January 1, 2019

Trust in economics as a science?

Links on Lars Syll’s ‘How to re-establish trust in economics as a science’

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference on Jan 4 adapted to context

What is wrong with economics? Economists! They are stupid or corrupt or both.

Heterodoxy in general and Lars Syll, in particular, has a non-relationship with science and truth.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


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REPLY to Noah Way on Jan 1

How can this be that the philosopher Tom Hickey persistently promotes Lars Syll and other failed/fake scientists? Does no-one at Mike Norman Economics care about scientific standards?

This is NOT the way to “re-establish trust in economics as a science”. Just the contrary! For details see:


Related 'The real problem with the economics Nobel' and 'Swedish muddle' and 'Why does Heterodoxy not abolish the fake Nobel?' and 'Swedish economists — what’s that?' and 'The economics Cargo Cult Prize' and 'People have no faith in economics anymore? Do the Sexit now!' and '#DrainTheScientificSwamp' and 'Legitimacy lost' and 'Throw them out! Orthodox and heterodox economists are unfit for science' and 'Tribalism is NOT the problem of economics' and 'There is NO such thing as “smart, honest, honorable economists”'  and 'Trust in science? Yes, but economics is NOT a science' and 'Economists: Time to say goodbye'

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REPLY to Noah Way on Jan 1

“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)

In order to refute a theory, it is sufficient to demonstrate that it is either materially or formally inconsistent.

This has been done with regard to the MMT sectoral balances equation. It holds:
false (I−S)+(G−T)+(X−M)=0 MMT,
true (I−S)+(G−T)+(X−M)−(Qm−Yd)=0 AXEC.

Because the MMT sectoral balances equation is false the whole of MMT is false. So, MMT is dead and buried like the Flat-Earth theory.

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REPLY to Noah Way on Jan 2

This thread’s title ‘How to re-establish trust in economics as a science’ shows that Lars Syll has no idea of what science is all about. Science is NOT about trust but about proof. What has to be proved is material and formal consistency.

This never happened in economics. The main approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent, and all got profit ― the pivotal concept of the subject matter ― wrong. With this pluralism of provably false theories, economics is NOT a science.

Economics is a cargo cult science: “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.” (Feynman)#1

Economics lacks truth. What has to be established is truth NOT trust.


#1 Economics and scientific foolishness

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Wikimedia AXEC144b