Economics has increasingly become an intellectual game played for its own sake and not for its practical consequences for understanding the economic world. Economists have converted the subject into a sort of social mathematics in which analytical rigour is everything and practical relevance is nothing.Read it at Adbusters
Logic Freaks: Modern economics is sick
Geoffrey M. Hodgson | Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Institutional Economics
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)
Tom -- There's no hyperlink.
ReplyDeleteSimon Wren-Lewis made a similar point here:
ReplyDeletehttp://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/microfoundations-and-evidence-2.html
Thanks, John. Fixed now.
ReplyDeleteAgree, of course with Hodgson, but this is an implicit slander on mathematics & rigor.
ReplyDeleteEconomists have converted the subject into a sort of social mathematics in which analytical rigour is everything ...
Analytically rigororous? According to whom? These self-same "mathematical" "economists". Astrologers & homeopaths can make the same claim. Where are the mathematicians whom mathematicians consider mathematicians who are engaged in this enterprise, who find it rigorous? IIRC, Von Neumann considered "mathematical" neoclassical economics to be "nonsense".
As a math guy myself, deceiving yourself that you "understand" this pseudomathematical economics, that it has any rigor to it, is a negative indicator of mathematical ability. Greek letters, symbols & equations does not mathematics make, nor are "purely verbal" statements & arguments "not mathematics". In econ, it's pretty much the reverse.
Hodgson is of course right.
ReplyDeleteBut Economists have converted the subject into a sort of social mathematics in which analytical rigour is everything .. contains an implicit, unwarranted insult to mathematics & rigor.
Analytic rigor? - according to whom? - These selfsame, self-styled "mathematical" economists. Astrologers & homeopaths can make the same claim. Where are the mathematicians whom mathematicians consider to be mathematicians - that consider this stuff to have "analytical rigor", to deserve the adjective "mathematical". IIRC, Von Neumann, a real mathematician, considered mathematical, neoclassical "economics" to be nonsense.
Decoration by Greek letters, symbols and equations does not mathematics make. And "purely verbal" exposition, arguments and reasoning is not by that token "not mathematics". In econ, basically the reverse is true, the more wordy, verbal, discursive, the more mathematical, the more "mathematical" window-dressing, the more it is pure BS.