Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Credentials and Interdisciplinary Work:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_07_23-2006_07_29.shtml#1153953978
A commenter on [1]an earlier thread faults me for citing Prof.
Browne's work as a counterpoint to Prof. Barres':
ev loses significant credibility with me when he attempts to
"balance" an article about a scientific subject, written by an
expert in the field and published in nature, with an article by a
law professor with no scientific expertise in a (presumably
student-edited) law review. granted, the nature article was not
peer-reviewed either, but the author at least had the credentials
and experience to know what he was talking about.
This highlights, I think, an important and oft-forgotten point: While
laypeople understandably care about experts' credentials -- we lack
the talent, time, or both to evaluate the underlying data ourselves --
it helps to scrutinize credentials with some care, especially since
scholars often cross disciplinary boundaries.
Prof. Browne, for instance, is a law professor who has been trained as
a lawyer; but his legal interests have led him to the
interdisciplinary field of law and evolutionary biology. Besides law
review articles, he has also written two books published by university
presses, [2]Divided Labours: An Evolutionary View of Women at Work, in
Yale University Press's Darwinism Today series, and [3]Biology at
Work: Rethinking Sexual Equality, in Rutgers University Press's Series
in Human Evolution. I haven't read the books -- I've only looked at
Prof. Browne's shorter work -- but my sense is that writing such books
(1) is not at all outside the competence of an intelligent law
professor with a job that permits him to do interdisciplinary work,
and (2) will give even someone who doesn't have a Ph.D. in psychology
or biology, and who doesn't have an appointment in the psychology or
biology department, a pretty broad and deep knowledge of the
experimental literature. I'd take quite seriously what Judge Posner
has to say about economics, though he's trained as a lawyer rather
than an economist; I'm sure many economists disagree with much of what
he says, but his opinions are nonetheless worth considering despite
his academic background. Likewise with Prof. Browne.
Prof. Barres is indeed trained as a neurobiologist, and is a Professor
of Neurobiology. He has [4]written extensively on neuorobiology, and
neurobiologists are likely to find work on genetics and cognitive
psychology to be quite accessible. On the other hand, Prof. Barres'
list of publications does not seem to include any scholarly work on
gender differences, unless I've missed some, and setting aside any
pieces too recent to include (such as his Nature essay).
It is possible that Prof. Barres has read as deeply and broadly as
Prof. Browne on the subject, or even more deeply and broadly. It is
possible that he has read less. Whether or not Prof. Barres has
studied this field more than Prof. Browne has, Prof. Browne's books on
the subject suggest that Prof. Browne has read enough to be taken
seriously. In any event, I would not casually dismiss either Prof.
Barres' opinion or Prof. Browne's, regardless of the departments in
which they teach, the degrees that they have, or the nature of the
journal in which they published their shorter work.
References
1. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_07_23-2006_07_29.shtml#1153940676
2.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300080263/103-0060093-0423814?v=glance&n=283155
3.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813530539/103-0060093-0423814?v=glance&n=283155
4.
http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/frdActionServlet?choiceId=showFacPublications&fid=4239
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