nerds vs clevers

Párrafo del mejor artículo que he leído sobre el estado de situación en la academia de la sombría ciencia:

In a sense, the split between people like Jim Heckman and Steve Levitt is a split between the nerds and the clevers. The nerds complain that Levitt and his ilk are so far removed from using meat-and-potatoes economic theory they may as well be practicing journalism. "In some quarters of our profession, the level of discussion has sunk to the level of a New Yorker article," Heckman griped in a 2005 interview with the Minneapolis Fed. "The authors of these papers are usually unclear about the economic questions they address."

The clevers deny that their research turns its back on economic theory. They complain that the nerds insist upon a kind of sadomasochism that does little to advance the cause of knowledge but makes them feel like they're doing God's work. "The structural Gestapo out there acts as if it can't be useful if it's not hard or complicated. We should have a middle ground," Levitt told me.