Category Archives: Science and the scientific method

Yanis Varoufakis: Will the Real Economy Rebound, Following Wall Street’s Resuscitation? And What of Europe?

By Yanis Varoufakis, a professor of economics at the University of Athens. Cross posted from his blog

Another Spanish newspaper, El Confidencial, were kind enough to interview me on the global and European crisis, on the occasion of the Global Minotaur‘s Spanish translation-edition. Here is the interview, in English (the actual article will appear in Spanish, of course). Read on…

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Cathy O’Neil: Why Nate Silver is Not Just Wrong, but Maliciously Wrong

By Cathy O’Neil, a data scientist. Cross posted from mathbabe

I just finished reading Nate Silver’s newish book, The Signal and the Noise: Why so many predictions fail – but some don’t. I have major problems with this book and what it claims to explain. In fact, I’m angry.

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Philip Pilkington: Economics as Machine – The Nature and Folly of the Forecasters

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and research assistant at Kingston University in London. You can follow him on Twitter @pilkingtonphil

Too large a proportion of recent “mathematical” economics are mere concoctions, as imprecise as the initial assumptions they rest on, which allow the author to lose sight of the complexities and interdependencies of the real world in a maze of pretentious and unhelpful symbols.

– John Maynard Keynes

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Cathy O’Neil: Glen Hubbard, the Economic Whore

By Cathy O’Neil, a data scientist who lives in New York City and member of the Occupy Wall Street Alternative Banking Groups. Cross posted from mathbabe.org

As a loudmouthed data scientist/blogger/activist, I go on record regularly complaining about quants and data scientists who sacrifice their integrity to put out crappy or misleading or exploitative or destructive models because they want to make their bosses happy, or rake in big bonuses, or because they’re afraid to speak up and get fired, or because they don’t bother to think through the consequences of their actions.

But here’s the thing, I’m not sure what anyone can do about economists.

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“The Drugs Don’t Work”: How the Medical-Industrial Complex Systematically Suppresses Negative Studies

We’ve written a lot about the scientism of mainstream economics, both here and in ECONNED, and how these trappings have let the discipline continue to have a special seat at the policy table despite ample evidence of its failure. As bad as this is, it pales in comparison to the overt corruption of science at work in the drug arena. Although this issue comes to light from time to time, often in the context of litigation, the lay public is largely ignorant of how systematic and pervasive the efforts are to undermine good research practice in order to foist more, expensive, and sometimes dangerous drugs onto patients.

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New Study Finds “Severe Toxic Effects” of Pervasively Used Monsanto Herbicide Roundup and Roundup Ready GM Corn (Updated)

Although I generally refrain from posting on Big Ag and relegate the topic to Links, I have a special interest in Monsanto. Last year, I had wanted to devise a list or ranking of top predatory companies, but could not find a way to make the tally sufficiently objective to be as useful in calling them out as it ought to be. Nevertheless, no matter how many ways I looked at the issue, it was clear that any ranking would put Monsanto as number 1.

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Getting Economics to Acknowledge Rentier Finance

The economics discipline has for the most part managed to ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room: that of the role that the financial services industry has come to play. Astonishingly, even though the reengineering of the world economy along the lines preferred by mainstream economists resulted in a prosperity-wrecking global financial crisis and a soft coup by financiers, the discipline carries on methodologically as if nothing much had happened. And one of its huge blind spots is its refusal to acknowledge the role of banking and finance in modern commerce.

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Waldman’s Rational Astrologies, or the Use and Misuse of Conventional Wisdom

Steve Waldman at Interfluidity today has an important post on what he calls “rational astrologies” or when it makes sense to hew to widely accepted belief systems, even when you know following them won’t necessarily produce the best outcomes. You really must read his post in full; I think the first part is terrific but have some quibbles when he tries extending his observation.

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Exchange Rates and Modern Trade Theory: An Interview with John Harvey

John Harvey is Professor of Economics at Texas Christian University. He blogs at Forbes and is the author of the book ‘Currencies, Capital Flows and Crises: A Post-Keynesian Analysis of Exchange Rate Determination’

Interview conducted by Philip Pilkington

Philip Pilkington: Your book seeks to outline an alternative theory of what determines exchange rates in our world today.

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Philip Pilkington: Divine Mathematics – Neoclassical Economics as Spiritual Meditation

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil

The influence that mathematics has had on neoclassical economics is obviously quite profound. However, when looked at in detail it appears that a certain type of modern mathematics was in fact highly suited to the direction many in the economics profession took after the work of Leon Walras – the Frenchman who founded modern neoclassical economics – appeared on the scene. So, it should not be thought that it was simply the formal tools of mathematics that transformed neoclassical economics into the obscurantist doctrine it is today. Instead it should be understood that its obscurantist skeleton was ready and waiting for its mathematical flesh.

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