Barkley Rosser wrote:
>Greg,
>      The current situation is more extreme than what went on in the past.
>In the past one would get people who were trained in math, or physics, or
>engineering, who would then switch over to economics and import their
>methods from their previous background.  But they would actually switch
>over formally to economics.

Although I am not familiar with this literature, 
I can hazard a guess that econophysics might not 
be so bad and might actually be useful. Physics 
itself seems to be getting more metaphysical, and 
the behavior of any individual particle, like the 
behavior of any individual economic actor, is not 
actually knowable. Still, the development of 
systems of particles can be measured and known.

I am reminded of the story about Werner 
Heisenberg, he of the uncertainty principle, who 
on graduating with a degree in the Classics, was 
deciding on whether to do graduate work in either 
physics or economics. He decided on physics 
because, he said, "I thought economics would be too hard."


John C. M?daille