
The Sokal Affair - TravisLS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
======
kiba
There are also "science war" in the field of economics, especially regarding
what is knowable what isn't.

We have one side that is largely deductive, do not assume that humans are
"rational", and distrust mathematical models and believe that economists are
misusing statistics.

Another side is economic that attempt to imitate the scientific methodology of
physics and as well being largely inductive. This is now the current and
newest trend in the field of economics.

From my point of view, the Austrian school("Pyschological") is victorious over
both the mainstream neoclassical and neo keynesian schools. Those who are of
the Austrian prediction have successfully predicted the recession for quite
some time now.

You may have different view which schools is superior but the battle is not
decided. Until the field of economics matured, there will be many ruthless
debates among those who are in the profession of economics for years to come.

The Economic Calculation Debate anyone?

~~~
philwelch
From what I've gathered, the real debate is between neoclassical economists
and behavioral economists. Behavioral economists are more empirical, studying
exactly how incentives work and how people behave in the economy. "Austrian"
economics (aside from what was done decades ago, in Austria) only lives on as
a pseudoscientific attempt to justify libertarian politics. Politically, I'm
largely libertarian myself, but there's nothing more unscientific than turning
something like economics into an apologia for anarcho-capitalism.

~~~
kiba
So you believe that "government cannot calculate, ever" is bullshit?

If government can calculate the allocation of resource then it invaildated the
entire concept of anarcho-capitalism.

This seem an unlikely hypothesis because government tend to listen to
political talking points rather than economic talking points. Whatever is
political prudent tend to not be neccesary economically prudent.

~~~
philwelch
I think economics should be a descriptive science, not a set of arguments for
one particular political system. Markets have certain consequences that we may
or may not want, and so do certain types of government interventions. Planned
economies don't tend to have very many desirable consequences, as far as I can
tell, but that's not how most economic policies work anyway.

I'm not a good enough economist to give an intellectually honest account of
what would happen in an anarcho-capitalist system, but I doubt from a
historical and anthropological standpoint that anarcho-capitalism is likely to
ever happen anyway.

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akamaka
While it's amusing for us computer science majors to poke fun at the
scientific irrelevance of postmodernism, its influence is undeniable.

Few academic fields have been left untouched by postmodern thinking, and
you'll quickly run into it if you're studying art, literature, philosophy,
architecture, social science, feminism, political science, and more.

A religious person might rightly point out that Darwin's theory of evolution
hasn't changed his faith in a higher power, but it's foolish of him to fail to
notice that the world around him has been revolutionized.

~~~
philwelch
"Few academic fields have been left untouched by postmodern thinking, and
you'll quickly run into it if you're studying art, literature, philosophy,
architecture, social science, feminism, political science, and more."

Though, if you're studying philosophy in the analytic tradition (most English-
speaking philosophy since the turn of the 20th century), postmodernism and its
antecedents in continental philosophy have been consciously rejected in an
attempt for greater linguistic precision.

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fgimenez
Okay, I have yet to understand what the heck postmodernism really is.
Apparently, everybody I've asked cannot define it without resorting to
incomprehensible explanations. Could anybody shed some light on what has
become the whipping post of philosophy?

~~~
Confusion
From <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/>

[..] it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical
practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the
simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence,
identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of
meaning.

In short: it about bending language to such extent that all meaning is
distorted to the point of being broken.

~~~
viggity
Oh, so they're bullshit artists. I wonder how much of my tax dollars get paid
for these people to talk out their asses.

I'll stick with people who actually produce things that move the world
forward.

~~~
Confusion
Well, it's a pretty important, and counterintuitieve, property of language
that it is even possible to do the things they do. In The Matrix terms: they
show us just how deep the rabbithole goes.

