Basic foundational “observations” by Economics aren’t based on the Scientific Method.
I wish the Scientific Method didn’t have “Method” in the name because while it is a sensible name it also is misleading.
Science is “method agnostic”, that is a necessary and sometimes brutal aspect to scientific progress, a new promising method may uncover other methods and theories that totally pull the rug out from under old theories and methods.
Economics, because it began and is sustained for the most part as a system of methods searching for justification for their continuation, is largely incapable of undergoing these necessary “method resets” that come periodically in any scientific discipline.
Thus no matter if locally good science is being done in economics it is undermined by the uncomfortable need to preserve the survival of the foundatinal contextualizing methods and axioms they invoke implicitly from the truth uncovered, a vice that plagues any human endeavor consciously and subconsciously and not only keeps Economics from being a real science it also largely sucks the oxygen out of the room for actually scientifically rigorous study of these phenomena.
Any time I’ve attempted to argue for alternative economic paradigms (not just alternative economic systems, but actually rethinking the fundamental assumptions and theories by which we study and attempt to understand economic systems and phenomena), lazy thinkers hit me with the “nuh uh, that’s not what [classical economic theory] says! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It’s a thoughtless appeal to authority lacking any substance. The word for that is “dogma.”
I think a major casualty of the war on science funded primarily by fossil fuel interests has been that the kneejerk pro-science response has become a lazy appeal to authority.
People say “99% of scientists all agree listen to them you are not worthy of having an opinion on this!” and while it is arguably true lol, it also sends a message undermining to the interests of science.
Science is the practice of skepticism not of finding facts and crusading under their banner in a materialist campaign of conquest. Facts are rather the inevitable residue of science after science has subjected theories to extended and diverse torturuous inquisition.
I wish people defended science by saying it isn’t a set of Correct Facts but a system of Skepticism that has thoroughly examined a shared body of knowledge and that you should assume that if the more fantastic sounding theories contained within that arena of “skeptical melee” haven’t been dismantled that you can probably trust that they are real, as fantastic as they sound.
This when you shorten it sounds like an appeal to authority where the scientists are given undue authority but it is not the same thing. What matters is the environment of genuine skepticism that scientific theories and “facts” are subjected to in order to establish their validity that matters.
Ugh, yes, when I was in university I had the audacity to attempt to have original thoughts, and everyone was like “Nuh uh, no one has ever said that anywhere in the source material.”
But it’s like “Someone said A, another person said B, and a third person said C. I’m just putting those together in a new way and telling you ABC.” But they’re like “None of the sources say ABC.” So I’m like “Look at the world around you, and you can clearly see that ABC.” And they’re like “that’s just anecdotal, not a peer-reviewed double-blind study.”
I called it academic gatekeeping. I also said it’s gaslighting ourselves into ignoring reality. They didn’t like either of those things. They seemed to think I was some flat earth anti-vaxxer (I’m not).
Modern academia has become downright anti-intellectual and extremely averse to divergent or non-conforming outlooks. It’s kinda sad.
Basic foundational “observations” by Economics aren’t based on the Scientific Method.
I wish the Scientific Method didn’t have “Method” in the name because while it is a sensible name it also is misleading.
Science is “method agnostic”, that is a necessary and sometimes brutal aspect to scientific progress, a new promising method may uncover other methods and theories that totally pull the rug out from under old theories and methods.
Economics, because it began and is sustained for the most part as a system of methods searching for justification for their continuation, is largely incapable of undergoing these necessary “method resets” that come periodically in any scientific discipline.
Thus no matter if locally good science is being done in economics it is undermined by the uncomfortable need to preserve the survival of the foundatinal contextualizing methods and axioms they invoke implicitly from the truth uncovered, a vice that plagues any human endeavor consciously and subconsciously and not only keeps Economics from being a real science it also largely sucks the oxygen out of the room for actually scientifically rigorous study of these phenomena.
I like the term Scientific filter. Theories get endlessly filtered though experimentation untill we get purer and purer truth.
Any time I’ve attempted to argue for alternative economic paradigms (not just alternative economic systems, but actually rethinking the fundamental assumptions and theories by which we study and attempt to understand economic systems and phenomena), lazy thinkers hit me with the “nuh uh, that’s not what [classical economic theory] says! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It’s a thoughtless appeal to authority lacking any substance. The word for that is “dogma.”
I think a major casualty of the war on science funded primarily by fossil fuel interests has been that the kneejerk pro-science response has become a lazy appeal to authority.
People say “99% of scientists all agree listen to them you are not worthy of having an opinion on this!” and while it is arguably true lol, it also sends a message undermining to the interests of science.
Science is the practice of skepticism not of finding facts and crusading under their banner in a materialist campaign of conquest. Facts are rather the inevitable residue of science after science has subjected theories to extended and diverse torturuous inquisition.
I wish people defended science by saying it isn’t a set of Correct Facts but a system of Skepticism that has thoroughly examined a shared body of knowledge and that you should assume that if the more fantastic sounding theories contained within that arena of “skeptical melee” haven’t been dismantled that you can probably trust that they are real, as fantastic as they sound.
This when you shorten it sounds like an appeal to authority where the scientists are given undue authority but it is not the same thing. What matters is the environment of genuine skepticism that scientific theories and “facts” are subjected to in order to establish their validity that matters.
Ugh, yes, when I was in university I had the audacity to attempt to have original thoughts, and everyone was like “Nuh uh, no one has ever said that anywhere in the source material.”
But it’s like “Someone said A, another person said B, and a third person said C. I’m just putting those together in a new way and telling you ABC.” But they’re like “None of the sources say ABC.” So I’m like “Look at the world around you, and you can clearly see that ABC.” And they’re like “that’s just anecdotal, not a peer-reviewed double-blind study.”
I called it academic gatekeeping. I also said it’s gaslighting ourselves into ignoring reality. They didn’t like either of those things. They seemed to think I was some flat earth anti-vaxxer (I’m not).
Modern academia has become downright anti-intellectual and extremely averse to divergent or non-conforming outlooks. It’s kinda sad.