"Jay Hanson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Isn't the real reason economists don't used the "scientific method" because
>if they did, they would be out of a job?
>
>Economists like to argue that "Economic systems are generally too complex
>to be replicated in a laboratory environment, so economists analyze the
>data."
This is nonsense though. The computer you have on your desk is now
sufficiently powerful to generate a laboratory model of economic
processes, if it is programmed with an FSA (finite state automata)
model, rather than a model based on the received formulae of the
orthodoxy. The complexity of the model is limited only by the degree
of thoroughness and creative enterprise of the researchers building
the program. The automata can be built to represent the individual
players in the model world, each with as many variable characteristics
as one might want to represent the variations in behaviour of the
market players in the laboratory economic universe. A robust model
might have a few hundred thousand such automata, and still be able
to provide useful experimental data before lunch.
-Pete Vincent
