Topic: Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman - page 3. (Read 8875 times)

lol wtf. "Math is not science."  This is not the direction I thought that this debate would go... And I don't understand how it makes either side's point.

OK, so you claim math is a science. Fine. a^2 + b^2 = c^2 is a math theorem that is mathematically accurate to absolute precision. Now show me a perfect triangle anywhere in nature that can be measured and independently tested and verified to have perfectly straight lines and can be accurately measured at anytime to be be consistent of the theorem that a^2 + b^2 = c^2 exactly.

I threw you a bone. OK, so you claim math is a science. Fine. a^2 + b^2 = c^2 is a math theorem that is mathematically accurate to absolute precision. Now show me a perfect triangle anywhere in nature that can be measured and independently tested and verified to have perfectly straight lines and can be accurately measured at anytime to be be consistent of the theorem that a^2 + b^2 = c^2 exactly.

Mathematics is a science. It's not (only) a descriptive language. Math allows us to obtain true knowledge, not only talk about it. Ex: If two items of the same nature are put together with another two items of the same nature, you'll have four items of that nature (2+2=4). That's not a product of "imaginations", it's a true fact.

Math is not science. Math is a descriptive language just like this language. There are no more perfectly straight lines real world than there are invisible pink unicorns. They only exist in the language of our imaginations. This is about philosophy. You can learn more about it by searching the term epistemology.

You're basically calling mathematics entirely a "hypothesis". That's nonsense. Logical deduction on top of axioms can produce valid scientific theories, and in some situations this method is much more reliable than trying to conduct repeatable experiments with all the variables properly isolated (the "empirical" way). Social sciences are an example: experiments can't be repeated at will, and it's impossible to even distinguish all variables, let aside isolate them.

A theory requires empirical testing, otherwise it is a hypothesis.

A theory requires empirical testing, otherwise it is a hypothesis. An axiom is a generally accepted definition, but in this case I and many others do not accept it.

Therefore you are making logical fallacies starting with begging the question. You cannot call this science until it is testable and verifiable. It is pseudoscience until then.

Now design an experiment that can test this hypothesis. And you'll need to test its falsifiability.

The main one is the axiom of human action, in that humans use means to achieve ends. As an example of use, it can be explain why barter occurs: if person A possesses a good X, person B possesses a good Y, A values the possession of Y more than X, and B values the possession of X more then Y, they perform an exchange (I'm ignoring transaction costs and the existence of other people and goods for simplicity).

The video describes the use of experiments in development economics. These are analogous to randomized trials in medicine.  They both aim to establish an empirical basis for solving problems, based on reproducible, randomized trials. Evidence-based approaches to economics are explicitly rejected by the Austrian school.

Would you trust a doctor who rejected evidence-based medicine? If not, then why would you trust an Austrian economist?

Can you provide an example of a specifically Austrian Economic axiom and how it can be used in science?

Austrian economics explicitly rejects the scientific method. It relies on deductive reasoning, but explicitly rejects mathematical deductive reasoning. If you want to call that science.... fine. You can have your faith-based anti-math whatyamacallit, and I'll take the scientific method.

PS Go back to your compound, you home-schooled, gun-wielding, bible-reading piece of shit.

please explain.

We don't need science, we need sound money and free markets.

In my view, economics cannot be science anyway, unless you completely understand how humans work. You'd have to start there.

Regarding Keynes vs. Hayes or whatever: fuck that debate. Keynes may be right, I don't know, but his strategies are not implementable because they require responsibly acting leaders/central banks/policymakers, which we do not have at our disposal currently.

Humans fail consistently at regulating even very simple systems, such as a thermostat-controlled freezer. How can you expect a group of humans to succeed at regulating something as complex as the world economy?

You cannot, this is the mistake we made. We thought we could have our economies regulated.

I think we're better off concentrating our efforts on deregulation and coming up with good monies (let the free market use whatever it wishes to use), than arguing about right or wrong of some theories about the behaviour of apes. I'm pretty relaxed about these two things, because they will solve themselves in the end anyway. Solutions will just emerge, the question is how bad we want it to get before we let them.

I do think FunnyFoo is right about the problems bitcoin has (slow transactions, cumbersome to use, scalability issues), he's wrong however in saying that it's easy to come up with a better solution. I point to history (litecoin) to show that.

Maybe the video will help explain?

http://www.ted.com/talks/esther_duflo_social_experiments_to_fight_poverty.html

+1

As I've said on a number of times on this forums, the one thing that makes
a discipline scientific is its actual power to predict the future, and *not* the
fact that it somehow "explains" things.

Physics is a science: given enough data about powder chemistry, wind, angle,
projectile mass and shape, gravity and distance, you can accurately predict
where a shell will land once fired. A very useful tool to have.

Real science can land robots on Mars. Try and ask any economist to pull off
something like that.

Economics, whichever cult you happen to be follow (Keynes, Austrian), is *not*
a science: its predictive power is essentially non-existent.

On the other hand, economics, however has borrowed all the lesser attributes of
a real scientific discipline, in particular the complex jargon: economists have long
realized that there was much money to be made fooling regular people into believing
they have a clue about anything.

In fact, you can pretty much draw a one to one parallel between economics and
astrology: they use the same technique (fooling the gullible), serve the same purpose
(ensuring the practitioner makes a living), and have similar predictive power (none).

Austrian economics is based primarily on deductive reasoning and logic. That puts it into the same category as mathematics. Similarly as mathematics, it is based on axioms. Strictly speaking, it's not science, but a tool that can be used in science.