>> The people I'm debating with started by claiming that the mainstream
>> of economic thought is incorrect, mendacious, and self-deluded.
>> They 'support' their arguments with statements that show nothing so
>> much as their own ignorance of basic economic principles.


> Let's not talk about 'these people'. I am only interested in Robert's
> account of the Neo-Ricardian critique of economics.


Which has been entirely based on Robert's ignorance of what demand curves
are.  The neo-Ricardians themselves gave up a while ago.  The Cambridge
Capital Controversy petered out with coming to ANY conclusions.



>> This particular discussion began with an assertion that factor
>> demand curves could be upward sloping, which would contradict some
>> basic economic reasoning.


> Robert's claim, as I understand it, is that while the usual assumption
> about no price variations as demand varies can be used to show that
> they are downward sloping, these assumptions eliminate reasonable
> models of demand bhavior (I am thinking in particular of his 'tale
> of two models' post). He relaxes this assumption to allow
> 'endogeneous variations' of other prices, to obtain what he claims is
> a better definition of demand curve.


Which is much of Robert's problem, he doesn't have enough of a grasp of what
the definition of a demand curve is to call another definition 'better'.


>>> The point I was making is that, for the reasons I have xplained,
>>> physicists do not defend ad-hocery.


>> They just go ahead and apply whichever theory is the best for the
>> circumstances, no one complains.  When ECONOMISTS do the same thing
>> though, people like you try to use that to show that standard
>> economic reasoning is somehow faulty.


> The ad-hocery that I condemn is the tolerance of inconsistent theories
> because of their supposed empirical success.  Physicists do not defend
> inconsistent theories.  If you now accept that, can we forget about
> physics?


They don't?  So they've chosen quantum mechanics over general relativity (or
vice versa)?


>>>>> I wonder what grounds you used to 'deduce' that I am not a
>>>>> researcher.


>>>> You have the wrong attitude.  Your support of theory against
>>>> empirical evidence gives you away.


>>> You deduce I am not a researcher because you don't like my
>>> 'attitude'!  Is this your base USENET persona, or do you regard
>>> this as a justification?  BTW, as I pointed out in my last post,
>>> your conclusion is false.


>> I don't believe you.


> You don't believe that I am a researcher? I have written the first
> draft of my doctoral thesis on the proof theory of classical logic. I
> am not sure what would convince you: perhaps I could send you the URL
> of my website at my department.


That isn't research, that's just appealing to what others have said.
Research involves data and statistical analysis.


> You originally said (over a week and a half ago) that you did not
> need to examine the counter examples because of the supposed empirical
> success of economics (as Popper noted, this is a complete irrelevance:
> confirming instances do not validate a theory).  Now, it appears, you
> accept that if Robert has counterexamples, then the theory to which
> they apply is wrong.
> 
> Why you have spent the past week and a half attacking this piece of
> elementary logic, instead of attacking Robert's counterexamples is
> beyond me.


Because I felt like it. Because Robert can just come with another model
everytime I destroy this one.  It becomes a never ending struggle.


> This is confused.  I am concerned about the relative status of
> competing foundational claims of the Neo-classical and Neo-Ricardian
> approaches to economics, and so I cannot at the outset simple 'realize
> that the consistent theory of general applicability here is
> neo-classical'.  I pointed this out to you in my second post to you,
> over three weeks ago, and repeated the point twice, and yet you
> continue to reiterate that I should accept your claim on faith.
> 
> Robert's claim is not that Neo-classicism in its entirety is false,
> but rather that there are certain widely-held and significant beliefs
> that are demonstrably false.


Yet no one has ever demonstrated them.  The neo-Ricardians thought they had
something, but they could never actually support their ideas.  The CCC
exhausted itself without being able to decisively say that capital
aggregation either was or was not problematic.  The neo-Ricardians were
never able to generate empirical results with their theories.  Reswitching
hasn't actually been observed.  How many times does neo-Ricardian theory
have to fail before it's relegated to the ash heap of failed theories?


>>> You say that you have an understanding of 'the role of theoretical
>>> explanations in science', but I have to say that the evidence of
>>> your writings points the opposite way.  Have you read any writers on
>>> scientific methodology?  Who, and what did you think of them?  How
>>> do you square their assertions with the absurdities you here
>>> maintain?


>> What absurdities?  That the mainstream of modern economic thought
>> isn't mendacious, erroneous, or self-deluded?  That professional
>> economists really do know what they're talking about?


> I have never contradicted you on a matter of economics.  You have
> repeatedly opposed many very elementary claims made by me about the
> nature of the justification of theory, the limits of empirical
> evidence and the justification of theory.  Do you recant your past
> responses?


Nope.  But I think you need to refer to the scientists definition of
'truth'.