I have been reading up on people's critiques of using math in social sciences. I study business in university so my econ is limited to intro micro /macro. But man i had no clue how mathematical mainstream economics is. I am browsing thru some MIT lecture notes, I find one called Racial Discrimination. So i look expecting some possible impact of discrimination, maybe the effects of certain policies on discrimination etc but I basically find equations with words used for definitions.
Quotes:
Let the wage Y be the wage equal to
Yi = XiB + alphaZi + ei --> Discrimination is the case where alpha is < 0 ....are you serious???
More formally, think of our basic comparison of hiring odds of black and white-sounding resumes:
T = E[Y1|N = 1]-E[Y...bla bla and it goes on for the rest of the width of the page.....
Who started this madness...
yessir:Who started this madness...
walras-->marshall-->paul samuelson-->george stigler Therefore: walras started this madness.
Sad thing is, people who rightly question the validity of this ivory tower arithmetic are often denounced as not capable of understanding the math. That way, professors can hide behind incomprehensible systems of equations to avoid a rethinking of their premises. Here, I also have some mathematical observations for y'all:T* = time spent pursuing mainstream economics degrees at an Ivy League UniversityKµ = amount of Keynesian thought in one's premisesA§ = influence of Austrian economicsP$ = frequency of publication in accredited journalsVx = amount of validity of one's claimsP$ = (Kµ * T*) / (A§)² with {"no influence"} == (1/∞)Vx = (A§)³ / (T* * Kµ) with {"no time spent"} == (1/∞)Does P$ equal Vx?=> (Kµ * T*) / (A§)² ≠ (A§)³ / (T* * Kµ) v 0 ≠ AIn other words, frequency of publication does not equal validity and Austrian economics is not useless (≠ 0). Thank you.
Sphairon: P$ = (Kµ * T*) / (A§)² with {"no influence"} == (1/∞)Vx = (A§)³ / (T* * Kµ) with {"no time spent"} == (1/∞)Does P$ equal Vx?=> (Kµ * T*) / (A§)² ≠ (A§)³ / (T* * Kµ) v 0 ≠ AIn other words, frequency of publication does not equal validity and Austrian economics is not useless (≠ 0). Thank you.
P$ = (Kµ * T*) / (A§)² with {"no influence"} == (1/∞)Vx = (A§)³ / (T* * Kµ) with {"no time spent"} == (1/∞)Does P$ equal Vx?=> (Kµ * T*) / (A§)² ≠ (A§)³ / (T* * Kµ) v 0 ≠ AIn other words, frequency of publication does not equal validity and Austrian economics is not useless (≠ 0). Thank you.
While you did that I just minimized discrimination by solving for the derivative of discrimination set to 0.
Economics has got to the point where you can read a whole book (actually, nobody writes books) without any mention of the real world, all in the name of "science".
Actually, that's why I really like Galbraith, despite all of his Keynesian shortcomings. The funny thing I believe Rothbard's minor was statistics or something, and as indicated by a topic on these forums not long ago there are a lot of math majors here.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan