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Dear John,
I am sure that everyone will welcome any
empirical contributions you can bring to bear on either of Douglas' premises or
his conclusions. And you will not find me standing up for "autistic"
economics. I should nevertheless point out that I consider the issue of
inductive versus deductive methods to be a dead one. Ernst Mayr, in
his monumental history of biological thought (1982) called it irrelevant,
pointing out that neither Francis Bacon nor any scientist has ever
successfully practised Baconian induction, and that this has been accepted
among scientists since 1863. (I have not misplaced a digit in that date.)
"Inductivism," said Mayr, "was replaced more and more consciously by
the so-called hypothetical-deductive method" (the history of which has not yet
been written--as of 1982). I had some discussion of this issue with
Michael Lane a few years ago, and we agreed that Bacon's method could more
accurately be described as hypothetico-deductive.
I am at the moment engaged in writing an essay for
a volume to commemorate the scientific achievements of a distinguished
geologist. In spite of his conviction that economics is a form of brain
damage and that the Third Horseman of the Apocalypse is an economist, we were
good friends and had more than a few skirmishes over this issue. Now that he is
dead, I get the last word! I may pass along a draft of the essay as it
nears completion. And if I get reminded often enough, I may take my copy of
Mayr's book to where I keep my scanner and copy a couple of pages to pass around
here.
I do look forward to your empirical tests of the
deductively conceived hypotheses!
Keith Wilde
And
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2005 8:52
PM
Subject: [socialcredit] Reply. Keith
Wilde et al.
Thanks Keith for mention in despatches. (Para 4, 21 Apr.) No, I am trying
to get away from deduction except in setting up ideas. I wonder if
Economics is the only modern persuasion still using deductive methodology of
the Middle Ages and earlier? A great example was that intriguing and
interesting group of hypotheses sent by W.Curtis Priest on the 20th. If
they are "Laws" then I claim for A+B "The Douglas unifying superlaw of
deficiency of purchasing power". Or something like that, and I'm not
just being facetious. As claimed for their theory by the Binary
Economists, it certainly could bring Say's "law" into stream with other
theories, so it is unhifying like Einstein's work in science. Science learned
its modern inductive methodology from technology, particularly development of
artillery. How I wish bad economics exploded at the perpetrators instead
of millions of the world's poorer and weaker.
Keith touched on this sort of confusion in his prior paragraph.
Deductive reasoning lays open all sorts of digressions that are much better
tested practacally against reality by inductive methods. In this case,
two stages are being mixed; 1. Douglas' philosophy aims at maximum personal
freedom, 2. his policies aim to bring this about. Those who don't
share the philosophy are wasting time considering the rest, because it is
aimed at providing a result they don't want.
Even Vic Bridger (also 21 Apr.) demonstrated a fault in the method by
claiming a theorem as a "fact". It is a proposition to be demonstrated
("quod erat demonstrandum", if I've got it dead right), and it is based on
certain assumptions. Mathemetics can change the result by changing an
assumption, (if parallel lines do meet, at infinity; different geometry) and
the same is possible here. It just ends up as a minefield of
conjecture.
Apart from our belief in its potential benefit to humanity, I believe it
has the potential to totally reform economic thinking by bringing scientific
methods into the field. This is reinforced by the (observable) fact
that, in this country at least, opposition has almost always come in the form
of ridicule rather than reason.
Hope there are no typos. I've studiously avoided "Brutish", but
...
John R.
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