Re: charlatanism
- Original Message - From: fabio guillermo rojas [EMAIL PROTECTED] Example from my professional life: As is probably obvious, I'm not an economist - I'm a sociologist who takes economics very seriously and I sometimes use economic tools in my research. So I'm always in a position of explaining economic ideas to non-economists and I frequently find that people tend to avoid economic issues. Rodney Stark and some other sociologists have very fruitfully used supply and demand for public goods to explain the rise and fall of religious bodies. They also discuss religious entrepreneurship and the attempt to impose religious monopolies or religious cartels to fend off competition. This school has also explained the secularization of western Europe as a supply side failure. Within this genre, I regard Stark and Bainbridge's _The Future of Religion_ as a latter day classic. Since many sociologists seem to have an aversion to both religion and economics, I wonder whether their studies have adversely affected their professional reputations. (Also, I regard Stark's textbook _Sociology_ as the only introductory sociology textbook so interesting it can be read for pleasure, but I don't think it is in print anymore.) ~Alypius Skinner
RE: charlatanism
John Hull wrote: Example 3: Subjective Utility Most of the utility 'functions' occurring in neoclassical microeconomics...are not well defined--as Henri Poincare pointed out to Leon Walras. In fact, the only conditions required of them is that they be twice differentiable, the first derivative being positive and the second negative. Obviously, infinitely many functions satisfy these mild requirements. THIS OFTEN SUFFICES IN SOME BRANCHES OF PURE MATHEMATICS BUT THE FACTUAL (OR EMPIRICAL) SCIENCES ARE MORE DEMANDING: HERE ONE USES ONLY FUNCTIONS THAT ARE DEFINED EXPLICITLY...OR IMPLICITLY. Finally, experimental studies have shown that preferences and subjective estimates of utility and risk do not satisfy the assumptions of expected utility theory. In short, THE USE OF UTILITY FUNCTIONS IS OFTEN MATHEMATICALLY SLOPPY AND EMPIRICALLY UNWARRANTED. Now, rational choice models make heavy use of both subjective utilities and subjective probabilities, as well as of the simplistic hypothesis that selfishness is the only motivation of human behavior. Not suprisingly, NONE OF THESE MODELS FITS THE FACT. Hence, although at first sight they look scientific, as a matter of fact they are pseudoscientific. My only comment on this is: it is a silly, uninformed criticism of economics. Economics may or may not be pseudoscientific, but not for these reasons. First, it has been shown long ago, by Gerard Debreu and others, that utility functions are not needed in order arrive at many of the important results in microeconomic theory. Second, the claim that economists use the hypothesis that selfishness is the only motivation of human behaviour is simply wrong, wrong, wrong. Finally, yes, economists often use models that are false and don't fit some data. So do physicists when they assume away the existence of any frictions. Is physics also a pseudoscience for this reason? Alex
Re: charlatanism
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Re: charlatanism
On Tue, 13 Aug 2002, john hull quotes Mario Bunge: In short, THE USE OF UTILITY FUNCTIONS IS OFTEN MATHEMATICALLY SLOPPY AND EMPIRICALLY UNWARRANTED. It is an interesting regularity that some non-economists -- particularly philosophers and physicists, and Bunge is both -- seem to think even the most cursory glance at economic theory is sufficient background to generate criticism such as this unfortunate piece. Amongst many other misunderstandings of basic theory, Bunge's point above, which he repeats several times, confuses the empirical content of the assumptions that underpin a theory with the empirical content of the theory itself. Systematic violation of (expected) utility theory in experiments does not mean that theories based on those assumptions are empirically unwarranted any more than the insight that there are not just two people in two countries using two factors of production to produce two products invalidates any predictions of trade models based on those assumptions. The paragraph about utility functions needing explicit or implicit functional forms is just bizarre. Cheers, Chris Auld Department of Economics University of Calgary [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: charlatanism
The real charlatans in academia are the many frauds who build their whole careers by getting their names put on coauthored papers to which they have not legitimately contributed. Marc Poitras
Re: charlatanism
Does anyone think, at least in the excerpts we read, that the article attacked libertarian or libertarian-leaning economics as much as it attacked economics generally? David Levenstam
Re: charlatanism
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The real charlatans in academia are the many frauds who build their whole careers by getting their names put on coauthored papers to which they have not legitimately contributed. That's a sort of embezzlement; but `charlatan' implies that the *content* of the papers is fraudulent. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: charlatanism
--- john hull [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The ALL CAPS lines are my emphasis. I think it is better to use other symbols, such as *caps*, since when they get copied, one may want to revert to u/l. NEO-AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS, EVEN CLAIM THAT THEIR THEORIES ARE TRUE A PRIORI. This means a priori to specific history, but still posterior to experience, however general. Most of textbook microeconomics is a priori. For example, when deriving the law of demand, do they justify this with data? Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: charlatanism
Does anyone think, at least in the excerpts we read, that the article attacked libertarian or libertarian-leaning economics as much as it attacked economics generally? David Levenstam It's typical to say that bad science is X, and my political opponents just happen to do X. IMO, it is usually easier to attack an economic theory in this roundabout way than just to confront the idea head on because you really don't have to understand what's going on. Example from my professional life: As is probably obvious, I'm not an economist - I'm a sociologist who takes economics very seriously and I sometimes use economic tools in my research. So I'm always in a position of explaining economic ideas to non-economists and I frequently find that people tend to avoid economic issues. For example, when I explain human capital theory to people, they seem horrified and obsess over whether their sacred cow - education - can be thought of as something as dirty as an investment. Instead of asking whether the idea is internally coherent and has empirical support, they go nuts over just the wording of the theory. Similarly, I find that these articles that trash economics because it is psuedoscientific do the same - they obsess over the wording (the use of math) rather than think real hard about the intuitions behind things. Of course, there is always bad research hiding behind equations - but the equations just express an idea - that can be debated - in a coherent way. Fabio
