[lbo-talk] URPE Summer Conference -- Aug 15-18 -- REGISTER NOW! ORGANIZE A PANEL!

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Fri Jul 11 16:46:28 PDT 2008


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



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list