Re: Re: RE: If Economics isn't Science, What is it?

[ALI KADRI <akadri_00@xxxxxxxxx>]

Economics begins in ideological form but it then
becomes interpersonal, practiced and tested by others,
in other words it acquires objectivity. As such it is
no less a science than physics. the fact that
economics moves slowly and physics does not, is of no
relevance to its definition as science. Speed is a
matter of relevance and degree of control by the
dominant ideology.
further recall that the subject mater is dissimilar,
ergo, the substance of the laws may vary to the degree
and fashions in which the object mutates. so can it be
said for simplicity that the laws of physics are more
general and hold for a longer time: yes it can; but
does this pre-empt economics from being called a
science, no.
therefore, the very notion of science is
ideollogically determined in the present debate
because the question of scientificity or not has no
logical content- it is not a platonic form. It
ceratinly cannot be argued as such without reference
to practice. the days of Byzantine scholastic sohistry
are over. therefore, economics is in the immediate, as
we see it- that is, can be judged as the maens by
which one class determines and explains why another
class should be satisfied with less and be happy with
it.

this i think should never be forgotten if one claims
to be progressive, no?
--- Michael Perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Martin, economics, as it now stands, may progress at
> a rate comparable to
> theology.
>
> "Brown, Martin - ARP (NCI)" wrote:
>
> > In the last few weeks I have  read Dava Salyor's
> Gallileo biography, reread
> > two great science classics, Gamov's Birth and
> Death of the Sun (orginally
> > published in 1939), David Bohm's great Quantum
> Mechanics textbook (1954) and
> > took a look at my son's current cell biology
> textbook.
> >
> > I must say, if one criteria for science is a field
> that produces a
> > continuous (but dialetic) accretion of knowledge
> throught theoretical
> > development and empirical testing, the track
> record of economics is pretty
> > pathetic compared to physics and biology.  For
> example, comparing my son's
> > cell biology textbook to the one that I used 30
> years ago, there is an order
> > of magnitude advance in the detail,
> comprehensiveness, theoretical
> > foundation and empirical evidence of the knowledge
> presented.  And this is
> > an undergraduate class!  Can anything like this be
> said of undergraduate
> > textbooks in economics.
> >
> > Both Gallileo and Gamov have some very
> unflattering things to say about the
> > "philosophers" of there time, as did Marx.  I
> think the economics of the
> > last 50 years is a lot closer to this kind of
> philosophy than to anything
> > that looks like science.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ravi [mailto:gadfly@xxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 1:17 PM
> > To: Pen-L Mailing List
> > Subject: [PEN-L:19959] If Economics isn't Science,
> What is it?
> >
> > recently someone forwarded a bit to the list about
> the Nobel prize in
> > economics and whether it was meaningful, etc.
> reading through klemke,
> > hollinger, rudge: introductory readings on the
> philosophy of science, i
> > came across a piece that might be of interest. i
> have reproduced
> > sections from the piece below. my apologies if
> this is old or
> > uninteresting stuff:
> >
> > If Economics isn't Science, What is it? -Alexander
> Rosenberg
> >
> > In a number of papers, and in "Microeconomic
> Laws", I argued that
> > economic theory is a conceptually coherent body of
> causal general
> > claims that stand a chance of being laws. My
> arguments elicited no
> > great sigh of relief among economists, for they
> are not anxious about
> > the scientific respectability of their discipline.
> But others eager to
> > adopt or adapt microeconomic theory to their own
> uses have appealed to
> > these and other arguments which attempt to defend
> economic theory from
> > a litany of charges that are as old as the theory
> itself. Among these
> > charges, the perennial ones were those that denied
> to economic theory
> > the status of a contingent empirical discipline
> because it failed to
> > meet one or another fashionable positivist of
> Popperian criterion of
> > scientific respectability. With the waning of
> positivism these charges
> > have seemed less and less serious to philosophers,
> although they have
> > retained their force for the few economists still
> distracted by
> > methodology. But among philosophers charges that
> economics does not
> > measure up to standards for being a science have
> run afoul of the
> > general consensus that we have no notion of
> science good enough to
> > measure candidates against. This makes it
> difficult to raise the
> > question of whether economics is a science, and
> tends to leave
> > economists, and their erstwhile apologists like
> me, satisfied with the
> > conclusion that since there is nothing logically
> or conceptually
> > incoherent about economics, it must be a
> respectable empirical theory
> > of human behavior and/or its aggregate
> consequences.
> >
> > The trouble with this attitude is that it is
> unwarrantably complacent.
> > It is all well and good to say that economics is
> conceptually coherent,
> > and that there are no uncontroversial standards
> against which economics
> > may be found wanting, but this attitude will not
> make the serious
> > anomalies and puzzles about economic theory go
> away. These puzzles
> > surround its thoroughgoing predictive weakness.
> the ability to predict
> > and control may be neither necessary nor
> sufficient criteria for
> > cognitively respectable scientific theories. But
> the fact is that
> > microeconomic theory has made no advances in the
> management of economic
> > processes since its current formalism was first
> elaborated in the
> > nineteenth century. And this surely undermines a
> complacent conviction
> > that the credentials of economics as a science are
> entirely in order.
> > For a long time after 1945 it might confidently
> have been said that
> > Keynesian macroeconomics was a theory moving in
> the right direction:
> > although a macro theory, it would ultimately
> provide the sort of
> > explanatory and predictive satisfaction
> characteristic of science. But
> > the simultaneous inflation and unemployment levels
> of the last decade
> > and the economy's imperviousness to fiscal policy
> have eroded the
> > layman's and the economist's confidence in the
> theory. Moreover the
> > profession's reaction to the failures of Keynesian
> theory is even more
> > disquieting to those who view economic theory as
> unimpeachably a
> > scientific enterprise. For a large part of the
> response to its failures
> > has been a return the microeconomic theories which
> it was sometimes
> > claimed to supersede. The diagnosis offered for
> the failure of the
> > Keynesian theory has been that it does not accord
> individual agents the
> > kind of rationality in the use of information and
> the satisfaction of
> > preferences that neoclassical microeconomic theory
> accords them. The
> > alternative offered to Keynesian theory in the
> light of this result is
> > nothing more nor less than a return to the status
> quo ante, to the
> > neoclassical theory of Walrus, Marshall and the
> early Hicks, that
> > Keynesianism had preempted.  This cycle brings
> economic theory right
> > back to where it was before 1937, and it should
> seriously undermine the
> > confidence of anyone's beliefs that economics is
> an empirical science,
> > with aims and standards roughly identical to other
> empirical sciences.
> > For the twentieth-century history of economic
> theory certainly does not
> > appear to be that of an empirical science.
> >
> > Of course, eighty years is not a long time in the
> life of a science, or
> > even a theory, so the fact that economics has not
> substantially
> > changed, either in its form or in its degree of
> confirmation, since
> > Walras, or arguably since Adam Smith, is no reason
> to deny its
> > scientific respectability.  But it is reason to
> ask why economics has
> > not moved away from the theoretical strategies
> that have characterized
> > it at least since 1874, in spite of their
> practical inapplicability to
> > crucial matters like the business cycle, economic
> development, or
> > stagflation. On some views of proper scientific
> method, of course,
> > economists have been doing just what they should
> be
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