Mark D. White

Writer, editor, teacher

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about

I’m a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island/CUNY, where I teach courses in philosophy, economics, and law, and the author/editor/co-editor of several books.

Category: Other blogs

  • “Should We Trust Economists?” Yes and no.

    Mark D. White The worst thing to do when I'm trying to write is have Twitter open. Not only is it distracting (obviously), but it can be positively engrossing. So why do I do it? Because it helps me keep me up-to-date on the state of the world and what smart people are saying about…

  • The Illusion of Mathyness

    Mark D. White Kevin Drum at Mother Jones recently highlighted a new paper by Kimmo Eriksson (Mälardalen University and Stockholm University) published in Judgment and Decision Making titled "The Nonsense Math Effect" (7/6, November 2012). Here's the abstract: Mathematics is a fundamental tool of research. Although potentially applicable in every discipline, the amount of training…

  • Nutritional labeling, nudges, and a “cynical view of human nature”

    Mark D. White New today from associate editor Brian Fung at The Atlantic is a piece on an experimental nutritional labeling system modeled on traffic lights. In use in the United Kingdom (where it was instituted by the British government's "nudge unit"), the revised nutrition labels would have color-coded icons for fat, calories, and other…

  • Chick-fil-A, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Ethical Consumption

    Mark D. White I've read an enormous amount of what's been written on the Chick-fil-A controversy the last couple weeks, although I'm sure I haven't scratched the surface. But I was fascinated by Will Wilkinson's recent post at The Economist's Democracy in America blog, titled "Feathers Flying," in which he casts the fast food company's stance…

  • How Much Inequality Do We Want? This is the Wrong Question.

    Mark D. White Today on The Atlantic's website, Dan Ariely describes an experiment he conducted with Mike Norton in which they survey people about both the current distribution of wealth in the U.S. and what they thought the ideal distribution of wealth is. Not surprisingly, they find that most everybody underestimates the level of inequality of wealth,…

  • Which is “harder”: social science or physical science?

    Mark D. White Yesterday, Kevin Drum at Mother Jones spoke up for social science following an editorial in Nature arguing against the NSF's proposed defunding of research in political science. Here's a bit of the op-ed: Part of the blame must lie with the practice of labelling the social sciences as soft, which too readily translates as…

  • A blogsistential crisis: Lynne Murphy asks, “Am I an academic, a blogger, or both?”

    Mark D. White I'm fascinated by the recent trend of academic bloggers reflecting on what it is they do, and the latest comes from linguist Lynne Murphy of the Separated by a Common Language blog, writing in the Impact of Social Sciences blog run by the London School of Economics. (Thanks to Andrea Doucet for…

  • Positive signs regarding “The Future of Economics” from Davos

    Mark D. White As pointed out by Lynne Kiesling at Knowledge Problem, Nobel laureates Peter Diamond and Joe Stiglitz, along with (this year's ASE/ASSA keynote speaker) Robert Shiller and Brian Arthur, discussed "The Future of Economics," which moderator Martin Wolf summarizes at the Financial Times' The World blog. Kiesling condenses Wolf's summary (as reproduced below): First,…

  • Prawfsblawg’s Dan Markel on law blogging (or blawging, if you will)

    Mark D. White There seems to be a bit of discussion in the air about acacdemic blogging lately (and not just at the wonderful dinner I shared with Jonathan Wight last night at the ASSA conference!). In addition to the pieces I highlighted several days ago, I just found this post by my friend Dan…

  • On academic (and specifically economic) blogging

    Mark D. White I've been meaning to mention the first piece for a while, but when I saw the second piece today I decided to pair them up. First is an article from last week's The Economist regarding the importance of the blogosphere in criticizing mainstream economics from the viewpoint of heterodox scholars, in light of…