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One of my economics professors in undergrad used to say, when teaching Milton Friedman's monetary theory: "Given these assumptions, only GOD could reach a diffe
by vonnik 11y ago
One 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.