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from the how-bad-can-something-called-the-dismal-science-be? dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes:
Economics affects us all, so why do so many remain ignorant of the fundamentals? Murray Rothbard said: "[I]t is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."
Personally I'm tired of having to defend economics against both the mainstream advocates (with their broken models) and their critics (who tar economics with one brush). I take the time to educate myself and speak out, based on reason, not angry ignorance, and not on smugness, numerology, and appeals to the authority Lord Keynes.
There is a deep-seated tendency for people to misapply physical science techniques to the social sciences. This has resulted in mainstream economics degenerating into a modern day numerology. However there are intellectually sound schools of economics that do not attempt to treat human actions like Newtonian atoms.
This article from The Mises Institute discusses how and why mainstream economics has lost its way.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:27AM
I take the time to educate myself and speak out, based on reason, not angry ignorance, and not on smugness, numerology, and appeals to the authority Lord Keynes.
There is a lot of irony in making all those insults and then turning around and holding up the Lord Mises as an authority.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @03:33AM
Oh, you mean "libertarian economics"! More of a dream than a science. Totally impervious to data, experimental testing, or even logic. In fact, it is indeed one of the leading candidates for the dark matter we seem to be missing in the universe.
Social Darwinism:: Social Miserism? It's not the fault of great minds that their followers are clueless, nor is it the fault of "great minds" that their minds were in fact not all that great. I now summon the demon khallow!!! Stand back, lest ye be singed!
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @04:07AM
Oh, you mean "Keynesian economics"! More of a dream than a science. Totally impervious to data, experimental testing, or even logic. In fact, it is indeed one of the leading candidates for the dark matter we seem to be missing in the universe.
Social Darwinism:: Social socialism? It's not the fault of great minds that their followers are clueless, nor is it the fault of "great minds" that their minds were in fact not all that great. I now summon the demon aristarchus!!! Stand back, lest ye be singed!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @06:40AM
Burn, you AC heretic! Burn in the fires of your own ignorance! If you dare defend libertarian economics, mountains of retribution and bad karma, and bad money supplies, will fall upon your head! But seriously, again, what do you think hell really is? Sartre was famous for saying "Hell is other people". There is a text, I think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Exit [wikipedia.org] But even more seriously, traditionally hell is nothing more than separation from God, who is the truth, so ignorance is hell.
.
Of course this may not make sense to you, since you are ignorant. I suggest that you watch the White Bear episode on Black Mirror on Netflix. Not sure why. You may be just like this, and I don't think it is fair. Please, study some economics, and you will realize Keynes was right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @07:08AM
Checked the link, it is some pseudointellectual waste of time I was forced to read in school... why not provide topical links in stead of something like the bible that can be interpreted to mean anything?
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @08:03AM
Forced to read in school, were we? Compulsory education not good enough for you? Well just wait until you're walking home, late at night, and some homocidal maniac comes at you with a bunch of poorly digested Ayn Rand! Don't come crying to me, Mister! Forced to read! I swear. Actual books, then, was it?
Here is another link, no reading, so you will be alright. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U90dnUbZMmM [youtube.com] Pointed sticks, eh? And you think this is any worse than the writings of the Vienna Circle? Come at me with this banana! Be as vicious as you like with it!! Come on, you Apricot Coward!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:29AM
As can be seen by our current crop of under/post-graduates, quality is far more important than quantity when it comes to reading. There is a line between education and indoctrination and we have run screaming across it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:04AM
Yeah, right, oh illiterate Buzzard! When it comes to reading, quantity is quality! There is never too much reading! Even reading stuff that is totally wrong, like propaganda from the von Misers Institute and the Online Liberty Library [libertyfund.org] (actually, they have some good stuff, for free, in total contradistinction to their ideology!). If you read enough, the crazy starts to show itself. Surely you know people who only read one book, whether it is τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια or "Atlas Shrugged", and these people cannot tell the crazy, since they have not read enough. So I should not be surprised if my submission on the attempt to censor liberal college professors does not make the light of Soylent Day, again?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:26PM
Reading foolishness does nothing to advance either your own mind or humanity. You can hear idiocy all day long simply by not plugging your ears and save yourself the price of a book. Spend your time reading something intelligent instead and you've bettered both yourself and the sum total of human cognitive ability.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @08:24AM
> Totally impervious to data, experimental testing, or logic.
You must be referring to mainstream economics.
