Re: more squiggly lines

[Alan G Isaac <aisaac@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I said:
>> Actually what I argued in the text that you failed to quote is that
>> your ability to quote Newton in support of the point you were trying
>> to make "works" only because you ignore almost everything he wrote and
>> indeed further ignore the evident meaning of the paragraph you
>> selected.  If you care to take up that specific point, feel free.

On Mon, 29 Jul 2002 12:22:22 -0400 Gunnar Tomasson
<gunnar.tomasson@xxxxxxxxxxx> replied:
> I shall be pleased to respond to any substantive comment you may have on my
> proposition that Newton's Equations were, are, and will ever remain
> DESCRIPTIVE - that is, NON-EXPLANATORY - of observed orbital mechanics.

I take this as a concession that you were completely misrepresenting
Newton, so I hope we will not see that quote abused again on this
list (as it has been so often.)

Specifically, I take your backpeddling use of the words "Newton's
Equations" to be an attempt to shift the focus from the views of
Newton (who clearly was trying to explain everything he could in a
variety of ways) to the Tomassonian (rather than Newtonian)
interpretation of Newton's equations.

While this is quite a relief in and of itself, and although you
carefully avoided addressing all the other questions that I raised
about the authority that epistemological musings should be granted in
dictating the methods of empirical research (thereby raising hope that
you are implicitly granting the presumptuousness of any such
proposal), it seems that you assert that the descriptive and the
explanatory are disjoint sets.  (More precisely, the contrapositive of
your statement above is "explanatory implies not descriptive".)

Any proposal that we must carefully avoid description while engaging
in explanation is bound to prove puzzling not just to me but perhaps,
upon reflection, to yourself as well.  But perhaps you meant not "that
is" but simply "and".  So perhaps you are claiming merely that some
descriptions are not explanatory and that while Newton felt himself to
be both explaining and describing planetary motion, you know better:
he was really giving *only* a description.  On the face of it we can
certainly think of ways to test this. (Does his theory make
predictions about the behavior of the undisturbed system or is it
purely historical? Are some of these predictions "novel" (i.e., not
simply a description of previously known facts). Does his theory make
prediction about the effects of disturbances to the system (e.g., the
passage of a comet)? Etc.)  By the time we are done answering such
questions it becomes clear that you have removed far too much from
the semantic realm of 'explanatory' to retain even the most tenuous
links to ordinary usage.

I fear you will say, "but he did not *explain* gravitational force"
and not realize that "so what?" is precisely the correct response
to that observation in this context.  He gave explanations that relied
on the reality of gravitational force without waiting (and it would
have been a long wait!) for the inadequate understanding of
gravitation of his time to be adequately improved.  (The quote I
provided in my last post makes this point.)

Of course what is really at issue is not your misrepresentation of
Newton, which you seem ready to give up, nor your peculiar misuse of
the word 'explanation', which I doubt you will easily abandon, but
your ungrounded belief that your epistemological musing should have an
impact on the methods chosen for empirical investigations in
economics. However perhaps clearing some of the brush will leave the
presumptuousness of such a belief more clearly exposed.

Cheers,
Alan