Reply #9: The social sciences have been dressing themselves in math

[jtuck004]

to appear "just as good as" for a long time, (like Democrats trying to appease Republicans?) and there are some useful outcomes. (In the first example, that is). But regardless of how much math one throws at something, there are still human behaviors that aren't explained, aren't rational. That's ok, because any philosophy that doesn't fail can't be measured, and we want to know what the return on our investment is. (Unless it means giving heating money back to poor people, that is). Economics has it's theories and calculations, but even rocket science, for the most part, is no good without the motivation to go to the moon, (or thereabouts) and I haven't seen the calculation(s) in economics that describe the human spirit to my satisfaction.

ymmv, of course ;)

Maybe that's where I get caught up. The people who ran our economy into the ground had some of the most well-developed quants this world had ever seen, MBA's who use high-level calculations like we use simple phrases. But they had no philosophy. They were, and are, described as what I would call thieves, liars, and cheats in many of the history and blogs that I read. Millions of people are paying the price for this failing, imho.

But that's just my thinkin'...I have no problem with course listings that place their economics class (well, ok, differential calc with applications) in the hard science building, or even with people who think they should be there. There are more important things to concern us, I think. I wish them luck.