Tag Archives: falsifiability

On the practical side of philosophy of science. Adding nuance to Karl Popper on falsification. Further argument for the view that theories are useful but not "true." This may seem to contradict the realist view that theories are general descriptions of causal relationships. But I don't think that this is what is is implied. Rather, useful theories can be viewed as fitting the data because they reveal underlying structures that are not observed directly but only indirectly.  There is a...

In a previous article, I argued that having unknown fixed parameters within many economic models does not create much in the way of uncertainty: just extend the range of historical data available, and we can pin down the parameter values. This article covers a related case: what if we allow parameters to vary with time? This possibility will make it impossible to make reliable forecasts with the model. However, such models have another defect: they can be fitted to practically any data set,...