Matt_Simpson comments on Folk theories can be useful even when they're entirely wrong - Less Wrong

16 Post author: taw 23 March 2011 04:04PM

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Comment author: Matt_Simpson 23 March 2011 06:24:14PM 1 point [-]

Theories in general can be useful even when they're entirely wrong. There are entire fields dedicated to this (with or without the practitioners' knowledge of this fact), in fact most "high level" subjects have to be theoretically false because to be theoretically correct is just analytically and/or computationally impossible. I would put forward economics and social science in general as examples of this.