Re: charlatanism
The real charlatans in academia are the many frauds who build their whole careers by getting their names put on coauthored papers to which they have not legitimately contributed. That's a sort of embezzlement; but `charlatan' implies that the *content* of the papers is fraudulent. Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/ It is a sort of charlatanry about the content of your career - you sort of imply you've done a bunch of original stuff by associating yourself with the successful. Fabio
Re: charlatanism
In a message dated 8/14/02 1:47:34 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The real charlatans in academia are the many frauds who build their whole careers by getting their names put on coauthored papers to which they have not legitimately contributed. That's a sort of embezzlement; but `charlatan' implies that the *content* of the papers is fraudulent. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/ Does anyone think that the real charlatans in science include the people who do research which always concludes that the federal government must fund more research (in other words, pay the researchers more) and impose new, draconian regulations over our lives to save us all from alleged environmental catastrophes? David Levenstam
RE: charlatanism
fabio guillermo rojas: Similarly, I find that these articles that trash economics because it is psuedoscientific do the same - they obsess over the wording (the use of math) rather than think real hard about the intuitions behind things. Of course, there is always bad research hiding behind equations - but the equations just express an idea - that can be debated - in a coherent way. Speaking up for the innumerates here -- Part of my objection may be my inability to use the tools. But I cling to the notion that part of the objection is that some aspects of economic activity (to say nothing of activity which has been subjected to economics imperialism) _cannot_ be the sort of thing to which mathematical manipulation, in particular equations, can be properly applied. Michael Michael E. Etchison Texas Wholesale Power Report MLE Consulting www.mleconsulting.com 1423 Jackson Road Kerrville, TX 78028 (830) 895-4005
Re: charlatanism
--- Fred Foldvary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think it is better to use other symbols, such as *caps*, since when they get copied, one may want to revert to u/l. Sorry. Yahoo email doesn't give me many options. I was hesitant about yelling, which I guess is what all caps is. I'll try something else in the future. Thanks. Most of textbook microeconomics is a priori. For example, when deriving the law of demand, do they justify this with data? By that reasoning, aren't all the results obtained in Euclid's Elements assumed a priori? I took the law of demand, along with most textbook economics, to be derived axiomatically rather than assumed. Or is that what a priori means? Given reasonable assumptions (axioms), does that mean that economic findings are valid without being 'scientific,' i.e. rigoriously tested? It seems to me yes, but when data doesn't match theory, one must search for new or modified axioms. Thoughts on that? By the way, I was particularly interested in Bunge's assertions that a scientific research program is to find the functional forms between variables. Should economists spend more time on that program? It seems like it would be unnecessary in many contexts, e.g. the Tragedy of the Commons where a result can obtain by merely knowing that the production function is concave, inter alia. But then again, maybe not. It seems that alot of people critique econ. without learning it, and Bunge seems to be in that school of thought. But it is good to take critiques seriously. I bet there are a lot of psychic mediums and polygraph artists who actually believe what they're doing it valid and real. It's probably best to double check once in a while and make sure we're not headed down that road. I still maintain that Bunge's ridiculous assertion that economics assumes greed/money as the only human motivator is held by most people. I think it could be addressed by including the definition of rationality as the structure of preferences rather than the content of preferences in basic economics education. I think educators are doing a great disservice by not making this clear early on. -jsh __ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com
Re: charlatanism
--- john hull [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Given reasonable assumptions (axioms), does that mean that economic findings are valid without being 'scientific,' i.e. rigoriously tested? If the logic is valid and the premises true, then the conclusion is sound and therefore fully scientific. Scientific should not be equated with tested. For example, the law of diminishing returns is scientific in being true, even if one does not test for it. Indeed, that law is so scientific that if one tested it and found that the outcome was inconsistent with that law, one would question the data before one would question the law. It seems to me yes, but when data doesn't match theory, one must search for new or modified axioms. Thoughts on that? If it is a general theory that has already been warranted, one would first examine the data and testing methods. But if it is a hypothesis about something specific, such as the consequences of the euro, then when the data rejects the hypothesis, one would search for a new one. I still maintain that Bunge's ridiculous assertion that economics assumes greed/money as the only human motivator is held by most people. How do you know? *That* is an example of a hypothesis that needs testing. I think it could be addressed by including the definition of rationality as the structure of preferences rather than the content of preferences in basic economics education. Agreed. And also, rationality has to do with the choice of means in the pursuit of ends, namely economizing or optimizing. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