Austrian economics is based on deductive reasoning, i.e. logic. Mainstream economics is based on hand waving cherry picking data, and banging on it until the maths shows something, and then claiming that they have found the truth. This is pure physics envy.
Social Darwinism is an accusation often leveled at libertarians, however this is a peculiarity of the cult of Objectivism. Altruism is a human action, explained and not condemned my Austrian Economics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @09:31AM
Austrian economics is based on deductive reasoning, i.e. logic.
Yes, on totally fantastic axioms. Deductive reasoning from insane premises gives insane conclusions. Ayn Rand on Medicare.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:32AM
Altruism, differentiated from simple compassionate acts by the huge helping of unearned guilt involved, is not remotely a good thing. Helping people because you feel it is a good way to spend your life is laudible, helping them because you feel guilty about having more/better is a form of mental illness.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @08:30AM
> There is a lot of irony in making all those insults and then turning around and holding up the Lord Mises as an authority.
There is important difference between citation and an argument from authority.
Btw, Mises never held the title of Lord, and was unpopular with the political establishment, since his ideas did not suit their agenda.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday December 19 2016, @03:29PM
There is a lot of irony in making all those insults and then turning around and holding up the Lord Mises as an authority.
Indeed, though there's a clue in the sentence you quoted about what Mises was really about -- i.e., "based on reason."
That doesn't mean what most people think it does. Here it refers to rationalism [wikipedia.org], which, philosophically, is pretty much the opposite of "science" as commonly understood today. Modern science derives its method from empiricism, i.e., the belief that we can learn from data in the world, which can be used to refine our hypotheses and theories.
Rationalism, in the more technical sense, appeals to "pure reason" and formal logic as the only basis for "true" knowledge. For example, if you observe something in the real world that contradicts your theory, you don't assume your theory could be falsified, instead you assume that something's wrong with the world. Rather than correcting or revising your theory (or even rejecting it entirely), which an empirical scientist might do, you assume that you simply made a bad observation, or you didn't understand this observation correctly and once you do, it will obviously conform to the TRUTH you KNOW to be true, through private deduction in your own head from unproven (but "True") axioms.
In science, the rationalist perspective was pretty much categorically rejected in the 17th century at the height of the "Scientific Revolution." In fact, some would argue that was actually what the Scientific Revolution was really about -- the immediate generations of intellectuals afterward certainly thought so. If you look at 18th century commentators looking back, they don't talk about Kepler and Galileo and Newton and a revolution in astronomy -- they talk about Descartes and other folks rejecting Aristotle and "rationalist" pedantry in favor of a something closer to our modern empiricism.
So, for a fan of Mises to be putting forth a headline on the flaws in "economic science" -- it's beyond irony. It almost seems like this submission could have been written as satire. If you don't believe me about the Mises folks and their anti-empirical basis -- Read their own website [mises.org], with its explicit rejection of empiricism and lauding of "a priori" truths.
By the way, none of this is to say that "mainstream" economics is good or the model of good "science" -- in many cases, it is also far from it. But for a Mises groupie to lecture the world on "science" is laughable.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @07:01PM
"Rationalism" in the sense you are using it should usually be specified as "Continental Rationalism", and the empiricism as "British Empiricism" The lineage of these Continental Libertarian Economic types runs more from the school of "Positivism" [wikipedia.org], roughly founded by Auguste Comte some time after the French Revolution. This school aims at the rational analysis of empirical facts, but mostly at removing all metaphysics, religion, politics, and artsy-fartsy stuff from science. But in the case of Libertarianism, they are literally hoist by their own petard!
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday December 19 2016, @08:30PM
While I mostly agree with your qualifiers, I can't say that I agree with your characterization of the Mises folks as coming out of Positivism. To the contrary, the link I noted in my previous post from the Mises website explicitly rejects Positivism, embraces (Continental) Rationalism, and views empiricism (British or otherwise) as fundamentally limited and unable to address the types of economic and political questions the Mises folks want to claim to answer.
I'm NOT saying all followers of Mises necessarily agree with this perspective, and some of them are indeed more in the Positivist tradition. But the essay I linked isn't the only place among Mises materials that I've seen explicit rejections of empiricism and an embrace of old-school rationalist epistemologies.
(Score: 1) by segwonk on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:43AM
Apologies: Off topic.
Just wanted to say to both you, AthanasiusKircher, and aristarchus - I really appreciate your insightful, informative and above all, civilized posts. I look forward to reading SN to see what I can learn for the day. Thank you so much! [Of course there are many other contributors I enjoy as well, but I was inspired to say something now for some reason.]
