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Isn't his point that there is a sort of uncertainty principle in economics? For example when you study people they behave differently and furthermore as soon a

Isn't his point that there is a sort of uncertainty principle in economics? For example when you study people they behave differently and furthermore as soon as they think that you think that they will behave in a certain way they may well behave differently -- especially if there is financial gain at stake for changing their behaviour. As you say this all derives from the biggest problem with all the social sciences people are not rational actors and any mathematical model has to encapsulate real human behaviour.

TuringTest 11y ago
> For example when you study people they behave differently and furthermore as soon as they think that you think that they will behave in a certain way they may well behave differently That's not an inherent limitation for applying science. Signal theory has models that represent circuits with feedback loops, where the output ; similar models could be developed to study people who know are being studied. Also, if you use data collections that were compiled for other purposes, you can study the behavior of people who don't know are participating un such study. Big data is essentially that. > As you say this all derives from the biggest problem with all the social sciences people are not rational actors and any mathematical model has to encapsulate real human behaviour. There are theories that don't assume perfect rational agents, and can still predict behavior by studying the common human bias. See the work of behavioral economist Dan Ariely for an academic approach.