Re: The Purported Queen of the Social Sciences

[ravi <ravi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 22 Jun, 2007, at 11:39 AM, Michael Perelman wrote:
> Pool, Robert. 1989. "Strange Bedfellows." Science, vol. 245 (18
> August): pp. 700-5.
>   701: Physicists at the Santa Fe institute were amazed at how
> mathematically
> sophisticated economists were.


I remember, in my undergraduate days, helping (or trying to help) my
sister with her economics math and getting my ego knocked down a
considerable number of pegs on how fairly complicated it was.


> 1027: "By contrast, the graduate microeconomics text, despite its
> brilliance, did not
> contain a single fact in the whole thousand page volume (actually,
> there were two
> references to facts, both in footnotes). Rather, the authors build
> economic theory in
> axiomatic fashion, making assumptions on the basis of intuitive
> plausibility or
> consonance with the principles of "rational action"."


Many many years ago (2002? yeah I know, I could search the archives)
I posted to PEN-L a long quote of a section that made the claim that
there is nothing wrong with the above (roughly summarising) and that
economists should see their endeavour as akin to mathematics and not
physics.

FWIW!

I would guess that it is physics-envy that is the undoing of
economics as a productive science?

       --ravi