.......go til ya know.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:37AM
If it were a science it would follow actual scientific method. It's at best a cargo cult and mostly a vehicle for opinions. As far as trends go, big money backs an opinion for a while until enough get burned then they switch horses. It's all a scam.
If you missed the last n decades and still need a reminder, just listen to the blather from the awardees of the Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne. Seriously, read their incoherent award speeches. It's just a bunch of cargo-culting mixed with some money and wishful thinking. A committee of banskters picks a theme for the year, then they pick some clown that represents that theme. Theirs is an opinion, one backed by big money, but just another opinion and not science.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday December 19 2016, @03:40AM
If you missed the last n decades and still need a reminder, just listen to the blather from the awardees of the Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne. Seriously, read their incoherent award speeches. It's just a bunch of cargo-culting mixed with some money and wishful thinking.
That award has nearly nothing to do with the Misesian economics that is the subject of this article, though. Not that any of us is going to start reading the f'ing article any time soon; I wouldn't want to break with tradition.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @04:04AM
That is "von Mises" to you, you non-Aryan! Trump rules! Hail victroy! White sumprezemy! (Seriously, Austrian Circle, dude! Look it up. )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @08:15AM
Yes von Mises, that Austrian jew that fled nazi occupation to the US?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @07:57PM
(((von Mises)))!
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday December 19 2016, @09:28PM
(Seriously, Austrian Circle, dude! Look it up. )
I read that sort of stuff every day.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:43AM
You know there are less Klan members in the entire nation than there were people at most Trump rallies, yes? White supremacy is not a very intelligent place to shovel blame.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday December 19 2016, @11:51AM
The article is not worth reading. Empty of content, really. I find it hard to take an article on economics seriously when it does not include math.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @07:45AM
It is science, it's just that there are too many variables to test theories well, and so speculation is used instead. There may be a relationship found between X and Y, but it's hard to say if it's coincidental or indirect. And the nature of the economy changes over time such that historical records may not be very relevant to today.
A messy science is probably better than no science.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:50AM
No, it's really not. Down that road lie things like believing Keynes might be on to something. If you can't use the scientific method, you need to STFU calling things science.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday December 19 2016, @11:30AM
It's important to differentiate economics, as a discipline studied in universities, and economics as a buzzword used in media and government. The first does follow the scientific method. It observes a system, makes predictions, and refines models based on its observations of the changes to the system. The latter cherry picks ideas (often ones discredited decades ago based on observation of the real world), wraps them up in ideology, and then uses them to form policy.
It is incredibly rare for someone introduced as an economist on television or in other news sources to actually be a practicing economics researcher. At best, they're someone who got a PhD in economics and then went off to work in a bank for a few decades.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @04:18AM
Kinda puzzled that nobody has posted that talk radio fave as the solution to the entire field of economics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:37AM
> Kinda puzzled that nobody has posted that talk radio fave
Probably because most people here aren't stupid enough to listen to talk radio.
But wait long enough and maybe buzzard, VLM, runaway, etc will show up and tell us all about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @08:22AM
Probably because most people here aren't stupid enough to listen to talk radio.
"Economics for people who can't read!" Yeah, this will catch on, at least as curriculum at Trump University. What? They closed it down? Such a shame, for those who cannot read, and still wanted a college degree.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ilPapa on Monday December 19 2016, @05:17AM
Economics has never been real science. It's always been nothing more than political agendas dressed as pseudo-science decorated with shoddy maths.
Parapsychology is currently more rigorous than Economics. I'm not joking. And I say this as maybe the only reader of SoylentNews that has actually attended a lecture by Milton Friedman. When he said that, "Economics is the study of scarcity", you could tell to whom he wanted that scarcity distributed.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @06:47AM
And I say this as maybe the only reader of SoylentNews that has actually attended a lecture by Milton Friedman.
Citation nee. . . . no, that would not even begin to cut it! How could you know this? And where is Milton buried? And why would anyone attend one of his lectures, unless extra credit was involved? I once attended a lecture by Nerō Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, but he was still full of it. I was not the only Soylentil in attendence. I leave it as an exercise to the reader the find the other(s).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by linuxrocks123 on Monday December 19 2016, @07:23AM
And where is Milton buried? And why would anyone attend one of his lectures, unless extra credit was involved? I once attended a lecture by Nerō Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, but he was still full of it.
Milton Friedman died in 2006, so it's perfectly believable that someone alive today attended one of his lectures. I know you're only 10, but some of us are older than that.
