metrics
Explanation
Titled "How Social Science Metrics Work," the comic walks through the lifecycle of a social science measurement tool in six steps. Step 1: Someone comes up with an ad hoc test that roughly measures something they care about. Step 2: The metric proliferates -- it gets its initial ad hoc nature ironed out, produces good data, and becomes established in the literature. Step 3: The metric becomes so widespread that you can't even run a study without citing it, and you can get papers published on it even with small sample sizes. Step 4: After repeated failures to replicate, scientists begin questioning the metric's validity, while its original creators protest they never intended it to be used so broadly. Step 5: It's too late to change -- the method is now standard. Step 6: Nobody believes in it, but there are now entire institutional structures (labs, professorships, grants) built around it that can't be dismantled.
The comic satirizes the replication crisis in social science. It shows how an imperfect measurement tool can become entrenched through institutional inertia, even after it's been discredited. The humor comes from the inevitability of each step and the final absurd outcome: everyone knows the metric is flawed, but entire careers depend on it, so it persists. It's a pointed critique of how academic incentive structures can perpetuate bad science.