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Lumifer comments on Rationality Quotes Thread September 2015 - Less Wrong
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--Paul Romer, NYU, "My Paper “Mathiness in the Theory of Economic Growth”
What if everyone knows that all the models are flawed, but the geocentric model makes the best predictions in one sub-domain, and the heliocentric model in another?
Well, if you replace "geocentric model" and "heliocentric model" with "general relativity" and "quantum field theory" that's pretty much the situation that obtains in present-day theoretical physics.
In physics general relativity and quantum field theory are applied to different domains and at least one, possibly both, are widely recognized as mere approximations to the ultimate theory that subsumes them.
I'll defer to Dr. Miller on this if he cares to weigh in, or any other professional economist, but my outsider's impression is that in economics as discussed by Romer the situation is more that contradictory theories are being applied to the same domain, without a serious effort to determine experimentally which (if either) is correct.
Hanson once said that testablity is not a useful notion in the social sciences. That seems kind of crazy to me, but I am not an economist.
Sometimes, yes. And at least one school loudly insists that they don't need no stinkin' experimental evidence, because they're actually doing a deductive formal science. In a sign of uncertain health for economics, they are considered heterodox, but not yet laughed out of polite academia.
I have no idea which one you are talking about.