It might be worth noting that Bill's original complaint concerned not amateurs generally, but NEWS MEDIA reporters and anchors.
It is quite possible that the average economics ability of news media people is lower than the average economics ability of other non-economists. This has been established with mathematics: The average math GRE scores of those entering graduate schools of journalism are lower than those for all sutdents taking the GRE. If it's true for math, it could be true for economics. As for the comment about amateurs not being taken seriously when it comes to medicine, I'm not sure it's entirely true, even if they do get more respect than economists. People take Meryl Streep seriously when she spouts nonsense about Alar, and take Julia Roberts seriously when she says more research is needed on Rett Syndrome than the doctors at NIH allocate. See, for example: http://www.acsh.org/press/editorials/rettsyndrome052102.html --Robert On Thu, Jan 09, 2003 at 08:05:06AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > Amateurs and economics? As I recall, in the General Theory, towards the > end of the book, Keynes called for, or came close to calling for, > nationalization of business investment. If implemented, the proposal would > have quickly created an out-and-out socialist system, with disastrous > consequences. Fortunately, such a decision was not in the hands of Keynes > or other economists. It was in the hands of the American electorate, a > bunch of amateurs. And among these amateurs, only about 2% had > historically supported socialist candidates who called for what Keynes was > proposing. The amateurs were right, and Keynes was wrong. Now, one can > dismiss this evidence as a mere anecdote. But keep in mind that we are > talking about the man who was the most acclaimed economist of the 20th > century, and we are considering his position on nothing less than > capitalism vs. socialism, the most important and fundamental issue in > economics and perhaps all of social science. In fact, amateurs and the > general public have often demonstrated a kind of intuitive and inarticulate > wisdom on social issues that has eluded intellectuals, including > economists. > > Marc Poitras >