And if you're going to steal a time machine to listen to a Roman emperor from the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus would have been a much better choice.
Nero was a blowhard, foppish wannabe-poet. Claudius was an opinionated scholar-historian who wrote a treatise on a then-dead language (Etruscan), made a passionate case for adding letters to the Roman alphabet, and was politically sidelined for writing a truthful history of the overthrow of the Roman Republic while the guy who overthrew the Roman Republic (Octavian/"Augustus") was still emperor.
Then, when he was forcibly placed on the throne by a series of improbable events, he ruled justly, was a competent administrator, conducted an impressive and tactically well-planned expansion of Rome's territory, and invested heavily in well-chosen public works projects.
Dude was a geek who ruled one of the most powerful empires on Earth and ruled it well. Claudius was awesome.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @08:28AM
Ah, my nemesis, linuxrocks123, who has banned me and therefore never reads any of my comments . . . Oops!
Time machine? I was there! Not the best time I have ever had in Rome, but when you are almost 2400 years old, I suppose you have to expect some downers. And some wacko economic theories, like Moses von Mises and Alex Jones.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:02PM
You have so many nemeses, perhaps it would help if you weren't a skid mark on the boxers of humanity yourself.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @06:26PM
Almost all of my nemeses are nematodes, which why they never read my comments. Oh, what I would give for a worthy opponent! You know, some one capable of rational argument and not prone to playground insults. Seems all I get are ACs with potty training issues. Oh, well. We were talking about the mental disability know as "libertarianism" which seems to be what many mean by "libtard", or so I can only surmise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @12:41AM
Milton Friedman died in 2006, so it's perfectly believable that someone alive today attended one of his lectures.
You miss, as usual, aristarchus' point: it is the claim that he is the only soylentil that actually did so, not that he is somebody who did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @07:46AM
I agree it is a shoddy 'science'. The problem is the systems they build. Almost all of them work. Only however in a very particular set of conditions.
It is when those conditions are no longer met or the actual real system changes they have no clue. They actually do not model chaos very well at all.
They usually measure things with *very* *very* simple algebra and sometimes trigonometry. When they need to be using 20+ level deep calculus measuring change of a system over the range of variables as they change inside of a diff eq matrix. They try to shoehorn everything into a simple x/y grid when it is a multilevel dimensional thing.
Then even IF they could get the math right (which they have not). Then *only* if they could actually measure things properly. They have tons of made up things to measure with no proper way to actually measure them.
So when they model things everything goes sideways because they have no possible way to measure overall spending velocity anxiety for the average household or business. When that sort of thing is 'kinda constant' they can actually make some predictions. But when it starts moving around (for reasons they do not know) all of their formulas are garbage.
These dudes then make huge sweeping statements and write books that are bunk. Some political dudes actually take them seriously. Then those very plans meant to help people do the exact opposite. They honestly have no idea why. Because they do not actually understand the system at all.
How do I know this? When I was getting my degree in it as well as a math and comp sci degree not once did they show any calculus. Not once did they show how to map a surface into another one. Things they should have been doing. Instead we were doing simple linear algebra reductions and point slope intersections. To say the least I was bored to tears. None of the taught literature has it. Some of the more advanced guys have a hint of it. But many do not understand the system. They only understand parts of it. Economics does not have its own 'e=mc^2' moment yet. Micro econ and macro econ are two distinct fields of economics. Yet they do not have a real way to connect them. Much like special relativity and relativity. It all comes unglued quickly with little reason to as to why.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @08:08AM
> "Economics is the study of scarcity"
That is one of the criticisms that the Austrian school levels against Friedmanites. Even if you don't like their school their criticism is spot on.
They hold that economics is the study of human action.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday December 19 2016, @07:33PM
Not being an economist, to me it looks as if economics is the study of a cross between game theory, psychology, and complexity theory. So it's not very surprising that no good theories exist. Any one of those is a tremendous problem to handle properly, and I don't think psychology has any valid models in-and-of itself, though it's making progress.
Here's an example of the depth of the problem: Program a computer to play go well without using neural networks (or any close analog). It's clearly possible, in theory, but it's also certain that nobody has been able to do it. And that's just game theory crossed with complexity theory. When you add the additional cross with psychology.... well, that conventional models don't succeed shouldn't be any surprise. Particularly when one of the elements of psychology is that people prefer simple theories that favor them over complicated theories that are more accurate.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:19AM
The textbook used by about 95% of AP teachers (seriously -- mostly due to chapter size and lack of non-required material) is far-left liberal, by Paul Robin Krugman. Krugman writes for the New York Times -- that should tell you enough.
