Is there good experimental evidence supporting neoclassical economics or Freudian psychology? It is not the critic’s duty to supply the evidence—it is the duty of those that want to use the models in real life situations to show that they work in the real world.
My point was not that there is evidence to support Freudian theory, it really is bunk. My point was that non-experts have a tendency to dismiss entire fields of inquiry as bogus because of single imperfect ideas within the subject.
For instance, my Women’s Studies professor was flat out wrong when she said observed sex differences are purely “socially constructed”. This does not, however, give one a right to say that Women’s Studies can be readily dismissed by an outsider as totally worthless.
Getting “good experimental evidence” to support any macroeconomic theory is all but impossible, but that doesn’t mean there is no evidence whatsoever. A good rule of thumb is that if two absolute ideologues like Paul Krugman and Milton Friedman agree about an issue, there must be pretty damn good evidence.
A good rule of thumb is that if two absolute ideologues like Paul Krugman and Milton Friedman agree about an issue, there must be pretty damn good evidence.
I happen to agree with them about the issue of rent control, but taken as a general rule, this is absolutely fallacious. Within any belief system, leaders of different factions will often hate each other ferociously over their differences, even though from an outside perspective, they may well look almost indistinguishable. Just look at various religious and ideological disputes over incomprehensibly obscure points of doctrine.
(And yes, I do think that modern economics has some fundamentally unsound beliefs that are a matter of virtual consensus nowadays. See e.g. this discussion for some examples.)
I agree that a part of a theory can be shown to be invalid even though many other parts are shown to be valid. Even the basic assumptions of a model can be wrong and parts of the model may still work. That is not the point I was making.
I was saying that the onus is on the model to be shown to work in a real life situation. It should not be assumed to work and its critics have the onus to show that it is “totally broken”.
As I am not sure what experiments have been done to show the validity of neoclassic economics in the real world—I ask. You want “actual evidence that neoclassical economics is totally broken” but I think it is more reasonable to ask for evidence that it works. Is there good evidence?
My impression is that a lot of Freud’s predictions failed to bear out, and where they turned out right, they are usually better explained (more coverage of phenomenon with a simpler model) by less elaborate theories.
For example, the idea of “Freudian slips” (where accidents of speech reveal prurient obsessions) was somewhat born out, but priming theory explains the same general phenomenon without the obsessive focus on sex that was so characteristic of Freud… and which probably accounted for a large part of his success in popular culture. Also, some of his claims were just plain fraud.
Nowadays, Freudian psychology has much more relevance to literature majors than psych majors, because he offered a theory of human souls that claimed to be scientific, was full of sex, and worked at about the same level of explanation that animist theories of nature do (with lots and lots of use of the intentional stance). It was a very useful theory for novelists, but not so useful to neuro-physiologists.
Is there good experimental evidence supporting neoclassical economics or Freudian psychology?
I read knb’s point as “It is silly to dismiss all of psychology as bogus just because of Freudian psychology, just like it is worth considering whether all of neoclassical economics is broken or useless because some parts that are flawed.”
Is there good experimental evidence supporting neoclassical economics or Freudian psychology? It is not the critic’s duty to supply the evidence—it is the duty of those that want to use the models in real life situations to show that they work in the real world.
My point was not that there is evidence to support Freudian theory, it really is bunk. My point was that non-experts have a tendency to dismiss entire fields of inquiry as bogus because of single imperfect ideas within the subject.
For instance, my Women’s Studies professor was flat out wrong when she said observed sex differences are purely “socially constructed”. This does not, however, give one a right to say that Women’s Studies can be readily dismissed by an outsider as totally worthless.
Getting “good experimental evidence” to support any macroeconomic theory is all but impossible, but that doesn’t mean there is no evidence whatsoever. A good rule of thumb is that if two absolute ideologues like Paul Krugman and Milton Friedman agree about an issue, there must be pretty damn good evidence.
knb:
I happen to agree with them about the issue of rent control, but taken as a general rule, this is absolutely fallacious. Within any belief system, leaders of different factions will often hate each other ferociously over their differences, even though from an outside perspective, they may well look almost indistinguishable. Just look at various religious and ideological disputes over incomprehensibly obscure points of doctrine.
(And yes, I do think that modern economics has some fundamentally unsound beliefs that are a matter of virtual consensus nowadays. See e.g. this discussion for some examples.)
I agree that a part of a theory can be shown to be invalid even though many other parts are shown to be valid. Even the basic assumptions of a model can be wrong and parts of the model may still work. That is not the point I was making. I was saying that the onus is on the model to be shown to work in a real life situation. It should not be assumed to work and its critics have the onus to show that it is “totally broken”. As I am not sure what experiments have been done to show the validity of neoclassic economics in the real world—I ask. You want “actual evidence that neoclassical economics is totally broken” but I think it is more reasonable to ask for evidence that it works. Is there good evidence?
My impression is that a lot of Freud’s predictions failed to bear out, and where they turned out right, they are usually better explained (more coverage of phenomenon with a simpler model) by less elaborate theories.
For example, the idea of “Freudian slips” (where accidents of speech reveal prurient obsessions) was somewhat born out, but priming theory explains the same general phenomenon without the obsessive focus on sex that was so characteristic of Freud… and which probably accounted for a large part of his success in popular culture. Also, some of his claims were just plain fraud.
Nowadays, Freudian psychology has much more relevance to literature majors than psych majors, because he offered a theory of human souls that claimed to be scientific, was full of sex, and worked at about the same level of explanation that animist theories of nature do (with lots and lots of use of the intentional stance). It was a very useful theory for novelists, but not so useful to neuro-physiologists.
I read knb’s point as “It is silly to dismiss all of psychology as bogus just because of Freudian psychology, just like it is worth considering whether all of neoclassical economics is broken or useless because some parts that are flawed.”
Yes, this is what I meant.