Mike the Mad Biologist weighs in on a debate Brad Delong has been curating, about the status of economics as a science. Noting that examples from biology are being introduced as comparisons for economics, Mike writes:
It really does matter: if economists are going to use biology as a model for their discipline, we need them to understand ours, to help improve theirs. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Upon which, he administers a firm but gentle smackdown to Russ Roberts. Read it, enjoy it.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
It really does matter: if economists are going to use biology as a model for their discipline, we need them to understand ours, to help improve theirs. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
By way of Brad DeLong, we stumble across this Russ Roberts piece discussing the question of what kind of science…
I find reading economist Brad DeLong interesting since, even though I don't always agree with him on economics, he approaches his subject with the humility that scientific disciplines brutally instill in their faithful practitioners. This was an interesting notion regarding the future of economics…
Philip Mirowski has a must-read article in The Hedgehog Review about 'The Great Mortification': the soul-searching (such as it is) that the economics profession has undergone since 2007. Two key points in Mirowski's article are really important--and are relevant to most, if not all, intellectual…
Nicholas Kristof has done some excellent reporting on the issues facing the developing world. But he is a case study in how reporting and analysis are not necessarily part of the same skill set. In Thursday's column, Kristof writes (italics mine):
When I was in college, I majored in political…
"It really does matter: if economists are going to use biology as a model for their discipline..."
Then it'll be a damn sight better than when they were trying to ape Physics. As far as economics is a science, or has the potential to be one, it far more resembles biology.
U agree with the ecological/evolutionary analogies to economics and other cultural institutions. But these studies must necessarily be less exact than biology because of the smaller sample sizes and the difficulty of verifying hypotheses with controled experiments.
The funny part is, I think Marx's grounds for disdain for Mill, Sayes and Bastiat (all 3 by name, in Kapital) still pretty much apply - that they stand out only because there are still so many much worse economic thinkers out there.
I think the so-called post-autistic economics movement is the first sign of life and consciousness in economics I've seen in my lifetime.