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Beware “mathiness”: Algebra and data to reinforce ideological preconceptions
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- spikels 11y agoThis is a political argument in the economics profession. Beyond the obvious points that math/data can be used to obscure weak arguments and that idealogical binders are bad for clear thought, Romer is simply attacking his political opponents. Oddly going after George Stigler - a Nobel winner who died 25 years ago who Robert Solow said "was never an ideologue."
- DArcMattr 11y agoKay was referencing an idea originated by Stigler, the Inventor, to use as a contrast to Feynman's stance. There was no attack on Stigler as such.
- spikels 11y agoNeither Kay nor Romer are the clearest writers but I think Romer was clearly attacking Stigler (as well as Lucas and others at Chicago) and Kay was just repeating what Romer said. See this: http://paulromer.net/stigler-conviction-vs-feynman-integrity/ http://paulromer.net/stigler-conviction-vs-feynman-integrity... I don't have access to Stigler's 1955 paper. It would be interesting to know what he was talking about but putting him in opposition to Feynman seems pretty harsh. It makes it sound like Stigler is a proponent of idealogical thinking and that's how he practiced economics.
- bbq 11y agoThe author goes from Every careful person equipped with a reliable thermometer will make the same reading of temperature. There are alternative scales, Fahrenheit and Celsius, but both record the same thing... to Economics is genuinely harder. National income is a more complicated concept than temperature, and there are plausible alternative sets of rules for calculating it. Serious minded statisticians have spent many years discussing these issues, and there is now a UN-sponsored standardised system of national accounts. But it is easy to write a mathematical symbol without giving thought to what observable fact in the real world corresponds to that symbol, or whether there is such an observable fact at all. But isn't that exactly how we settled on the truth of temperature? Years of debate about what the right constructs for defining temperature mathematically are?
- nickbauman 11y agoEh, there are Nobel laureates who work down the hall from each other who cannot agree on the definition of basic macroeconomic concepts such as what constitutes a "bubble" or whether "market failure" is even a valid concept to begin with.
- princeb 11y agothat's because these are ambiguous layman descriptions of the state of the economy.
- nickbauman 11y agoYet serious economists openly argue about the term. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/01/11/after-the-blowup http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/01/11/after-the-blowu...
- XorNot 11y agoNot really. Temperature is one of those odd-ball scales where there's a real, absolute 0 to it. Years of debate converged on a physical reality.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoI don't believe anyone has ever shown something to measure at 0k.
- newyankee 11y agois there an objective alternative to more data and more assumptions ?
- raincom 11y agoWhat mathematical models do: provide ad-hoc support. It is better to call them out for what they are: ad hoc explanations do not contribute to sciences.
- evincarofautumn 11y agoAll scientific explanations are fundamentally ad hoc. We get scientific facts through falsifiable models based on evidence. It’s the same in economics, but economics is a field that is both complex (informationally) and complicated (incidentally), so our models aren’t very good. Often they’re only falsifiable in theory, because a practical assessment would be too costly.
- raincom 11y agoI have not heard anyone from Philosphy of sciences saying "all scientific explanations are fundamentally ad hoc". In fact, Adolf Grunbaum studied the nature of Adhoc explanations. Even Imre Lakatos claimed that prima facie ad hoc (those from the protective belt) can end up being non ad hoc. What I have in my mind when I said mathematical models provide ad hoc suport is this. Today, it is consensus in the philosphy of sciences that there are two kinds of confirmation of a theory: confirming instance vs positive instance. Mathematical models generate "positive instances". A non-adhoc hypothesis generates confirming instances, a special type of positive instances. For more, pp. 61-62, Larry Laudan's "Science and Relativism: some key controversies in the philosophy of science. Lets look at a hypothesis that says "All swans are white". One keeps on doing field work, saying that 1001th swan is white, 1002th swan is white, etc. All these field reports are "positive" instances. Such field reports don't add much.
- evincarofautumn 11y agoWe differ on our definition of “ad hoc”. I wanted to convey the fact that scientific explanation is just that—explanation. The basis of science is the creation of mathematical models to approximate phenomena that we observe.
