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I thought it ironical that Freeman Dyson has been very sceptical to computer models of the atmosphere: "The real world is muddy and messy and full of things th

I thought it ironical that Freeman Dyson has been very sceptical to computer models of the atmosphere: "The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models [than to do empirical research]" -- http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html but in this article seems to think that the economists have their models down cold, at least when they support his viewpoint.

gruseom 18y ago
The same thought occurred to me, with reference to exactly the same earlier piece. Economic computer models surely suffer from most of the problems that the climate models do. I kept expecting him to repeat the same critique and was a little surprised when he didn't. I'm willing to cut him a little more slack than you are, though; it's true that he might just be changing his tune to suit a predefined viewpoint, but I can think of other interpretations as well. Hopefully he'll write more about it and we can see.