It was this post by Robin Hanson. However, I am not sure that “status” (which suggests having something like a one-dimensional order) is the right explanation here. For example, philosophers tend to say things about a lot of other fields and people from other fields tend to say a lot of things about philosophy. Therefore, unless one considers all those fields to be of equal status, one-dimensional order doesn’t seem to be applicable as an explanation.
It seems to me that:
if field A has a lot of widely applicable methods that are abstract enough and/or have enough modelling capabilities so as to be able to model a wide variety of objects, including most/all objects that are the object of research of field B, then the experts of field A will often express their opinions about the object of research of field B, theories of field B, and the state of field B itself. In other words, if field A has a widely applicable powerful method, then experts of field A will try to apply this method to other fields as well. For example, physics has a lot of powerful methods that are applicable well beyond physics. Some ideas developed in philosophy are often abstract enough so as to be (or seem to be) applicable to a wide variety of things.
Note, however, that in some cases these methods may fail to capture important features of the object of field B. On the other hand, experts of field B have incentives to claim that methods of field A are not applicable to their field, because otherwise field B is redundant. In response, they may start to focus on the aspects of their field that are harder to model using field A’s tools, whether those aspects are important or not. Yet another interesting case is when there are two fields A and A_1 whose methods are capable of modelling certain aspects of the object of research of field B. Then experts of A may denounce the application of A_1′s methods to the field B (and vice versa) as failing to capture important things and contradicting findings of field A.
if the object of research of field A is closely related to human experiences that are (very) common and/or concepts that are related to common sense concepts (e.g.cover the same subject), then people of other fields will often express their opinions about the object of field A, theories of field A and field A itself. For example, many concepts of philosophy, psychology (and maybe most/all social sciences) are directly related to human experiences and common sense concepts, therefore a layperson is more likely to speculate about the topics of those fields.
Well, of course there is the idea that the findings of two research fields A and B should not contradict each other. And there is this informal “purity” rank, i.e. if A is to the right of B, then experts of A will regard findings of B as wrong, whereas experts of B will regard theories of A as failing to capture important features of the object of research of their field. However, it doesn’t seem to me that all fields can be neatly ordered this way. One reason is there is at least two possible partial orders. One is the “reductionist” way, i.e. if the object of field B is made out of the stuff that is the object of field A, then field A is to the right of object B. Another way is to arrange fields according to their methods. If field B borrows a lot of methods from the field A, but not vice versa (in other words, methods of A can be used to model the object of field B), then field B can be said to be to the left of A. In some cases, these two orders do not coincide. For example, the object of economics is made out of the object of psychology, however, it is my impression that most subfields of economics borrow their methods directly from mathematics (or physics), i.e. in the second partial ordering psychology is not between economics and mathematics. By the way, conflating these two orders might give rise to intuitions that are not necessarily grounded in reality. For example, mathematics (despite the fact that not all physicists’ results are formalized yet), is probably to the right of physics when we order fields according to their methods. That gives us intuition that mathematics is to the right of physics in the “reductionist” order as well, i.e. the object of physics is made out of mathematical structures. Well, this might turn out to be true but you should not proclaim this as casually as some people do.
It was this post by Robin Hanson. However, I am not sure that “status” (which suggests having something like a one-dimensional order) is the right explanation here. For example, philosophers tend to say things about a lot of other fields and people from other fields tend to say a lot of things about philosophy. Therefore, unless one considers all those fields to be of equal status, one-dimensional order doesn’t seem to be applicable as an explanation.
It seems to me that:
if field A has a lot of widely applicable methods that are abstract enough and/or have enough modelling capabilities so as to be able to model a wide variety of objects, including most/all objects that are the object of research of field B, then the experts of field A will often express their opinions about the object of research of field B, theories of field B, and the state of field B itself. In other words, if field A has a widely applicable powerful method, then experts of field A will try to apply this method to other fields as well. For example, physics has a lot of powerful methods that are applicable well beyond physics. Some ideas developed in philosophy are often abstract enough so as to be (or seem to be) applicable to a wide variety of things. Note, however, that in some cases these methods may fail to capture important features of the object of field B. On the other hand, experts of field B have incentives to claim that methods of field A are not applicable to their field, because otherwise field B is redundant. In response, they may start to focus on the aspects of their field that are harder to model using field A’s tools, whether those aspects are important or not. Yet another interesting case is when there are two fields A and A_1 whose methods are capable of modelling certain aspects of the object of research of field B. Then experts of A may denounce the application of A_1′s methods to the field B (and vice versa) as failing to capture important things and contradicting findings of field A.
if the object of research of field A is closely related to human experiences that are (very) common and/or concepts that are related to common sense concepts (e.g.cover the same subject), then people of other fields will often express their opinions about the object of field A, theories of field A and field A itself. For example, many concepts of philosophy, psychology (and maybe most/all social sciences) are directly related to human experiences and common sense concepts, therefore a layperson is more likely to speculate about the topics of those fields.
Well, of course there is the idea that the findings of two research fields A and B should not contradict each other. And there is this informal “purity” rank, i.e. if A is to the right of B, then experts of A will regard findings of B as wrong, whereas experts of B will regard theories of A as failing to capture important features of the object of research of their field. However, it doesn’t seem to me that all fields can be neatly ordered this way. One reason is there is at least two possible partial orders. One is the “reductionist” way, i.e. if the object of field B is made out of the stuff that is the object of field A, then field A is to the right of object B. Another way is to arrange fields according to their methods. If field B borrows a lot of methods from the field A, but not vice versa (in other words, methods of A can be used to model the object of field B), then field B can be said to be to the left of A. In some cases, these two orders do not coincide. For example, the object of economics is made out of the object of psychology, however, it is my impression that most subfields of economics borrow their methods directly from mathematics (or physics), i.e. in the second partial ordering psychology is not between economics and mathematics. By the way, conflating these two orders might give rise to intuitions that are not necessarily grounded in reality. For example, mathematics (despite the fact that not all physicists’ results are formalized yet), is probably to the right of physics when we order fields according to their methods. That gives us intuition that mathematics is to the right of physics in the “reductionist” order as well, i.e. the object of physics is made out of mathematical structures. Well, this might turn out to be true but you should not proclaim this as casually as some people do.