My name is Jeffrey M Doyle. I ATTENDED
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, ANN
ARBOR AND MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY,
RECEIVING MY Ph.D. IN 1977.
Economics is not physics. The behaviour of
human beings is not as predictable as
matter in physics [be it sub-atomic or
macro.] While I understand the desire of
many Economists to regard their Discipline
as a deterministic, mathematically precise
science, the reality is [with notable
exceptions conceded] it is not a
mechanistically elegant discipline like
physics.
INTERDISCIPLINARY UTILIZATION AND
INTEGRATION OF PHYSICS, BIOLOGY AND
ESPECIALLY THERMODYNAMICS
INTO ECONOMIC ANALYSES, WILL GREATLY
ENHANCE OUR ABILITY TO ADDRESS AND
SOLVE CURRENT SOCIAL PROBLEMS–
ESPECIALLY IN THE THE AREAS OF OF
ENERGY AND ECOSYSTEM STABILITY
I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST MATHEMATICAL BASED MODELING-TO THE CONTRARY I EMBRACE IT WHOLEHEARTEDLY. MY PROBLEM IS THAT UNLIKE [FOR EXAMPLE] METEOROLOGY, ECONOMICS DOES NOT WELCOME THE INTEGRATION OF NEW RELEVANT FACTORS INTO THEIR PRECISE MATHEMATICAL MODELS.
WHEN METEOROLOGISTS ATTEMPT TO MODEL THE ATMOSPHERE OR PREDICT THE PROJECTED PATH OF A TROPICAL SYSTEM, THEY USE MULTIPLE MODELS, BASED ON DIFFERENT ASSUMPTIONS. IF THERE IS A GOOD AGREEMENT AMONG THE POSSIBLE OUTCOMES OR PROJECTIONS, THEN THEIR IS ALSO A MUCH HIGHER PROBABILITY THAT THE PROJECTED OUTCOME IS ACCURATE AND RELEVANT.
I think the reputation of economics is strong enough that people think we have things to offer. So, as long as we are realistic and humble, we will have an audience and people will take economics more seriously.
In the world these days, the complexity is such
that people know that nobody knows
everything. That's not the expectation, the
expectation is that something useful can be learned from economics.
Blind perpetuation of the pursuit of internal consistency at the expense of external validity does not make Economics a science-it makes it a religion of collected ICONIC IDEALS-whose relevance cannot be questioned
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
