An immortal fumble by Bob Kolker (27-Mar-2004)

He would be drummed out
>>> Introductory economics textbooks are wrong.


>> Produce empirical evidence. Just what is wrong and what is the actual 
>> empirical evidence gotten from real world observations and measurements. 
>> No fair rebutting a theory with a theory. Rebut a theory with a fact.

> No empirical evidence is needed to rebut a logically inconsistent
> theory.
> 
> Here is a logically inconsistent statement:
> 
>   ( For all x in S, if p(x) then q(x) ) and
>       ( ( a is an element of S ) and ( p(a) and not q(a) ) )
> 
> That is, given a theory in which its conclusions, q(), are supposed
> to follow from its assumptions, p(), it is sufficient to refute it
> to come up with a (theoretical) example in which its assumptions hold
> and its conclusions do not.

> I have already met this challenge for the mainstream intro textbook
> story of comparative advantage:


No you have not. You have formally defined the denial of a universally 
quantified material implication. You have yet to show the theory is 
-internally inconsistent-. Most likely the theory is perfectly 
consistent, but it is empirically falsifiable.

You have presented a lot of numbers, but you have not told us how they 
were arrived at. There is the little matter of reproducibility of the 
experimental results you have failed to provide.

If a physicist tried the stunt you have just tried he would be drummed 
out of the community.
 Fumble Index  Original post & context: nzg9c.15541$gA5.222625@attbi_s03