Economics is basically a conservative dominated field, that's the problem as real science has a liberal bias: Science has a well-known liberal bias
very topical. with the question as to whether monetarism is effective and as a result the concept of statistical views on economic controls is also questioned. my stance is that economics is not a statistical science although some statistics are useful, they should not be used as the basis of all strategies and tactics. good post and interesting read.
Well, of course. Liberals provide millions of dollars to scientists for important research in cow flagellants. What do you expect?
Funny, about the bias. Anyway, the problem is that economists don't observe anymore, they try to preach politics by way of economics. Those that aren't doing that are erecting these crazily unrealistic models about how the economic world works based on math that assumes both a perfect world and a world dominated by a normal distribution of events, which I suppose is a mathematical way of saying it's a perfect world. Crazy. If you actually sit and read all of "The Wealth of Nations", the thing that strikes you is that the man observed and reported on what people were doing in the real world, and when he gave his opinions they were entirely pragmatic and based on a commonsense moral view of the world. Thorstein Veblen was very similar, but he was a lot funnier. Taleb is the closest thing we have today, but just prior to him, Jane Jacobs was an amazingly perceptive observer of the real economic world. Neither one were/are economists. Among actual card-carrying economists, Martin Wolf and Willem Buiter are true observers of the real world, but both are hamstrung by their education. Oh well. Austrians have always struck me as trying to preach their politics via economics. Their descriptions of what happens are based on a Platonic ideal, so much so that when commenting on events in the real world they try to make the real world fit their model, the sure sign of an ideologue. The best way to do economics is to treat it as what it in fact is: a social science. Observe, write down what you observe, observe some more, let those observations lead you to your next investigation and bout of observation. Occasionally, come to a conclusion on how it would work best, and say it. That's how Adam Smith worked. It's how Taleb works, except he's a bit more opinionated, and knows a lot more math. (Also, he has a weak spot for Hayek, so he'd doubtless disagree with my judgment on the Austrians.) You can see a lot by looking.
Scientists and Lawyers, if Democrat Scientists can't support their theories they have Lawyers that can silence the opposition...