5 ms·

I find it strange that there still exist named schools of thought in economics; perhaps it's a sign of the field's intellectual immaturity. After all, which sch

• whatusername 18y ago
  aren't there some various schools of thought around string theory?
  • ovi256 18y ago
    This concurrs with the grandfather's theory. This particular domain of physics, quantum theory, is certainly new and, we may say, as immature as the other domains were 3 centuries ago.
• Zak 18y ago
  They exist in physics; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mecha...
  • ajb 18y ago
    Yes, but they don't differ on how you deal with practical problems, at least not ones on the level of how to design a car or a computer. Maybe they would affect cutting edge semiconductor research or fusion reactor design, (I don't think the interpretations of quantum physics do, but other conjectures might).
  • pfedor 18y ago
    Interpretation of quantum mechanics is outside of the scope of physics, it's more like philosophy or something. For physics to be like economy in that respect, there would have to exist, for example, university professors who still wouldn't believe special relativity or quantum mechanics and claim that only the classical newtonian mechanics makes any sense.
  • deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  • mhartl 18y ago
    I figured someone might mention this. (I almost addressed it in my original comment, but it was a bit peripheral to my main point.) The various quantum interpretations are not schools of physics thought; every physicist "believes" in quantum mechanics. They are schools of thought on the interpretation of quantum mechanics---which certainly is an indication of that (sub)field's intellectual immaturity. And, like economics, the interpretation of quantum mechanics has more than its share of bullshit. As Stephen Hawking supposedly once said, "When I hear of Schrödinger’s cat, I reach for my gun." N.B. I predict the rise of quantum decoherence theory will change this picture in fairly short order.
    • DaniFong 18y ago
      I consider the silence of the Copenhagen interpretation over what happens during measurement to be an actual difference of physics, not of interpretation. If some other theory were able to predict, say, the time it takes for a wave function to collapse, or the number of particles another must interact with for it to decohere, or so on, it's a difference in predictive capacity, not merely of metaphysics.
      • mhartl 18y ago
        That's a good point. There is definitely some physics content in the interpretation of quantum mechanics---Bell's Theorem certainly took many physicists by surprise when it came out, since it proved people were arguing over more than words---but in any case it's all a tiny higher order term in the series expansion for 'physics'. (The 0th order term is "Newton", FWIW. ;-)
        • DaniFong 18y ago
          Those tiny terms matter when things go nonlinear! ;-)
• bokonist 18y ago
  This post does a decent job explaining the phenomenon: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/08/de-gustibus-non-computandum-or.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/08/de-gust... The core problem is that economics cannot use falsifiable experiments, and it is very highly politicized.
  • mhartl 18y ago
    The core problem is that economics cannot use falsifiable experiments I agree that falsifiable experiments are difficult in economics, which is why we must rely instead on logic and reason---a strategy seemingly abandoned by modern economists. I remember the ridiculous (and since discredited) argument by Card & Krueger that increases in the minimum wage increased employment, at least according to their data. And yet, when you raise prices on normal goods, the quantity demanded falls; if you force companies to pay employees more, they will hire less. If the data say otherwise, the data are either wrong or too noisy to be trustworthy. (Unfortunately, their paper wasn't merely an academic curiosity---it gave Bill Clinton and Congress political cover to raise the minimum wage in 1996.) And now we hear economists fret that Americans, who have been under-saving and over-spending for years, may yet ruin the economy---by saving too much and spending too little. Someone needs to tell them that wagging your finger and saying "liquidity trap" doesn't magically give the emperor clothes.
  • dominik 18y ago
    Thanks for introducing me to Unqualified Reservations, it's quite an interesting blog.