Blog-Reference
The story: In economics, a group of people discovers that scientists have been replaced one by one with political clones devoid of Feynman Integrity. These economists must escape or suffer the same fate. But who can be trusted and who has already been snatched?#1
There are TWO economixes: political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, the goal of theoretical economics is to successfully explain how the actual economy works. (ii) In political economics anything goes;#2 in theoretical economics the scientific standards of material and formal consistency are observed.
Theoretical economics (= science) has been body-snatched/hijacked/captured by political economists (= agenda pushers). For the general public, science clones are virtually indistinguishable from scientists: “They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. ... But it doesn’t work. ... So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential.”#3
There is, though, a reliable method to identify economics body snatchers on the Internet: refute their arguments logically or empirically and see what happens.
A scientist is committed to the scientific method: “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)
A scientist accepts refutation. However, as already Morgenstern realized, this is NOT what can be observed in economics: “In economics we should strive to proceed, wherever we can, exactly according to the standards of the other, more advanced, sciences, where it is not possible, once an issue has been decided, to continue to write about it as if nothing had happened.”
The science clone in the Internet age is not bothered much with a refutation but sees to it that it vanishes as fast as possible from his blog or makes sure that it is blocked from the outset.
Jason Smith, of course, is only one of many easily identifiable blog manipulators.#4 What makes him an especially repugnant body snatcher is that he constantly invokes Feynman Integrity.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Adapted from IMDb Invasion of the Body Snatchers
#2 "Paul Feyerabend argued that no description of scientific method could possibly be broad enough to include all the approaches and methods used by scientists, and that there are no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of science. He argued that 'the only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes'." (Wikipedia) 'Anything goes' holds only in the context of discovery but NOT in the context of justification. Methodology, though, is NOT AT ALL about the context of discovery, it is not prescriptive about how to find the true theory. In the context of justification, nothing but proof (material/formal consistency) counts.
#3 What is so great about cargo cult science? or, How economists learned to stop worrying about failure
#4
• Economics: math-adorned incoherent blather
• Feynman Integrity, fake science, and the econblogosphere
• True macrofoundations: the reset of economics
• Macro imbeciles
• IS-LM ― a crash course for EconoPhysicists
• What genuine scientists believe about economics
• Hayek and other informationally retarded proto-economists
• Economics between cargo cult, farce, and fraud
• The key to macro and Keen’s debt-employment model
Related 'Robert Solow and Lars Syll, fake scientists' and 'MMT, fake science' and 'Keynesians ― terminally stupid or worse?' and 'Karl Marx, fake scientist' and 'Barkley Rosser, fake scientist' and 'In search of new economists' and 'The five pathetic blunders of Roger Farmer' and 'Milton Friedman, fake scientist' and 'Forget Hayek' and 'The myth of economics knowledge' and 'Friedman and the cluelessness of fake scientists' and 'The father of modern economics and his imbecile kids' and 'Economic methodology for the little guy' and 'Your economics is refuted on all counts: here is the real thing'.
• Feynman Integrity, fake science, and the econblogosphere
• True macrofoundations: the reset of economics
• Macro imbeciles
• IS-LM ― a crash course for EconoPhysicists
• What genuine scientists believe about economics
• Hayek and other informationally retarded proto-economists
• Economics between cargo cult, farce, and fraud
• The key to macro and Keen’s debt-employment model
Related 'Robert Solow and Lars Syll, fake scientists' and 'MMT, fake science' and 'Keynesians ― terminally stupid or worse?' and 'Karl Marx, fake scientist' and 'Barkley Rosser, fake scientist' and 'In search of new economists' and 'The five pathetic blunders of Roger Farmer' and 'Milton Friedman, fake scientist' and 'Forget Hayek' and 'The myth of economics knowledge' and 'Friedman and the cluelessness of fake scientists' and 'The father of modern economics and his imbecile kids' and 'Economic methodology for the little guy' and 'Your economics is refuted on all counts: here is the real thing'.
***
LINK at Brian Romanchuk — Book Review: A Random Physicist Takes On Economics***
Wikimedia AXEC108g
