<story><title>How economists rode maths to become our era’s astrologers</title><url>https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-our-era-s-astrologers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway7645</author><text>Not sure if that quotation inspires much confidence. Economics has math behind it. Subjects like Sociology have none of the rigor of math and are thus a large waste of time.</text></item><item><author>MatthiasP</author><text>&amp;quot;To put it bluntly, the discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for mathematics and for purely theoretical and often highly ideological speculation, at the expense of historical research and collaboration with the other social sciences. Economists are all too often preoccupied with petty mathematical problems of interest only to themselves. This obsession with mathematics is an easy way of acquiring the appearance of scientificity without having to answer the far more complex questions posed by the world we live in.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Piketty T. &amp;quot;Capital in the 21st century&amp;quot;, p. 36.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>olavk</author><text>This is exactly the fallacy he is addressing. Math = rigor, so clearly the discipline which uses the most math is the most rigorous, right? But actually math is only useful when it is based on a useful model of reality. If the underlying assumptions are unfounded or faulty, then math does not help you at all.</text></comment>
<story><title>How economists rode maths to become our era’s astrologers</title><url>https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-our-era-s-astrologers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway7645</author><text>Not sure if that quotation inspires much confidence. Economics has math behind it. Subjects like Sociology have none of the rigor of math and are thus a large waste of time.</text></item><item><author>MatthiasP</author><text>&amp;quot;To put it bluntly, the discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for mathematics and for purely theoretical and often highly ideological speculation, at the expense of historical research and collaboration with the other social sciences. Economists are all too often preoccupied with petty mathematical problems of interest only to themselves. This obsession with mathematics is an easy way of acquiring the appearance of scientificity without having to answer the far more complex questions posed by the world we live in.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Piketty T. &amp;quot;Capital in the 21st century&amp;quot;, p. 36.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jbooth</author><text>The takeaway is that the math used in econ obscures the truth while lending a fake gravitas to pure opinion.&lt;p&gt;At least sociology is honest that they&amp;#x27;re going pure opinion.</text></comment>