John, I found the following text serendipitously while Googling for
references on the history of technology. I think you will like it, and it
expresses my point of view to near perfection. The author signs himself as
"Chuck Spinney".
QUOTE: Few would argue with the proposition that the replacement of medieval
scholasticism 400 years ago with the scientific method unleashed major advances
in the human condition.
That triumph of facts and reason over interests and faith rests on the
invention of a self-correcting cybernetic process known as the modern scientific
method. Science can be thought of as a process of Observation-Hypothesis-Test.
According to the eminent philosopher of science Karl Popper, the essence of
scientific proof is TESTING under the Principle of Falsification. That is, an
hypothesis can not be proven to be true, it can only be proven to be false by
banging its predictions against the real world.
For a scientific hypothesis to have meaning, therefore, it must be
constructed in such a way that it is possible to falsify it by rigorous testing.
Under these logical conditions, any test that confirms a hypothesis establishes
"truth" on a conditional basis only. The conditional truth is always subject to
further testing, elaboration, or possible falsification. The result is a
gradually expanding edifice of conditional truth punctuated on rare occasions by
stunning shifts in world views, known popularly as scientific revolutions or
paradigm shifts, to use a much abused term.
… Under the Principle of Falsification and the Theory of Conditional Truth,
science and the evolution of knowledge can be thought of, paradoxically, as a
creative search process for identifying what does not work.
Engineering is a similar self-correcting search process, but in this case, it
can be viewed as a trial-and-error process of Observation - Design - Test. The
emphasis on design gives engineering a slightly different motivating force, even
though its method is the same as that of science. In contrast to science,
Engineering can be thought of as a creative search process for what works in the
sense of combining existing scientific principles (conditional truths) and
technologies into new products that satisfy or create human needs. Engineering
can be thought of as the practical application of the scientific method, where a
"design" replaces a hypothesis. The principle of falsification takes the form of
realistic testing of a prototype design. Once this approach determines a design
that is viable in the real world, production resources can then be committed
with relatively low economic or performance risk.
Tests that are biased to prove success violate the principle of falsification
and the self-correcting essence of the scientific method. In the case of
science, the result is quackery. In the case of engineering, problems get
suppressed and products go into production prematurely with major design flaws,
with the end result being products that don't work or incur excessive costs to
make them work. END OF QUOTE
Now, since policy-making is all about design, it is inevitable that the
flavor of engineering is stronger in political economy than that of science. It
is undeniable that the economic "theories" or "models" incorporated
(Incarnated?) by consciously established policies are a deductive apparatus and
can only accidentally be better than the assumptions on which they are based.
There really isn’t a lot of scope for science (as described above) in economics
other than poking holes in the realism of the assumptions on which the deductive
apparatus is built. That is what Douglas did, of course, and then built a new
deductive apparatus on his more realistic assumptions. In a previous comment to
you I noted the near impossibility of testing economic theories by looking at
current realities and assuming them to be the consequence of particular policy
decisions. The irony of Social Credit is that Douglas’ disciples make a great
issue about the importance of inductive science, but their efforts to promote
his ideas and policy are almost solely deductive. The only exception I can
recall is the one posted here a couple of days ago by Michael Lane.
Incidentally, I found the statement quoted above while trying to find an
excuse for Douglas’ apparent ignorance of the history his own profession, as
manifested in the Dunedin address.
Keith Wilde
To J Rawson re sci
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