Re: AI understanding, only text processing tasks are showing exponential benchmark improvement, other tasks are not. LLMs suck at simple things like parsing a PDF and can’t reliably make sense of the contents, and some of the most valuable human knowledge is locked up in PDFs. I asked Claude Code to create a PowerPoint presentation and it created one where all the slides were static images, not a proper, editable PPTX. An entry level intern can read PDFs and make PowerPoints.
Maybe the age of buying a first home keeps rising because the age of first marriage and first child keeps rising. I am N=1, but I could have bought a home at 25. I had no desire and waited until I had a baby in the house.
I think it's better to criticize the paper's methodology than just point out biases. The paper also analyzed economics papers and finds a similar trend. And it's the trend that's more interesting than the position of each field
It is pretty logical that macro-economics will lean left and micro-economics will lean right (as an aside: already in the Bush jr. era the ratio of Dems vs Reps was 6 to 1 among economists).
As for the paper's methodology, a few have criticized it for 'garbage in is garbage out'.
Personally I don't think many sociologists (especially in the US journals) subscribe to a command economy. In this sense almost nobody falls within the scope of the old fashioned political left, with nationalized industries, wage earner funds, paternalism and powerful unions calling the shots.
Some left leaning sociologists are gripped by 'diversity', others by inequality questions. There is a natural tension between these two realities and subjects.
Re: AI understanding, only text processing tasks are showing exponential benchmark improvement, other tasks are not. LLMs suck at simple things like parsing a PDF and can’t reliably make sense of the contents, and some of the most valuable human knowledge is locked up in PDFs. I asked Claude Code to create a PowerPoint presentation and it created one where all the slides were static images, not a proper, editable PPTX. An entry level intern can read PDFs and make PowerPoints.
Maybe the age of buying a first home keeps rising because the age of first marriage and first child keeps rising. I am N=1, but I could have bought a home at 25. I had no desire and waited until I had a baby in the house.
Are you sure about the median first-time homebuyer age?
Ben Carlson notes some of the problems https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/03/viral-charts/
"Social Science leans left" is written by a right wing figure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Manzi_(software_entrepreneur)
It is also somewhat logical: the focus is on society and what makes it healthy/strong.
Just as microeconomics and its (hidden) assumptions will lean right. To individualism and egoism.
Part of sociology used to be conservative, especially structural-functionalism. But its staticness and steady-state was also reason for the decline.
I think it's better to criticize the paper's methodology than just point out biases. The paper also analyzed economics papers and finds a similar trend. And it's the trend that's more interesting than the position of each field
I think economics is very broad.
It is pretty logical that macro-economics will lean left and micro-economics will lean right (as an aside: already in the Bush jr. era the ratio of Dems vs Reps was 6 to 1 among economists).
As for the paper's methodology, a few have criticized it for 'garbage in is garbage out'.
Personally I don't think many sociologists (especially in the US journals) subscribe to a command economy. In this sense almost nobody falls within the scope of the old fashioned political left, with nationalized industries, wage earner funds, paternalism and powerful unions calling the shots.
Some left leaning sociologists are gripped by 'diversity', others by inequality questions. There is a natural tension between these two realities and subjects.
Also, this academic Journal was recently overhauled by AxelSpringer. A notoriously rightwing publisher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_and_Society
https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2024/01/12/jonathan-turner-is-the-new-co-editor-of-theory-and-society-and-his-latest-diatribe-wont-surprise-you-at-all/