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Mathematical descriptions of things are fundamentally different from "truthy" arguments. Because once the math is laid down it stands on its own, independent of
by j2kun 11y ago
Mathematical 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 :)