This thread demonstrates that a lot of academic writing that *looks* like utter nonsense is merely scholars dressing up a useful but mundane point with a ton of unnecessary jargon.https://twitter.com/JeffreyASachs/status/1051097280030396417 …
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@Undercoverhist has written about this problem:https://beatricecherrier.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/what-price-did-economists-pay-for-tractability/ …
Jargon sounds sillier than mathiness. It looks worse to the public, because most of the public thinks they should be able to understand English but doesn't assume they can understand math. But mathiness, ultimately, is probably more pernicious. (end)
I learned more Econ by ditching the math, then working backwards to fit math into the descriptive mechanics of the concepts...which is how every other science is taught. No one teaches physics by force feeding math before building a physical understanding of what’s happening.
Well, some people do teach physics that way. But yeah, you're right.
Those are the bad physics teachers :P. The whole point of science is to distill the inscrutable complexity of the world into as simply comprehensible and understandable pieces and terms as possible. If you’re making things even more inscrutable you’re doing it wrong.
That's a good point but if jargon leads to people misunderstanding and misconstruing your point, the effect is similar, no?
Mathiness leads to *you* miscontruing your point. ;-)
Yeah, i get it. Btw, this might be literally a case for some game theory. One of the best arguments for game theory is that by putting your arguments into boxes and showing the causal relationship between them with arrows and such, it helps make your argument clear & explicit.
I like Romer's point that mathiness creates barriers against critique even in your own discipline. More labor to check other people's work.
But mathiness is a barrier to reading and understanding. Not just the validity of the thesis directly but in larger sense, the unstated aspects: is this a problem that the expert community recognizes immediately ("cold fusion"); is the mathematics accepted as mainstream or weird
For me the study of James Clerk Maxwell's field equations that lead to the discovery of electromagnetic waves made me a believer in how mathematical models are a key to understanding the true nature of things.
Maxwell's math with its multiple partial integral equations is too dense and complicated for most students to invest the time to learn it: the modern shortcuts of the using Curl & Nabla functions I believe wouldn't affect accuracy.
No, maths obliges you to change the substance, sometimes, not just mathiness. But that's a trade off with logical consistency, which maths enhances
Claudius Ptolemy's geocentric model accurately predicted the of the visible stars and planets. Copernicus solar centric model reduced the number of postulates which eliminated the need for the complex calculations of the motion of epicycles for each planet: and was more accurate.
I think the opposite could be true if done right. It is in physics. (Of course, I know this is a trope...)
I think that's a nice way of saying we generally suck at math and are even worse at applying it.
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