tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post1531833712109511196..comments2023-06-18T01:25:08.748-07:00Comments on Information Transfer Economics: Making friends: David OrrellJason Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12680061127040420047noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-15635112109769141452018-05-02T10:30:26.804-07:002018-05-02T10:30:26.804-07:00"Again, fabrication is a serious charge. Have...<i>"Again, fabrication is a serious charge. Have you tried submitting it for publication, or contacted the author or editor or other people involved?"</i><br /><br />Bezemer's paper wasn't peer reviewed or published in a journal. It's a pdf'd word document that's listed as "unpublished" in a citation from Bezemer in a <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/no-one-saw-coming-or-did-they" rel="nofollow">voxeu blog post</a>.<br /><br />Why should I have to go to greater lengths than Bezemer did to point out the problems with his quotes in order for you to take it seriously? Look up the citations yourself. I linked to the sources. I'm not the one citing it, you are.<br /><br />...<br /><br />The bit about obfuscating math was a joke; immediately following the line is a quote from a (admittedly obscure) comedy TV show that was on the Cartoon Network in the US in the late 90s and early 2000s.Jason Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12680061127040420047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-26175866725985816932018-05-02T10:07:56.317-07:002018-05-02T10:07:56.317-07:00- “the quote is taken out of context (one in which...- “the quote is taken out of context (one in which Feynman himself said models could probably not predict the existence of thunderstorms without observational data from the Earth)”<br /><br />Feynman is dropping a general remark into another specific context. In my case, I am using it to sum up a commonly held understanding of how science works, with prediction forming a key part of the scientific method. As you say, the meaning of what counts as a prediction (e.g. it could arguably be something that is already known) is up for debate and I discuss that at some length in my book.<br /><br />- “Bezemer article appears to have fabricated its examples ... But no one seems to care.”<br /><br />Again, fabrication is a serious charge. Have you tried submitting it for publication, or contacted the author or editor or other people involved?<br /><br />- “it is impossible to know whether or not recessions are predictable or not”<br /><br />We are talking about the failure to warn of a particular financial catastrophe, or take steps to prevent it, or diagnose it properly. As Akerlof and Shiller wrote in Phishing for Phools, “It is truly remarkable that so few economists foresaw what would happen.”<br /><br />- “I now don't understand the purpose the FitzRoy analogy”<br /><br />There seems to be a pattern here where if I clear up something it only reveals some deeper problem (see below).<br /><br />- “neoclassical economics decried in Orrell's article via quotes”<br /><br />The way it reads is that I am making these statements in the article by quoting them. By that standard, you could have turned it around, and said that critics are decried in the article as “dangerous” etc. The right way to word it would be to say “decried in papers quoted in the article” though that doesn’t sound quite as snappy. I expect if I’d done it to Feynman you would have picked up on it.<br /><br />“Wait, is David saying he might accidentally start trying to obfuscate with mathematics?” <br /><br />Impressed that you can turn my statement around and use it to question my scientific integrity. This seems to be less about a serious response to my article or my forthcoming book, and more about your self-described irritation caused by “reference to physics in the context of economics.” One of the topics of the book is exactly the source of this irritation, which tends to afflict both physicists and economists, but which seems to apply especially to quantum approaches (not so much to e.g. classical thermodynamics).<br /><br />Anyway, I hope you do take a look at the book when it comes out, though I am sure you will find it irritating. But economics strikes me as an area where a little irritation might be constructive.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com