Paul Romer, a professor of economics at New York University, claims that economics profession is becoming more "mathiness." In order to justify that economics is a scientific discipline, more and more economists and those younger students of economics striving to establish themselves in the so called scientific community strive to compete their ideas or views for explaining human behaviors or people's action in real situation by using mathematical models.
Instead of logical thinkings, the contentions between economists are in contesting sophistication of mathematical equations or in challenging how best a mathematical specification can be tested by data either in the form covering a certain period of time or in a given time.
These increasing tendencies of "mathiness" have caused serious discrepancies between actual fact and policy responses. Worst still, the "mathiness" often become a justification for small interest groups in achieving their specific goals instead of pushing for the common that benefits people at large. One of the crucial role of a scientist is to contribute to the betterment of humanity, but seemingly economists have not shouldered that responsibility sufficiently if "mathiness" was a requirement to joining the scientific community.
To read Professor Romer's view on "mathiness": URL: http://paulromer.net/mathiness/
Instead of logical thinkings, the contentions between economists are in contesting sophistication of mathematical equations or in challenging how best a mathematical specification can be tested by data either in the form covering a certain period of time or in a given time.
These increasing tendencies of "mathiness" have caused serious discrepancies between actual fact and policy responses. Worst still, the "mathiness" often become a justification for small interest groups in achieving their specific goals instead of pushing for the common that benefits people at large. One of the crucial role of a scientist is to contribute to the betterment of humanity, but seemingly economists have not shouldered that responsibility sufficiently if "mathiness" was a requirement to joining the scientific community.
To read Professor Romer's view on "mathiness": URL: http://paulromer.net/mathiness/
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