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[Miles Jackson]

Michael Perelman wrote:
> Back in 1985, then Donald McCloskey wrote:
> "In seminars in economics it is common for the speaker to
> present a statistical result, apparently irrefutable by the rules
> of positive economics, yet to be met by choruses of "I can't
> believe it" or "It doesn't make sense."  Milton Friedman's own
> Money Workshop at Chicago in the late 1960s and the early 1970s
> was a case in point.".
>
> Meaning -- if the data don't fit our model, it is proof that the data is 
> wrong.
>   
In contrast, I would say that social scientists from most other areas 
respect the notion of empirical disconfirmation.  Sure, at times 
psychologists or sociologists or political scientists will cling to 
popular notions that are inconsistent with data (e.g., catharsis 
theory), but most of the time,  if there is a mountain of data 
incompatible with a theory, the theory's in the bin.

 From an anthropological perspective, it's fascinating to me that 
economists do not seem to share this same fealty to the basic scientific 
principle of empirical disconfirmation.  Indeed, we know from 
psychological research that the whole premise of the "utility maximizing 
agent" at the heart of neo-classical economics is incompatible with 
decades of research on the effects of information and rewards on human 
behavior (see Kahneman and Tversky et al.).  Strangely, the 
neo-classical economists don't seem to care that the fundamental premise 
of their theory is simply wrong.

Miles