I didn't say that. I said the idea assumptions don't matter is bollocks. Presumably saying inflation is caused by pink elephants is okay if can make some predictions. I also said how can you talk of empiricism with such a view.
They (assumptions) honestly don't for all intents and purposes. If an assumption misdirects a model then it can be corrected for over the course of time. How can one really say an assumption is valid or not? What standard would you say is appropriate for determining what makes a good and bad assumption?
Neoclassical economics is useless. It is awash with absurd assumptions, silly methodology and internal inconsistencies.
This statement somewhat reinforces everything I believed earlier. You really need to get your head out of the ideological sink. Simply because your professors/you believe neoclassical economics is worthless won't do much in the way of actually improving neoclassical economics. If a model in biology accurately predicted cell growth how many honest scientists would go into a "normative" debate over the assumptions of cell life? (Not many would if the model was accurate). On the flip side, I would imagine those assumptions would be challenged if the model failed to predict things accurately. That's the check against "unrealistic" assumptions. I think the only real reason your belief that assumptions are so important (in a normative sense) is grounded in the fact that economics is a social science, dealing with people, and not one dealing with more mundane things. Can you yourself think of a better way to arrange a field designed to explain real phenomenon? I'm not saying all of the assumptions behind models are very easy to explain, nor will they ever be perfectly logical (although they tend to be closer to mathematical than specifically logical).
Well he is decisive. Those on the right often love him, and one suspects more often for these normative reasons you are so scared of than anything else and those on the left often hate him, and often for the same sort of reasons.
The point is that you can't use an economist's writings as proof. They are subject to be inaccurate/subjective to a degree. I really could care less about Friedman's normative assumptions. And I think the point you made reinforces what I said earlier. The people on the right love him for normative reasons, and the people on the left hate him for those same normative reasons. That is exactly the outcome you'd have in the whole of economics spent as much time as you do focusing on the normative. Economics would be divided over things that could never be empirically proven, and debates that would never be resolved because there is no real way to wholly disprove normative arguments. What sounds reasonable to one person does not inherently sound reasonable to another.
What do you mean? I didn't, he shows my Friedman is wrong, it is up to you to read it and if you are unsatisfied to check it.
This is generally why I choose to avoid these forums more often than not. I don't have time to read all the texts. Have these debates with your professors (if they have office hours), and not someone who has other things to do than read a non-empirical study that will not do much more than strengthen my thinking (something I could achieve by reading other works I might add).
Because you keep talking silly, as if everything can be solved with a single graph.
No it can't, but the progress you make will likely be quicker if you rely on numbers, and not the heated debates normative issues often provoke. In today's context there are simply too many professors to make the normative study of assumptions feasible. Look at how few people rely on the journal articles in literature (or a number of the more normative humanities for that matter). The fields have become super-specialized, and to the interest of only other professors in those sub-specialities.
Empirical data and analysis. You leave out analysis completely .
I really do find this debate interesting, but you can't really expect me to be willing to do a research assignment for a casual/online debate. Why not argue with someone who has read all of the works you have. You might find it more productive if my argumentation is not sufficiently reasonable for you.
What are you talking about? It is not completely subjective because it is backed up by logic, which can be tested, and data. The point is that you can't simply have data. You need to know what to take data of, how to take it and what to make of the results.
Yes, you do need to know what to make of data. I'm not arguing we drop all of the explanatory language of economics. However, your point on logic is the heart of the issue. Logic, no matter how you slice it can be slanted in two ways (unless you want economists to spend their time becoming strong logicians, rather than testing data). Logic is based in words, and generally the winner of a debate with logic is the one who argues most persuasively/intelligently. Those standards for "winning" do not necessarily guarantee the winner of a debate with logic most accurately explained the world. If you want an example of this read many of the works in political science, and see how inconclusive they can be. Back in the days of more limited statistics/fewer researchers it may have been necessary for much of the great works of the social sciences to be written, rather than empirically tested. In fact this was the way much of economics was for years (although there was a certain kind of quantitative logic based in mathematics even in the beginning). That didn't do much to help anyone other than economists understand the field. If you want the best ideas of economics to spread, even those normative ones. You need a reason for people to believe the ideas can accurately predict reality. Over time those ideas diffuse more and more into common situations (provided economists still focus some of their ability on explaining things). When that happens the average voter is more likely to think economically, which means more economic thinking at the polls. Moreover, logic is rather subjective. As has been established by Camus, Sartre, and many others after (after years and years of debate) there is no real inherent truth. I could go into Rousseau if you wanted, but suffice it to say logic/words in general served a communication purpose earlier. They tend to be comparative/relative. However, when explaining something as varied as economic activity you need a medium that is not limited by language's finite nature (there are only so many words after all). You need something closer to infinite to come closer to describing the immense variability in economic activity.
This is pretty obvious stuff.
Yes, and I think your assumption that logic is a reliable proof of a point is unrealistic. It (logic) has a more difficult time of proving causality, or more specifically, if you find out something is generally true in economics it may not necessarily make any logical sense. That's why you need a model to detect trends in the data. By detecting those trends you make the first step towards testing other aspects of behavior.
