Science has advanced very far on the back of mathematics.  I do not think mathematics obscures, but throws light on the subject.  Surely it has
problems because it does require simplification, which abstracts from reality.  Even Keynes had little effect until Samuelson put Keynes in an 
equation.  Mathematics is not used because it obscures.  That is a matter of opinion, but obscuring is not the goal of science.  Marx would have
been ignored had he not used the value equation in Volume 3.  




Scot A. Stradley, Ph.D.
Professor of Finance
Offutt School of Business
Concordia College
Moorhead, MN 56562

________________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Birks, Stuart [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2014 12:50 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Mark Blaug and belief in models

Hi Barkley, (am I right this time?)

I agree that econometrics is another topic, but it may not be a lesser concern. Common econometric practices have serious shortcomings. You write,
“there are many economists using mathematical models of one sort or another to obfuscate the arguments that they are making, both to browbeat their mathematical "inferiors," as well as to cover up agendas that they may be pushing and in which the complicatedness of their models helps to obscure the crucial points”
A similar point could be said about econometrics.

I apologise for the error with your name. My university has a more understanding system.

Regards,

K. Stuart Birks

From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rosser, John Barkley - rosserjb
Sent: Monday, 17 November 2014 11:56 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Mark Blaug and belief in models

Stuart,

I would certainly agree that there are many problems with current econometric practicies.  But these are not the topic at issue here.  The topic is the supposed aridity and misuse of mathematics, possibley as a language, and its reputed uselessness in explaining economic reality.  In that regard, looking at data on economic reality, even f using flawed techniques, is "more real" than pure theory of a highly mathematical sort.

BTW, while my uni insists on identifying us all by our first  names, I have always gone by

J.Barkley Rosser, Jr.
________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Birks, Stuart [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2014 5:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Mark Blaug and belief in models
You give an interesting perspective, John.

In my (remote) part of the world the emphasis on  research assessment exercises has resulted in a heavy emphasis on econometrics-based research. Dominant theoretical approaches have their conventions which could be challenged, but similar concerns could be raised about the use of econometrics. This also has its own rhetoric and dubious reasoning. Concepts of time in theory and econometrics are fundamentally different. The aggregation of data over time creates problems that are rarely if ever acknowledged (what do ‘lags’ really mean?). Control variables are increasingly used, but without any regard for functional form. I could go on, but briefly, any move to increased empirical work in its current form may simply be a case of ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire’.



From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rosser, John Barkley - rosserjb
Sent: Monday, 17 November 2014 10:04 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Mark Blaug and belief in models

This thread is in danger of turning into a circus of people bringing up numerous past figures and arguments about who said what when and who did what and so on and so forth.  So, while I should probably keep my mouth shut (or fingers from typing) I would like to add a few observations, more along the lines of the bigger issues involved and the current situation and trends rather than the various details of the past on this.  I am doing this given that it seems to me that this thread has been and is substantially driven by the unhappiness of more literarily oriented folks on this list, where a more literary orientation tends to predominate unsurprisingly, at what they view as the inordinate and inappropriate dominance of more mathematically oriented models and approaches in the current practice of economics, although of course I could be mistaken about that perception...

So, I completely agree that there are many economists using mathematical models of one sort or another to obfuscate the arguments that they are making, both to browbeat their mathematcial "inferiors," as well as to cover up agendas that they may be pushing and in which the complicatedness of their models helps to obscure the crucial points where they "put the rabbit in the hat in full view of the audience" that at some point gets dramatically pulled ou (as the late Joan Robinson put it, to cite a bit of history of thought)t, perhaps with the goal of influencing actual policy decisions and actions.  I migth even confess to having been guilty of this myself on occasion.

However, I think people should be aware of what is going on now, and I think that Roy Weintraub can confirm this (although maybe not, or maybe I am wrong), that in the last decade or two there has been a drift away from purely hyper-Bourbakist theoretical papers in most economics journals of a highly mathematical character that are far removed from reality and have little or no effort at some literary explanation.  Indeed, if one follows certain blogs and other outlets one finds pure theorists complaining about low citations rates for their papers and journals and also poor job prospects in the current market.  These problems for them may not yet be as bad as they are for literarily oriented history of thought economists, but they are beginning to resemble and sound like HET economsts to an increasing degree.

Indeed, the trend in top journals for some time now has been towards empirical work, with theory there but underplayed.  And, also in the more widely read top journals the more purely theoretical papers are likely to have a lower ratio of equations to pure verbiage than in the past.  Such papers are now expected to provide more explanation for people unable to follow or penetrate the mathematical arguments than was expected in the farily recent past.

So, while indeed the profession certainly continues to be more oriented to mathematical models, many of whose developers continue to play inappropriate games criticized on this thread, and purely literary economics remains generally in a lower prestige position (and the position of HET in particular in a parlous situation), the recent trend in top journals and more generally in economics recently has been away from ultra-pure theory of a highly abstract mathematical sort and more towards empirical studies with an eye towards practical applications, whatever one may think of the methodologies used in these studies.