Blog-Reference plus Blog-Reference on Oct 13
Pontus Rendahl argues: “... it would be wrong to teach heterodox theories as though they had equal validity. ‘In the same way, I don’t think heterodox engineering or alternative medicine should be taught’.”
Science is well-defined: “Research is, in fact, a continuous discussion of the consistency of theories: formal consistency insofar as the discussion relates to the logical cohesion of what is asserted in joint theories; material consistency insofar as the agreement of observations with theories is concerned.” (Klant, 1994). It is pretty obvious that Heterodoxy does NOT satisfy the criteria of material/formal consistency. In its current state, it cannot be admitted to science.#1
Pontus Rendahl’s conclusion is right, except for the fact that his tacit premise is false. His tacit premise is that orthodox economics is valid science. This is not the case. Orthodoxy does NOT satisfy scientific criteria either, but the representative economist has not realized it until this day. It is a remarkable fact that each student generation has swallowed the utterly silly supply-demand-equilibrium core model without turning an eyelid for 150 years.#2 By accepting standard supply-demand-equilibrium Pontus Rendahl, too, flunked the intelligence test for scientists.
So, while Heterodoxy cannot be admitted to science, Orthodoxy has to be thrown out of it. This is the situation: there is NO such thing as an economic curriculum that satisfies scientific standards. Both, the orthodox and the heterodox curriculum is proto-scientific garbage.#3
Lars Syll argues: “Once Cambridge was known for its famous economists. People like John Maynard Keynes. Nowadays it’s rather infamous for its economists inhabiting a neoclassical world of delusion.”
Keynes was more a political economist than a scientist and never rose methodologically above Marshall, the protagonist of the Cambridge School of Loose Verbal Reasoning.#4 The materially/formally inconsistent Cambridge curriculum has not been science then and is not science now.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 When proto-scientific Heterodoxy calls Orthodoxy pseudo-scientific
#2 How to Get Rid of Supply-Demand-Equilibrium and The Law of Supply and Demand: Here It Is Finally
#3 See the pedagogy blog on RWER
#4 Marshall and the Cambridge school of plain economic gibberish
Immediately preceding Feeble thinkers, feeble rethinkers: the perennial misery of economics.
For details of the big picture see cross-references Political Economics/Stupidity/Corruption
