NON-ANSWER: ON ECONOMICS AS A SCIENCE I was actually offended by the hypocrisy o

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/robert-j–shilleron-whether-he-is-a-scientistANOTHER NON-ANSWER: ON ECONOMICS AS A SCIENCE

I was actually offended by the hypocrisy of Shiller’s post, given that economists, at least those who act as public intellectuals, by speaking and writing, do almost nothing EXCEPT advocate or criticize policy. They do little BUT legitimize the state’s conduct of involuntary experiments on us while maintaining plausible deniability, statements of clean hands, and outright denial.

I drafted an essay on this topic to point out the reasons for confusion, as to which statements, concepts actions and methods in economics are scientific and which are not.

I’m tempted to call it, for marketing reasons ‘THE FINAL WORD ON …” economics as a science.

Since nothing can actually ‘be’ anything, the correct question is: “Which actions and propositions practiced by people who work in the field of economics reflect the actions and propositions demonstrated by scientists in the hard sciences, and which are not?”

I just tried to sketch the different ideas here, and I can’t do it quickly and put any meaning into it. So that will just have to wait until I have a weekend to work on it. But the answer is obvious: Its really useful investigation. But whether it uncovers constant relations is questionable, and whether it has predictive power is certainly false, and where it embraces moral hazard with bloody hands is damning.

FURTHERMORE

On the same lines, the more interesting question is, given any problem, are mathematical statements or computer science statements more scientific?

Given mathematical platonism, and that mathematical platonism is an empty verbalism obscuring causality (yes it is) because no mathematical statement is free from representation in operational language, are mathematical statements made in math department language true, or are they falsified, or are they merely analogies or riddles?