Re: RE: Lies, damned lies, and economics

[Eugene Coyle <eugenecoyle@xxxxxxx>]

The problem is much worse than lying economists.  Economists believe
what they say.

Would a biology or other science teacher start with teaching Creationism
and then critiquing it around the edges by pointing out some counter
evidence?  It seems to me that anyone teaching micro is doing that ---
starting with perfect competition in all it glory and then mentioning an
assumption or two that can be critiqued.

The whole has to be rejected, there is no gain in debating bits with
economists.

Gene

Sabri Oncu wrote:

> > What does it mean to say that economists deliberately
> > *lie* in a world where the relation of theories and evidences
> > is one/many of underdetermination?
> >
> > Ian
>
> In my understanding underdetermination is associated with the
> observation that the system always finds a solution. To put this
> in mathematical terms, there are more variables than equations.
> If only we know what exactly these equations and variables are.
>
> There may be some liar economists but if one equates all
> economics to lies, one includes all economists in the set of
> liars.
>
> My conclusion from this is that it is not a good idea to equate
> economics to lies on a list of mostly economists, however
> progressive they may be.
>
> Best,
> Sabri