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"To most people, economics is a dull science full of statistics and jargon, mainly concerned with money and designed to answer a narrow (but important) set of q

"To most people, economics is a dull science full of statistics and jargon, mainly concerned with money and designed to answer a narrow (but important) set of questions. To economists, economics is a powerful tool for understanding why armies run away, voters are ignorant, and divorce rates rise, as well as solving practical problems such as how not to get mugged. Its theme is not money but reason- the implications, especially the nonobvious implications, of the fact that humans act rationally. Or to put it more formally: Economics is that way of understanding behavior that starts from the assumption that individuals have objectives and tend to choose the correct way to achieve them." Excerpt from Hidden Order, a book which explains economic concepts to non-economists.

BoiledCabbage 5y ago
Explanations are useless if they can't make predictions. Non-falsifiable explanation aren't worth the paper they're printed on. While it's a nice quote above, I suspect many economists would disagree with that reduction of their field to being only backwards looking.
- lottin 5y ago
  > Explanations are useless if they can't make predictions. Nonsense. Most sciences aren't about making predictions. Another example is linguistics. Linguists have reconstructed languages long extinct and figured out how they evolved into modern languages. Yet, they can't predict how these languages will evolve in the future. Does this mean these explanations useless? No. Why should they be useless? They may not be of interest to you, but that doesn't mean they're useless.
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    I disagree with you, strongly, but I'll just note this -- you appear to espouse the view (in you last sentence) that utility is the only value something can have. There are many things to know that lack utility but still hold value somehow. Useless does not mean worthless; but science really is about prediction.
    - lottin 5y ago
      I don't know what you're on about. It's been over a century, since economists adopted a subjective theory of value, according to which value is that—subjective. As such, we don't try to explain it, because it doesn't matter. You may think something is valuable because it's useful, or because some other reason. It makes no difference, and we don't care. All we care about is how much you are willing to pay for it. This tells us everything we need to know.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        That's pretty arguable. There are many things that I find useful that I wouldn't pay for.

BoiledCabbage 5y ago

Explanations are useless if they can't make predictions. Non-falsifiable explanation aren't worth the paper they're printed on. While it's a nice quote above, I suspect many economists would disagree with that reduction of their field to being only backwards looking.

lottin 5y ago
> Explanations are useless if they can't make predictions. Nonsense. Most sciences aren't about making predictions. Another example is linguistics. Linguists have reconstructed languages long extinct and figured out how they evolved into modern languages. Yet, they can't predict how these languages will evolve in the future. Does this mean these explanations useless? No. Why should they be useless? They may not be of interest to you, but that doesn't mean they're useless.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  I disagree with you, strongly, but I'll just note this -- you appear to espouse the view (in you last sentence) that utility is the only value something can have. There are many things to know that lack utility but still hold value somehow. Useless does not mean worthless; but science really is about prediction.
  - lottin 5y ago
    I don't know what you're on about. It's been over a century, since economists adopted a subjective theory of value, according to which value is that—subjective. As such, we don't try to explain it, because it doesn't matter. You may think something is valuable because it's useful, or because some other reason. It makes no difference, and we don't care. All we care about is how much you are willing to pay for it. This tells us everything we need to know.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      That's pretty arguable. There are many things that I find useful that I wouldn't pay for.