Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

Assistant professor @tamupols, Ph.D. @psupolisci & @CSoDA_PSU, postdoc @Princeton_CSDP. Text analysis & deep learning, methods, American politics. MLBurnham.com College Station, TX Joined May 2019

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

3 weeks ago

@paulnovosad I think the students were wrong, but I also don’t think the content of the speech is what students were objecting to.

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

@ryancbriggs @carlislerainey @RohanAlexander Very interested to read this! I’m also writing on attention as a bottle neck, but under the assumption that adjudication stops being one.

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

Anything computable is at risk of being automated. It’s not clear if there is anything humans do that is non-computable.

Thoughts from today’s lunch w/ friends & colleagues. Anyone who suggests that knowledge work is safe because AIs are not yet good enough misses the fundamental point. They do not write like skilled human writers; they cannot conduct strong unguided literature reviews; they

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John Kastellec @JKastellec

2 months ago

I used Claude Code to build an website that implements the simulations presented in "Making in the Supreme Court: The Politics of Appointments, 1930-2020" (with Chuck Cameron) that predict the composition of the Supreme Court under different scenarios. jkastellec.github.io/msc-simulator/

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

@dbroockman Post this to BlueSky.

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Seo-young Silvia Kim @sysilviakim

2 months ago

Super happy to see this paper finally formatted. While this paper might seem about political fundraising, it's really about the theory of *parties*: is it a broader network (UCLA school, i.e., Bawn et al. 2012) or elite/institutions-driven (re: Aldrich)? doi.org/10.1086/735435

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

This is the correct take. Econ has historically been the standard bearer for rigor in social science, they get credit for that… even if there are other deserved criticisms.

Ryan Briggs @ryancbriggs

2 months ago

This is where I need to say that needling economics is fun because it has a few arrogant, loud people & everyone else is a good sport. Social science is hard, econ has contributed **so much** & this is all a team sport. But also there is no defensible disciplinary supremacy here

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

@MichaelGiberso3 @PradyuPrasad Yes that’s right. I am citing economists to criticize the notion that Econ is free of any type of ideological capture. Obviously I’m not categorically dismissing Econ. That wouldn’t be a serious thing to do.

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

Economists: We are a pure science that is above ideology. Also economists: Let's give federal judges an all expenses paid vacation to push a conservative agenda.

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Ryan Briggs @ryancbriggs

2 months ago

let's use these new Nature papers (cos.io/score) to see if economics is doing better than other social science on reproducibility. Many economists thought they were—and I was assured that they're smarter than most social scientists—so let's see if they were right.

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

@VincentGeloso Yes! I'm citing not accusing the authors. I'm a fan of Elliot Ash's work in particular. Many economists do great work obviously. I actually think they've *mostly* been the standard bearers for rigor in social science. Just pouring some cold water on all the chest thumping lately.

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

@audowla Granted "economists" as a collective did not, I certainly don't mean to imply all economists have an ideological axe to grind. But seems like academic economists were instrumental in founding and running the program? Or is paper's characterization of the program not correct?

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

@JohnJSSoriano I think there may be a misunderstanding here. I'm citing his work as evidence, not accusing him of pushing a conservative agenda.

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

@PradyuPrasad Unfortunately all of claude's points are wrong here. I'm not accusing the authors of pushing an agenda, that should be obvious. I'm citing them for revealing one! Nor did I say the program was simply ideological talking points or that attendance was targeted.

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

"Thank you Lord, that I am not like other social sciences"

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

@antoine_chaffin Flash attention is the biggest barrier for widespread adoption! Lot's of BERT users are on OSX/Windows and won't set up a Linux environment. Think researchers outside of computer science.

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Arthur Spirling @arthur_spirling

3 months ago

Guys, you can’t just draw a big line on a graph and say it’s causal. This isn’t the effect of smart phones literature; there are rules.

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Mike Burnham @ML_Burn

2 months ago

Amazing stuff! 1. Blasts social scientists by critiquing a paper not written by social scientists 2. Apparently doesn't read much social science as he thinks FEs are a foreign concept to them 3. Makes the same mistake as social scientists by having too much faith in FEs

Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil

3 months ago

I did ask some social scientists if they understood these models, and most said they would not have thought to do them. But they're simple: compare siblings, compare the same person over time. Maybe it's ignorance holding social scientists back from testing theories properly.