- obrero 11y ago> attention given to the work of Thomas Piketty, with serious questions raised about the relationship between his data, his theory and the political stance which motivates his work. Yes, you see, there are ideologically-driven economists like Piketty, who have a political stance. Then there are are the fair, neutral, unbiased economists who disagree with Piketty, who are only motivated by the search for the truth.
- triplesec 11y agoTruthy economists, you mean? Aha, the author must be such a neutral economist, a Fair and Balanced writer, a fine man! I don't need any substantive arguments from such as he. I'll take him at his fine gentlemanly word!
- Mikeb85 11y ago> Then there are are the fair, neutral, unbiased economists who disagree with Piketty, who are only motivated by the search for the truth. There is no such thing as truth in Economics. There's not even a defined goal. Creating a mathematical model of how 7 billion people behave in a global economy is impossible. You're always going to have to simplify your model enough for it to be useful, as the expense of something. That compromise is your bias. Economists always make assumptions about something, and those assumptions are always driven by some sort of world view. Not to mention, the other part of economics is deciding what policies or actions should be taken. Do you optimize for economic growth? For happiness? To reduce inequality? To eliminate poverty? Maximum employment? Other sciences describe things which can be replicated, or things which are (more or less) concrete. Economics can't be a concrete, truthful science because people are react to their environment, which is ever changing and will never be the same at 2 points in history. And everything affects human behaviour, from the weather to things like religion which aren't exactly concrete...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- marcoperaza 11y ago> Not to mention, the other part of economics is deciding what policies or actions should be taken. Do you optimize for economic growth? For happiness? To reduce inequality? To eliminate poverty? Maximum employment? And if that's not difficult enough, you have to assign time-values to all of these. E.g. reducing inequality today might lower growth in 20 years. It's not called the dismal science for nothing.
- matt4077 11y agoThis seems to be closely related to Feynman's "Cargo Cult Science", the use of the form and mannerisms of hard science to lend legitimacy to research or opinions that actually lack evidence. http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm
- triplesec 11y agoThis is an interesting, if rather flawed, blog post. From what I can see, he says this (skip bullet points if you have read it): - Mathiness is truthiness, but in the way that putting down any mathematical symbols lends an air of intelligence and truth to an argument, for many people, especially those who don't or can't take the time to understand the argument logic. - Then he explains how economics data are not as easy to construct with universal agreement as with, say, physics (temperature). Agreement on practical action is hard when contrary frames and interpretations appear valid. - He then mentions how this might be a problem for defining capital and other constructs for Piketty, but without any useful argument beyond this assertion. - He then contrasts Feynman's integrity, trying to disprove his own work to make it better, to economist George Stigler's rhetorical style of conviction, ignoring contrary arguments, and playing the polemicist. - He then mentions Isaiah Berlin's distinction between foxes who know little about something , and hedgehogs who know one big thing. All these are interesting frames by which to compare and contrast various things. Yet his analysis, after bringing in all these ideas, is just to say that economics needs both careful analysis and effective rhetoric. Well, duh, but how does this tie into all the great setups he's made so far? And mathy people are good at neither rhetoric nor polemic? But surely, if you're afraid of these people, they would be a mathy person who is using rhetoric to undermine the real philosophy and logic that should - pace Plato - be informing the argument. It's a post full of story and setup, but as yet, signifying nothing.
- nickbauman 11y agoIt's an attack on Piketty without any substance, best I can tell. The problem with any attack on Piketty is that you can test his theory. Ironically, Bill Gates took issue with Piketty's famous r > g formula with at least one predicate he would add. He didn't extrapolate on it (he should if he wants to make a real argument), but at least he put something down. Kay didn't even bother with going that far. He should.
- james1071 11y agoYou don't understand what he has written.
