You're Toxic
Brian Leiter writes about whether or not economics is a "science" and posts portions of an article he wrote.#
"[I]n other disciplines, generic theories have been either supplemented or improved in order to make specific predictions. Thus, if we add theories about heredity, physiology, development, behavior, and environment to evolution's mechanism of variation and natural selection, we can hope to increase the specificity of generic predictions. In thermodynamics, if we provide a measure of entropy and a description of the mechanical and thermal properties of a system, we can make specific predictions about the amount of entropy increase it will manifest." (Rosenberg I, 70)
The difficulty for putative economic "laws" and predictions is, as Rosenberg puts it, that, "we cannot sharpen their applicability beyond the most qualitative or generic levels, or quantify the values of their parameters like elasticity, or improve our foresight or hindsight in the employment of these principles. Now the fact that we can usefully employ false or vacuous general statements, up to certain limits, is no mystery in the philosophy of science at all. The clearest instance of such restrictedly useful though false or vacuous general statements is Euclidean geometry. . ..[I]nterpreted as a theory of actual spatial relations, Euclidean geometry is false, and interpreted as a body of a priori truths implicitly defining the terms that figure in it, Euclidean geometry is vacuous. More important. . ., it was shown to be useless and inapplicable as a body of conventions, beyond certain values of distance and mass in space. ..." (Rosenberg II, 386)
So the fact that some generic economic predictions work is hardly reason to give us confidence in the cognitive content of economic theory, for unlike real sciences, economics does not seem to be able to move beyond the purely qualitative level in its predictions.
I wonder what the pros and cons of economics being a "science" are. Why is it desirable to such a label? Is not success justification? I suppose the argument is that without being this definition of "science" then the success and truth of economics cannot be measured.
After I wrote the above paragraph I read Chip Gibbon's opinion:
Here's my definition of science:
Science is the process by which we distinguish that which exists from that which does not exist.
When you're talking in concepts like "public good" and there's no scientific evidence that "the public" has the biological equipment (the brain) to experience "good" they you're not doing science. This is voo-doo.
When economicsts talk in hard numbers, they can be doing science, but that depends on if their numbers measure things that actually exist.
This definition of science is certainly desirable, but I have doubts that others would agree with the logical conclusions of such a definition.
Cirilia: "Moving around so much sort of makes you feel like your social life will be reset every few years, meaning you'll be absolved from whatever you did to whoever you used to know. But we're all getting older and I find myself wanting to go to greater lengths to keep the friends I have found, and to make new ones. It is proving worth it to me to go against my nature and swallow my pride, be honest even when I'd much rather play the hermit crab, to come out of my shyness hibernation and to not be so harshly critical of the world sometimes."#
Chip Gibbons fumes about Martha Stewart. Damn the man.#
Philip Greenspun doesn't buy that George W. Bush is gay, instead he's actually an Iraqi. Read it.#
Russell Roberts on saying "we're even" versus "we're both better off."#
I gave him a $20. He handed me the change and said, "We're even."
I smiled and said, on the contrary, we have a beautiful picture and you have our money to enjoy as you wish. We're not even. We're both better off.
It sounds horribly pedantic on paper, like an English teacher telling him he'd used 'hopefully' in the wrong way. But he smiled and said, you're right.
But of course we were even in another way. We were both better off.
'We're even' is a strange expression. He meant of course that we were 'square,' as opposed to 'back to where we started.' I wonder if 'even' and 'square' as in our deal is now complete and neither owes the other party anything has some physical analog from some ancient custom in our past. I assume so.
I seem to recall it having to do with the notches that were marked in the rods used by the Exchequers of early England and France. A rod would be notched in a certain manner to denote the amount paid, or to be paid. Then it would be broken in half, a sort of receipt. Later if the sum needed to be verified, you would align the rods and they would be 'even,' or 'level,' if it was the same. This "check" is, of course, the origin of "checks."
I have no information about 'square,' however.
Will Baude links to The New York Times reporting that Bobby Fischer has been captured for playing an illegal chess game 12 years ago.#
Peter Lessen on why Philip Morris supports cigarette regulation:#
Similar logic can be used to illuminate support for regulation in the cigarette industry. The only tobacco company to endorse new FDA regulation is the industry's leader, Philip Morris. Why? New regulations on the cigarette industry, for instance measures banning certain forms of remaining allowable advertisement, make it more difficult for industry followers to compete with and catch up to the industry's leader, which is able to preserve its existing market share. That's why Philip Morris supports the Senate's new proposal for FDA regulation while everyone else in the industry objects.
Philip Greenspun on the morality of Americans:#
The very last part of the article is also worth reading, about an Egyptian kid who believes himself involved in a "clash of civilizations" where the West is trying to destroy Islam. A big fan of September 11th and Al-Qaeda, he is confident that Islam will destroy the West first, which seems odd. The belief system holds simultaneously that (a) the U.S. is completely immoral, (b) the U.S. is involved in a kill-or-be-killed war to the death with Muslims, and (c) the U.S. won't simply unload its warehouses full of nuclear weapons on the heads of Egyptians, et al. If the U.S. were truly as evil as these guys say, W. and Co. would just use our leftover nukes to kill all the people in every country where Al-Qaeda recruits and then come back a few years later to pump out the oil. And yet the fact that they are still alive and well in Cairo would seem to demonstrate that the U.S. is not completely immoral. You would think that, at a minimum, the U.S. and W. would get credit from "the Arab Street" for the continued existence of "the Arab Street."
Don Boudreaux on euphemisms about taxation and conscription:#
I ask: why "ask"? These policies, regardless of their merits, are not requests. They are commands. Their coercive nature ought not be masked with sweet words such as "ask."
Lawrence Lessig on the FOX News Watch response to OutFOXed.#
"Is 'Fair and Balanced' ridiculous?" So opened the FOX News Watch segment examining Robert Greenwald's film, OutFOXed. And astonishingly, the uncontradicted view of FOX News Watch was "yes"! As Neal Gabler put it, "To say that this network promotes the Republican view … is like saying that the Pope is Catholic. It's self-evident … pretty much undeniable." But, he asks, as if he hadn't actually seen the film, "So what?"
So what? Well first, start with the question that opened the segment: Fox says it is "Fair and Balanced." If it is "self-evident" that it is not, then I guess we agree then that it is "ridiculous" to say that it is. And second, "obviously" media critics get this about Fox. Anyone who critically watches Fox gets this about Fox. But as one questioner at the San Francisco opening put it, for those who aren't media critics, and for those who don't actually watch Fox, just how "ridiculous" Fox's claim is is something significant. My bet is that a cross-section of FOX viewers would be surprised just how false Fox's claims actually are.
Looks like I'm moving to United Arab Emigrates or Hong Kong.#