The basic problem is here in my perspective, that Think Tanks almost always subscribe to a specific line of thought and exist to promote this cause. While on the other hand less political motivated researchers are too much in love with constructing models, that nobody outside of their peer group understands and often come with questionable value for real life implications.
Possibly. I read some absolute drek as well in a U of Chicago symposium on the subject...
Re: think tanks, isn't it something that even in supposedly less rigorous fields like, oh English literature, such upfront results-orientation would be considered the badge of unserious scholarship?
No.In general you can expect such "results-orientation" from all sorts of researchers, both in think tanks and universities. You just accept it and apply appropriate skepticism.
And it's important to note that "appropriate skepticism" != "ignore everything they say". Just because a person is an advocate of a position doesn't mean their facts are wrong or their arguments are incorrect.
Most university researchers aren't so results oriented they take a job with an organization that has the explicit purpose of pushing a single agenda.
And yes, I generally ignore what people at think tanks say. Life is too short, and I prioritize the views of people whose credibility isn't compromised from step 1.
> Re: think tanks, isn't it something that even in supposedly less rigorous fields like, oh English literature, such upfront results-orientation would be considered the badge of unserious scholarship?
Nowhere near as fishy as how think tanks work, but how scientists and academics think about hypotheses is actually very complex and you'd be surprised at how often unserious scholarship is tolerated.
E.g. it's not uncommon to first write a paper and then tag on a hypothesis that just happens to agree with your conclusion, to change the hypothesis when your own research proves it to be wrong (it's hard to get research published about things that didn't work), or to try everything you can to prove a hypothesis, rather than to try and falsify it.
Surely you would need further experimentation to prove your new hypothesis, right? It doesn't seem very rigorous to just shrug your shoulders and publish a hypothesis that fits the data.