In college I got "Economics: Private and Public Choice" by Gwartney, Stroup, Sobel, and Macpherson. (very good book BTW) You wouldn't know it was the same subject!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @09:34AM
The textbook used by about 95% of AP teachers
What is this "AP" of which you speak? And what has it to do with the Mises?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:42PM
> Krugman writes for the New York Times -- that should tell you enough.
The NYT is culturally liberal and economically conservative.
So unless you think this textbook is promoting the gay agenda, you are off base and in the weeds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @11:15AM
...by Yanis Varoufakis:
Economy has more to do with astrology, then with astronomy.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday December 19 2016, @03:29PM
That quoted statement is actually correct. There are more dipshits who believe in astrology out there spending money because Taurus is in Uranus, than there are astronomers who spend money because Mars is Particularly Bright Tonight.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:23PM
Sounds like someone got fucked in the ass by a bull.
(Score: 2) by forkazoo on Monday December 19 2016, @09:07PM
So, you are saying inflation is definitely caused by Aliens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @11:18AM
i read the link. i don't see any tangible information. could have been written by a bot emulating a reporter?
anyways ... i am reading "das Kapital". slow going but i want to be able to say that i have read it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday December 19 2016, @12:01PM
Economics as I know it is quantifying human behavior and searching for the patterns in those actions to understand the contours of the system of human behavior and how it changes as inputs change.
If modern economics has lost its way, it is because it is trying to model a system based on rational actors when the system is bound up in the gyres of crony capitalism. The distortions caused by that throw any model they might devise out the window.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday December 19 2016, @12:34PM
is actually composed of billions of frequently irrational humans.
FTFY
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @08:11PM
Thanks for that Phoenix666.
Economics is about creating models (typically with lots of Greek letters and Lagrangian optimization under constraint). It's also about testing the models empirically using stats and p-values and Beta coefficients. I'm not saying that economics cannot err, or be abused deliberately. What I say is that it contains what it needs to self-correct with new facts and smarter models; it progresses like any other science in a Khunian or Lakatoshian way.
Although I'm certainly not against heterodox methods in social sciences, what is presented in the submission is junk nonsense from charcoal-funded propagandists; They say nothing, except linking to their propaganda website. That's an ignorance-based evangelization campaign.
-An actual economist
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @12:36PM
When me up when economics becomes an actual science and can predict things... until then, I'll be drinking my tea over there but don't worry, I'll send you the tea-leaves so you can continue to do your 'economic science'.
(Score: 1) by JavaDevGuy on Monday December 19 2016, @05:45PM
I cannot help but notice a couple of things about most of the replies to this article.
1) While people are decrying the state of the field of economics please be clear that the discussion is of Macro-economics not Micro-economics. Micro-economics and the study of the behavior of price has multiple mathematical models that hold up well to scrutiny when looking at a lot of industries. Modeling price demand to find elasticity of the price works so long as you have a fundamental understanding of the kind of market you are in.
2) If the state of economic mathematics and modeling is so poor why not start proposing solutions? Fundamentally it is a very important field as it is used to decide factors that impact all of our lives. All the more reason to understand the state of the field and work towards fixing the issues, to build robust models that stand up to scrutiny. In a world of metrics available everywhere, especially around consumer behavior and supply chains I have to ask why the models are so poor, the data is there. How can we ensure this data is available and used to form valid models that are not biased and that do help in design making?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @09:47PM
There is a deep-seated tendency for people to misapply physical science techniques to the social sciences. This has resulted in mainstream economics degenerating into a modern day numerology. However there are intellectually sound schools of economics that do not attempt to treat human actions like Newtonian atoms.
Science: a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.
If you cannot:
* Observe
* Measure
* Formulate Hypotheses
* Experiment (Falsification Test)
* Replicate results
* Modify hypothesis
* Accurately Predict based on new Model
* Agree on procedures for the above.
* Start back at square 1 as necessary
It ain't science.
Economics always fails on the Falsification Testing and Predicting based on model. Always. There is no uniform agreement among economists about what procedures will produce scientifically reproducible results. Therefore, it ain't science. It is the equivalent of phrenology, astrology, or numerology.
Stop trying to call it what it isn't and both you and I will be much happier, thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:16PM
'Economics' is the elevation of 'suck it and see' to a science.