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The New Nostradamus [ Bruce Bueno de Mesquita ]
Good magazine ^ | November / December 2007 | Michael A.M. Lerner, photos by Ethan Hill

Posted on 11/02/2007 9:06:43 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

The brouhaha culminated at a raucous APSA meeting in 2001 at San Francisco's Hilton Hotel with the open revolt of a group of major-league political scientists who, one by one, took to the podium to rail against rational choice and its encroaching methodological orthodoxy. Dubbed the "Perestroika Movement" by its anonymous founder (apparently, rational-choice folk are a powerful and vindictive lot), the dissident group vowed to take a stand against "the domination of mathematical approaches to the discipline." There is a "hegemonic threat out there," warned John J. Mearsheimer, a noted professor of international relations at the University of Chicago. "This is about the mathematicization of political science," he said. "I'm in favor of filling the zoo with all kinds of animals. But I'm concerned about them running us out of the business or making us marginal." Ultimately, the Perestroikans did win some concessions: a new editor of the APSR who vowed to make the flagship journal more hospitable to mathematics-free articles and a pledge from the APSA to open up its method of appointing officers. "The APSA had become dominated by those practicing so-called rigorous analyses," says Walt. "Now the pendulum has swung back a bit."

(Excerpt) Read more at goodmagazine.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Business/Economy; Science
KEYWORDS: brucebuenodemesquita; nostradamus
Hegemonic threats... heh...
Stanley Feder, former CIA analyst: We found that [national intelligence] analyses, even when they were right, were vague compared to [Bueno de Mesquita's] forecasts. If you hit the target, that's great. But if you hit the bull's eye -- that's amazing.

1 posted on 11/02/2007 9:06:44 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: AdmSmith; Berosus; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; KlueLass; ...

Fascinating article, and the reader comments at the page are mostly vicious. S’cool.


2 posted on 11/02/2007 9:07:56 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Monday, October 22, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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The Political Roots of Poverty
The National Interest | Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Hilton L. Root
Posted on 07/26/2002 8:47:10 AM EDT by Valin
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/722637/posts

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita on Democracies and Dictatorships
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/02/bruce_bueno_de.html
Posted on 09/15/2007 10:37:02 AM EDT by cool2007
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1897004/posts


3 posted on 11/02/2007 9:08:53 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Monday, October 22, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv

I read he article and found it quite intersting. I’d not heard of this guy or these ideas before, so I thank you for posting it. I wonder though, does he have anything to say about Hillary ? I guess he did say he won’t participate in campaigns, but what’s to stop others from doing so ? Some of Hillary’s “manna for the masses” ideas make me wonder.


4 posted on 11/02/2007 2:47:32 PM PDT by Red Boots
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To: Red Boots

:’) I wonder that too. And you’re welcome.


5 posted on 11/02/2007 10:41:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Monday, October 22, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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