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Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Lars P. Syll — Wren-Lewis insults medical science


Medicine is to science (biology) as public policy is to economics, that is, an application. Medicine based on evidence-based science is relatively successful in diagnosis, etiology and treatment of disease. Public policy based on conventional macroeconomics is nothing like that in approach or outcomes. If there were an economic science that proves itself relative to public policy, there would not be opposing political factions offering economic arguments to rationalize their conflicting positions.

If the science were "decided" as claimed, the optimal policy would be demonstrable by theory and confirmed by evidence. That is far from the case. For example, the central bank is charged chiefly with maintaining monetary stability. Janet Yellen, the former Fed chair, recently admitted that there is no satisfactory theory of inflation, so the central bank must operate based on discretion rather than a rule. 

As a result there is seldom agreement among the committee or the economists it relies on regarding setting the policy rate. They make an "informed decision" (guess) after joint inquiry and deliberation (although the committee generally follows the lead of the chair). This is the command system that purportedly sets the most important factor in economic policy according to conventional economics. 

Given the dismal record of the central bank continuously hitting its targeted policy rate while also maintaining growth, price stability and full employment (even defined down) seriously questions the so-called science behind the process. This is wizardry rather than science, prediction rather than forecasting.

Simon Wren-Lewis doesn't understand this?

If medicine were like economics, seeking medical treatment would be like going to a witchdoctor.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
Wren-Lewis insults medical science
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

3 comments:

  1. Links on Lars P. Syll’s ‘Wren-Lewis insults medical science’

    Fact is that economics is one of the worst failures in the history of modern science.

    Stop beating mainstream economics ― it is long dead
    https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/04/stop-beating-mainstream-economics-it-is.html

    Economics: 200+ years of scientific incompetence and fraud
    http://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/06/economics-200-years-of-scientific.html

    Heterodoxy and Pluralism, too, is proto-scientific junk
    http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/11/heterodoxy-and-pluralism-too-is-proto.html

    Where economics went wrong
    https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/10/where-economics-went-wrong.html

    Reverse Alchemy: from scientific gold to political shit
    https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/10/reverse-alchemy-from-scientific-gold-to.html

    Lars Syll, fake scientist
    http://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/01/lars-syll-fake-scientist.html

    Cross-references NOT a Science of Behavior
    http://axecorg.blogspot.com/2015/12/behavior-cross-references.html

    Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

    #Economics #FailedScience #FakeScience #CargoCultScience #ScientificIncompetence #OrthodoxEconomics #HeterodoxEconomics #Pluralism #DeleteEconomics #ParadigmShift #NewParadigm #Science #MacroFoundations #Axiomatization

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  2. “Laws’ in economics only hold ceteris paribus. That fundamentally means that these laws/regularities only hold when the right conditions are at hand for giving rise to them. ”

    This is simply the definition of the Liberal Art methodology....

    That methodology teaches Theory first, and then looks for situations where the Theory applies...

    It is opposite of the science methodology...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Matt Franko

    Matt Franko cites Lars Syll: “'Laws' in economics only hold ceteris paribus. That fundamentally means that these laws/regularities only hold when the right conditions are at hand for giving rise to them.” and concludes “This is simply the definition of the Liberal Art methodology....”

    Not exactly, it is more PsySoc methodology. To recall, Orthodoxy/Walrasianism is based on behavioral axioms.#1 This leads necessarily to behavioral “laws” like the supply-curve, the demand-curve and the microeconomic “law” of supply and demand. This, of course, is proto-scientific garbage. There is NO such thing as “laws” of behavior.#2, #3

    However, there are systemic laws, e.g. the Profit Law and the Employment Law.#4

    So, both Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy’s Lars Syll fail to adapt the scientific concept of law to economics.

    As a matter of fact, Lars Syll ruined heterodox methodology and with it the once leading Swedish School of Economics. His pupil Asad Zaman does the same now in Pakistan.#5

    Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

    #1 The problem with macro in two words
    https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-problem-with-macro-in-two-words.html

    #2 PsySoc — the scourge of economics
    http://axecorg.blogspot.com/2015/09/psysoc-scourge-of-economics.html

    #3 For details see cross-references NOT a Science of Behavior
    https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2015/12/behavior-cross-references.html

    #4 Go! ― test the Profit and Employment Law
    https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/09/go-test-profit-and-employment-law.html

    #5 Heterodox economics: When stupidity becomes a public danger
    Heterodox economics: When stupidity becomes a public danger

    ReplyDelete