Re: *DO* we share a civilization?

[Marc Erickson]

: At 09:43 PM 7/27/01 -0700 Marc Erickson wrote:
: >: Because Economists are scientists, and
: >
: >Cmon, John.  If economics was a science, its practioners' predictions
would
: >be right more often than 50% of the time.  As it is now, the ordinary
person
: >reads an economist's forecasts and says, "That's nice.  Who won the ball
: >games yesterday?"
:
: Ahh..... now we are getting somewhere.   Thank you for at least proferring
: an approximation of a definition of "science".
:
: Unfortunately, your definition does not hold water.
:
: After all, why 50%?

Because 50% correct can be attributed to chance.  It would have to be a
statistically significant difference above 50% for it not to be chance.  And
I don't know what that difference would be - I'm not a statistician.

And thank you, Erik and Dan, for explaining my belief much better than I
could have.

Marc