by From Lars Syll Many mainstream economists have the idea that because heterodox people — like yours truly — often criticize the application of mathematics in economics, we are critical of math per se. This is totally unfounded and ridiculous. I do not know how many times I have been asked to answer this straw-man objection to heterodox economics. No, there is nothing wrong with mathematics per se. No, there is nothing wrong with applying mathematics to economics. Mathematics is one valuable tool among other valuable tools for understanding and explaining things in economics. What is, however, totally wrong, are the utterly simplistic beliefs that • “math is the only valid tool” • “math is always and everywhere self-evidently applicable” • “math is all that really counts” • “if it’s not
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from Lars Syll
Many mainstream economists have the idea that because heterodox people — like yours truly — often criticize the application of mathematics in economics, we are critical of math per se.
This is totally unfounded and ridiculous. I do not know how many times I have been asked to answer this straw-man objection to heterodox economics.
No, there is nothing wrong with mathematics per se.
No, there is nothing wrong with applying mathematics to economics.
Mathematics is one valuable tool among other valuable tools for understanding and explaining things in economics.
What is, however, totally wrong, are the utterly simplistic beliefs that
• “math is the only valid tool”
• “math is always and everywhere self-evidently applicable”
• “math is all that really counts”
• “if it’s not in math, it’s not really economics”
• “almost everything can be adequately understood and analyzed with math”
That said, let us never forget that without strong evidence all kinds of absurd claims and nonsense may pretend to be science. Using math can never be a substitute for thinking. Or as Paul Romer has it in his showdown with ‘post-real’ Chicago economics:
Math cannot establish the truth value of a fact. Never has. Never will.