academic R&D on social and behavioral science would be fine, and this paper never would have been written.
It’s a very well written paper, and I’ll be saving it because it has good info for my open-source intelligence work. But academic behavioral sciences have stagnated because academia has stagnated, not because behavioral sciences have stagnated.
Thanks for this.
I think our point is more that there is not enough social and behavioral science R&D anywhere (in or out of academia) specifically targeted at EA goals, i.e., finding interventions that can generate >1000x ROI at scale. If that R&D were really happening outside of academia, then great! But the recent retrenchment at GiveWell to just 4 interventions with sufficient evidence to be “top charities” suggests that we are not in fact investing sufficiently in R&D to find highly cost-effective causes.
Without targeted funding, social and behavioral science R&D to find interventions that clear the >1000x ROI threshold won’t happen on its own: academic journals and public funders of science don’t prioritize that particular goal. But incentives matter! If we want to find those interventions, all we have to do is fund the work.