The principle that theories should be tested by the accuracy of their predictions but not by the realism of their assumptions needs to be qualified. As a practical matter we often need to evaluate the applicability of theories to cases for which they have not been tested by their predictions. Here we rely on the fact that theories are applicable only within a specific domain. In determining whether a specific case, for which no direct tests are available, is within the (...) theory's domain, we look primarily at whether the assumptions of the theory are as applicable to it as they are to the cases for which the theory has been successfully tested. (shrink)

How justified is the charge that ideology strongly influences the allegedly objective opinions of economists? An analysis of a new survey of AEA members and of surveys of labour economists and public economists shows that value judgments and judgments about the government's efficacy have some influence on the way economists think about what should be purely economic issues. But such influence is not strong enough to explain much of the disagreement among economists.

Data mining occurs because most economic hypotheses do not have a unique empirical interpretation but allow the econometrician much leeway in selecting conditioning variables, lags, functional forms, and sometimes the sample. The resulting problems are of interest not only to methodologists and philosophers concerned with how hypotheses are validated in the presence of some inevitable ad hocery but, also to readers of economics journals who have no interest in methodology but need to know whether to believe what they read. Since (...) I focus on such mundane problems I make no claim of contributing to the deeper epistemological problems of relating empirical evidence to theory, and to the meaning of confirmation and disconfirmation when, say five of the eight specifications tested are consistent with the hypothesis and, three are not. Instead, I deal with a practical problem confronting a researcher who wants to persuade his readers but does not want to deceive them. He has fitted many regressions with varying results. How should he decide how many and which ones to report? This paper is therefore more about a problem in communicating results than about a problem in the philosophy of science. Hence, I use some common-sense notions, even though I cannot provide rigorous definitions for them. (shrink)

Galileo’s Sunspot Letters, published in 1613, underwent extensive censorship before publication. It seems likely that the Roman Inquisition had charge of the pre-publication review of Galileo’s work, rather than the usual organ, the Master of the Sacred Palace. A study of that process demonstrates that the issue to which the censors objected was Galileo’s use of the bible, not his allegiance to Copernicus. In the course of the first phase of Galileo’s trial, orchestrated by one of the most powerful Cardinal (...) Inquisitors, two propositions allegedly drawn from the book were judged either “formally heretical” or “at least erroneous in the faith.” These judgments might have come not from the published book but from the Inquisition’s censorship of its drafts. They supported Galileo’s silencing in 1616.Keywords: Galileo; Sunspot Letters; Roman Inquisition; Bible; Censorship; Heliocentrism. (shrink)

One way of inducing economists to pay more attention to methodology is for methodologists to take up problems that practicing economists will see as relevant to their work and discuss them in a non-technical manner. The paper provides some examples of how methodologists could aid practicing economists in this way. The examples used are the validity of the new classical's insistence on reductionism, the tension between those who want to ground economic theory rigorously, and those willing to work with informal (...) theory, and the related tension between the claimed reliance on ?scientific? theory and the actual reliance on informal evidence, conflicting interpretations of what science and theories are, and some low-level but important problems in econometrics. (shrink)

(2003). Fifty years of Milton Friedman's ‘The methodology of positive economics’: Introduction. Journal of Economic Methodology: Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 493-494. doi: 10.1080/1350178032000130475.

According to the Rome newspaper La Repubblica, 2009 was “a year for Galileo and all the stars.” The headline referred to the UN’s declaration, at Italian urging, of an international year of astronomy celebrating Galileo’s first use of the telescope. The Italians marked the event in epic fashion, including a mega-conference in Florence and many smaller affairs. What they did not do was produce a new biography. That was left to an Englishman, David Wootton, and an American, John Heilbron.Heilbron’s Galileo (...) is a Florentine humanist, master rhetorician, fond of metaphor and analogy in place of causal analysis. Casting Galileo as a humanist is not new: that was Giorgio de Santillana’s view 50 years ago. Nor is bringing out Galileo’s passion for Orlando Furioso, except that Heilbron pulls serious implications out of it, especially Galileo’s inventiveness and strong preference for verisimilitude which led him to rely on rhetoric rather than geometry. Galileo’s specific liking for Ariosto is p .. (shrink)

Abstract Many of Boettke's criticisms of formalist economics are justified. However, he defines formalism so broadly that it becomes practically synonymous with mainstream economics, while his criticisms primarily target the sins of formalist economics more narrowly defined. And since he treats Austrian economics as the only viable alternative to mainstream economics, he incorrectly awards victory to Austrian economics. While Austrian economics has some valuable ideas to contribute to mainstream economics, it has serious deficiencies of its own.

Friedman's 1956 essay, ?The Quantity Theory of Money: A Restatement?, in his Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money should be read in the context of the prevailing Keynesian consensus of the time. His primary task had to be to convince economists to reconsider this theory. This required an ecumenical presentation that would not drive off potential readers. At the same time it required making some strong claims for the quantity theory to induce readers to reconsider it. A combination of (...) ?sweet reason? and shock tactics was needed. Friedman accomplished this rhetorical task brilliantly. (shrink)