- xixi77 11y ago
- Mz 11y agoAKA "garbage in, garbage out." If you like this piece, you might also enjoy "How to lie with statistics." There appear to be free copies currently available online: http://www.bing.com/search?q=How+to+Lie+with+Statistics+PDF&FORM=QSRE1 http://www.bing.com/search?q=How+to+Lie+with+Statistics+PDF&...
- Fede_V 11y agoI blogged about a very similar topic (in biology) over a year ago: http://federicov.github.io/Blog/deception-by-mathematics.html http://federicov.github.io/Blog/deception-by-mathematics.htm... People give a lot of authority to mathematics, because mathematics is immensely powerful to explain the natural world. This unfortunately leaves the opening for charlatans to do fake math and lend their garbage research a completely unwarranted air of legitimacy.
- jrkelly 11y agoAlso this post on "the mathiness of Nassim Taleb" -- Taleb is a serial offender on the mathiness front: http://www.inexactchange.org/blog/2015/07/24/the-mathiness-of-nassim-nicholas-taleb/ http://www.inexactchange.org/blog/2015/07/24/the-mathiness-o...
- vonnik 11y agoOne of my economics professors in undergrad used to say, when teaching Milton Friedman's monetary theory: "Given these assumptions, only GOD could reach a different conclusion." And then he would cackle absurdly. The point was that the ideology was hidden in the assumptions, and economics as a discipline was a) corrupted by ideology and b) using mathiness to obscure that.
- barry-cotter 11y agoEconomics often mixes up normative and positive stances but at least it makes it easy to separate them by using models. It makes the assumptions explicit. You can then take the models and relax or change the assumptions and see Evart changes. That's why and where macroeconomics approaches a science.
- guelo 11y agoScience involves experiments. The best economists can do is take a few poorly recorded historical measurements of incomprehensibly complicated systems and try to force-fit them to their simple models.
- sebastialonso 11y agoAlso Science involves some prediction power. Is economy prediction-able? If so, how accurate are its predictions? Does it qualify as an actual prediction? Broken clocks are correct twice a day but...
- xixi77 11y agoA lot of social science, including economics, does not involve experiments. Perhaps you want to argue that social science is not science, but if so, I personally find your definition of science a bit restrictive.
- xixi77 11y agoNope, the article is not about that. It is one thing to clearly state assumptions and derive the conclusions from there (which is what your professor seems to have done). This is not "mathiness": indeed, this is exactly how theory is supposed to work -- as long as the assumptions and the logic are clear, he can disagree with the assumptions and this way argue against the results. It is quite another thing to replace assumptions by handwaving, in which case the point of math and logic is lost, and the argument becomes non-falsifiable. This is what the article calls "mathiness" and argues against.
- j2kun 11y agoMathematical descriptions of things are fundamentally different from "truthy" arguments. Because once the math is laid down it stands on its own, independent of what anyone says about it. Whereas a truthy argument has no facts to stand independent of the argument because the facts themselves are false. I'm no economist, but I am a mathematician, and I'd guess the problem isn't that people are trying to use math to knowingly give false credence to plainly ideological ideas, but rather that the mathematical skills of those who listen are too weak to isolate the problems in the arguments. I would hope economists are better than that, but I know politicians are not.
- xixi77 11y agoPart of it is about skills. Part of it is about things like making questionable connections between what is actually mathematically shown in the model, and what is claimed in terms of real-world relationships. Of course this is much easier to do when they don't clearly define how exactly real-world objects translate into the model :)
- msellout 11y agoMost commonly seen when referencing statistics. 5 of 6 readers agree.
- lambdapie 11y agoParable of the Polygons[0] is another example of mathiness, where math is used to dress up a political message. The basic idea is simple and intuitive: people like diversity, but also don't like to be in the minority (e.g. they would like a 60/40 ratio of people of the same race to them vs people of different races). But when everyone applies this logic then you get completely homogenous regions. The mathiness comes through the fact that the simulation is nothing like real life (e.g.people care about far more than their immediate neighbors) and yet the claim is that tweaking the parameters of this model gives some intuition about the quantitative real life effect. [0] http://ncase.me/polygons/ http://ncase.me/polygons/