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 Titus PulloI came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
kudos:1
 ·Embarq Now Centu..
1 edit | reply to calvoiper
Re: My response to Martin's op-ed said by calvoiper:said by Titus Pullo:A science is not defined as something "we know more now about [...] than we [used to]." ... Economics is much closer to an ideology than a science. Biology, chemistry, and physics are all SCIENCES that we know more about now than we did at the turn of the last century. So is economics. Claiming economics is an ideology is like saying that evolution is only an ideology and that creationism is science. calvoiper Then you've been brainwashed; any economist worth his or her salt will tell you that Economics is not a science in the truest sense of what constitutes a science. At best, it is a social science.
Look it up for yourself.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science
EDIT: Better stated, what I'm saying is that Capitalism (an ideology) is one approach to economics. There are several economic systems, each with variance and theories; however, theory is not science. IMHO, our economic system has become a hybrid of junk science and ideology. Do a search and read various opinions on why economics is often referred to as the "pseudo science."
But you are correct in that I should not have referred to all economics as ideology. Only when broken down and polluted by greed and politics does the language of the system become the playground of ideologues.
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"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose." -- Frederick Douglass | |
 LegoPower77AbecedarianPremium
join:2002-08-03
Midlothian, VA | Sorry for the late response. Summer vacations and work, these days. I hope you two will indulge me.
said by Titus Pullo:said by calvoiper:said by Titus Pullo:A science is not defined as something "we know more now about [...] than we [used to]." ... Economics is much closer to an ideology than a science. Biology, chemistry, and physics are all SCIENCES that we know more about now than we did at the turn of the last century. So is economics. Claiming economics is an ideology is like saying that evolution is only an ideology and that creationism is science. calvoiper Then you've been brainwashed; any economist worth his or her salt will tell you that Economics is not a science in the truest sense of what constitutes a science. At best, it is a social science. An sneaky technique, WMH, what you're doing is taking everything I would have to prove the merits of deregulation off the table a priori.
Any clown can post something on Wikipedia, but what is the nature of science? Indeed, at its roots, science is philosophy. Why do you think it's called a PhD? Literally: a doctorate in philosophy.
Now, that being said, is economics the bastard child? Consider the field of quantum physics, the study of nature within the very atoms themselves. Many times in the tests scientists perform, they have to build a model, (such as in a particle accelerator) and then they test it with statistics. (Brian Greene’s 1999 book, the elegant universe mentioned how this is done as a matter of course in cutting-edge research.)
So, what do doctors of philosophy do in the field of economics?
They develop a theory of a natural phenomenon (in this case, human interaction), build a mathematical model (much like in the physics case) and then test it by trying to prove the null hypothesis,* (in many cases the same way psychologists test their theories in labs with people).
Of course, on many other hands, there need be no testing; the differences between Russia and the US were contrapositions amongst countries on a continuum of government intervention and regulation. And even now, America, the most laisser-fair of them all remains on the cutting edge of technological development (as distinguished from deployment, I'll grant you).
I think your insistence in vilifying economics is because there’s near unanimity, in most cases, on the proper level of government action. Back to the testing part, Vernon Smith won the Nobel in 2003 because of his work developing clinical tests of people engaged market/economic action. It's no coincidence that he is huge proponent for deregulation in many areas.
Likewise, the economic philosophers of the 1800s in Austria took an entirely different approach yet arrived at the same conclusion: human invention, human discovery does not come from regimented governmental action, but through the experimentation of individuals in the marketplace. N.B.: money was first used privately before government co-opted it and eventually monopolized it.
As mentioned in this post another Economic Nobel Laureate Thomas Sowell (we all know what "leftists" the Nobel committee is, man) says the same thing in one of his recent Random Thoughts columns: Some ideas seem so plausible that they can fail nine times in a row and still be believed the tenth time. Other ideas seem so implausible that they can succeed nine times in a row and still not be believed the tenth time. Government controls in the economy are among the first kinds of ideas and the operation of a free market is among the second kinds of ideas.
*Not to put too fine a point on it. It's interesting that creationism and evolution are mentioned here. Manifestly neither are science. Scientific testing requires a null hypothesis, i.e. something that, if proven, ruins the theory, e.g., if I drop this glass, and it doesn't fall, the law (which started out as a theory) of gravity would be disproven.
Of course, "evolution" (needs to be defined) is an ever-shifting theory. Every time the latest missing link (that was actually a projection based on as little as a single tooth) is found to be a fraud, another explanation pops up).
Frankly I find it would take much more faith to believe in evolution than the God of Abraham and Mary.
Look, we have in these very pages people who contribute to SITI. This is a search for extraterrestrial life by inter alia listening to wave patterns from outer space.
If so much as a random pattern of prime numbers is found, it will be said that intelligent life is likely the source. We look at the statues erected on Easter Island and assume that it was human intelligence that built it.
But yet we are unlocking all the information, volumes and volumes, contained in DNA and we're blindly willing to say that that happened by chance; odds that are a bajillion-kajillion smaller than winning the mega-jackpot.
Any statistician that wasn't a pillar of salt would tell you those are bad numbers. The God of Abraham says in Deuteronomy 30:15 "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil."
Ante up, gentlemen.
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"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." —Ronald Reagan
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