Wednesday, September 23, 2015

But its the Austrian's who aren't scientific.

I always find myself cringing at the phrase "not falsifiable by experience". I think it's because the reaction is always to the effect of calling Austrians non-scientific. The point isn't that it isn't falsifiable by "experience". The point is that under the "scientific method" itself for an experience to verify or falsify anything, to demonstrate cause and effect, it requires controlling all the variables--something fundamentally impossible in economics. This is the key issue I think most Austrians fail to make abundantly clear in their explanation of "experience".

I repeat, they fail to make it abundantly clear. They have a tendency to mention it, but not emphasize it's critical importance. This becomes obvious when people aren't immediately convinced of the correctness of the Austrian method.

The once widely used "ceteris paribus" phrase implies this used to be common knowledge.  The Austrians just didn't fall for scientism and physics envy.

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