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An effect similar to this is what ultimately drove me away from pursuing an advanced degree in economics. I kept seeing what were supposedly great innovations
by nerdponx 3y ago
An effect similar to this is what ultimately drove me away from pursuing an advanced degree in economics.
I kept seeing what were supposedly great innovations in our understanding of economic theory, which were mathematically elegant and completely unrealistic with respect to how people actually behave. What's the value in a closed-form expression that doesn't describe any real-world phenomenon?
I came to realize later that there is plenty of "good" economics research and modeling out there, but I had no desire to enter a field where models were not expected to be useful, in the sense of Box's aphorism.
- ysofunny 3y ago> What's the value in a closed-form expression that doesn't describe any real-world phenomenon? it keeps smart, driven, and potentially disruptive people busy chasing around closed forms while "real" power politics are kept firmly and rigorously under the control of incumbent powers. this may be a perspective too cynical, nonetheless I offer it as an answer to your question; still working on making this funny somehow as it hits close to why I couldn't make it through the academic-industrialized pipeline of institutional corporations (big universities) 'manufacturing' and 'selling' graduated professionals in the labor 'marketplace'
- BalinKing 3y agoThis example feels categorically different to me, since economics is fundamentally about modeling the real world, whereas many would argue that the mathematics' ability to do so is more of a convenient byproduct. This reads to me like an indictment of economics in particular, rather than a general statement about the value of the real-world applicability of research.