/sci/ - Science & Math

The scientific method.

To be science you can't be total bullshit.

>>2259406
PFFFFFT
<beer on monitor>

>>2259406
Couldn't this be applied to both? To see what changes occur in the economy or human mind through experiments.

The CAN be a science.

Allow us to experiment with your economy, or psychology (your sheeple, your understan)

KTHX!

economics is economics, not a science. Psychology is now a science because they started using the scientific method to establish what's actually happening in brains, as opposed to Sigmund Freud's complete and utter bullshit.

>>2259415
The scientific method depends on the careful testing of a hypothesis through experiment. Valid experiment depend on the controlling of every variable save the one you're manipulating. That is not possible in psychology or economics, except in certain contrived cases.

Even the economic studies on the State of Everquest were plagued by confounding variables, and that's a vastly simplified system.

>>2259401

they are considered sciences

it's just difficult to run controlled experiments in either field

They are a soft science. Soft sciences are still science, but we need to separate them from the math and lab heavy disciplines.

The precision and power of the laws of physics are quite a bit different from the laws of economics; and we can't have the public confusing these.

>Derp the laws of economics said youtube should have failed, therefore my perpetual motion device can work even through the laws of physics say it will fail.

>this thread

>>2259420

>...controlling of every variable save the one you're manipulating. ...That is not possible in psychology or economics, except in certain contrived cases.

that is not possible in any field
lol

the "scientific" method is very lose and vague, validation varies with the nature of the experiment, how a biologist confirms bird migration is extremely different than how physicists infer atom behavior from their experiments

all science is laden with uncertainty, subjective interpretation, reliance on induction and imagination

it isn't math, it isn't strictly logical, it isn't "objective" or axiomatic in any sense of the word at all

it is impossible to control every variable, or every relevant one, and how we define which variables are relevant depend on a theory and hypothesis, in the end most experiments are just sophisticated attempts at circular reasoning since nothing in science is Deductive.

>>2259425
Is their a scale on how soft certain sciences are?

Example:

Decide how well the 'American Experiment' went toward constructing the Post WW2 German and Japanese Economies'

How far did culture destroy the experiment? How far did it promulgate it?

>>2259425
If you don't think economics is math-heavy then you're a fucking retard. Most of the high valued economics research papers are written along side a mathematician.

>>2259447
Germany seems to be doing fairly well these days. Japan was doing pretty good for a while, but those constant Godzilla attacks take their toll.

>>2259435
In most other fields you have a few confounding variables whose effects you can account for.
In economics, you have a few confounding countries whose effects you must account for.

>>2259467
Not when compared to physics and chem. I've never seen any Fourier, Sumudu, Nachbin, or even complex numbers and trig used in economics.

>>2259485
Economics doesn't deal with complex numbers. Imaginary numbers though...

>>2259485

No, it's lives, not your vaunted numbers, that can be destroyed?

Would you like more proof?

unclear froplog

>>2259480

>In most other fields you have a few confounding variables whose effects you can account for.

there are infinite variables in every field of study, we ignore most because our stupid human minds can't fathom the complexity of all the causal forces at work

we select what we "feel" are the relevant ones based on hunches and preconceptions, in many cases we are wrong and go no where, and most scientific discoveries are the result of luck and being in the right place (penicillin) and have nothing to do with deductive rational thought.

>>2259488
>>2259489
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_72

Yeah, that's some really fucking deep and precise mathematics right there.

>>2259425
Why? You could spend lots of time Ina lab with a computer simulating economic structures and determining proper risk through permutation simulations. A labratory is simply somewhere that you test things and study things in. Simply because you don't need an area for that for things like philosophy and economics doesn't mean they aren't science.
Not to mention theology, and ethics/politics.
Back a thousand years it was basically all philosophy. Oromniscience, as fields became deeper they became more definied and separated, they're still related. As like fouls of scientists came to group together they became to claim that their science was better, more pure. Modern science goes so far as to disclude anything that isn't related to the physical.

ahh yes economics, when people realized that the clear and obvious assumptions were tripe, they covered them up under a pile of calculus. do you know what we call a mathematical model for reality that can never be tested? bullshit! pretty looking bullshit to rationalize zimbabwe style money printing

>>2259498
Did you just call theology and ethics sciences? Is samefag gonna have to choke a bitch?

>>2259498
But stating something that can't be proven or disproven is worthless.

>>2259533
>trollface.jpg

>>2259498

science deals with the physical, theology and ethics dont have get butthurt about it

So, basically economics is not as hard a science as say, mathematics because it cannot be put under the experimental rigor that would require it to be a harder science. Okay, I think I got it.

>>2259526
Not anymore. At one point in time they were considered science. After a time, experimentation exceeded logical conclusive thought as a means of posing theories.
Modern science; discovering the truths of physical reality
premodern science: discovery and speculation of the truth of anything.
As you just exepliied, you are extremely egocentrified in that cultural aspect. Thanks to sociology; people can learn to get over that sort of thing now. Learn to look past your culturally defined lense.

>>2259568
At one time they were taught in universities, but they were always distinct from the study of natural philosophy. Part of a scientific education? Yes. Part of science? No.

I consider economics to be more of a science psychology. Lost of real units of measurements and data are involved in economics. Such as, units of currency, engergy, population, and demographs.

I consider psychology not to be much of a science. There's no real units of measurement to base theory's off of. Just a bunch of speculation on what is considered to be 'norm'.
I'm somewhat dissipointed in the field of psychology.

On the other hand. Neurology is considered to be a science. There's real units of measurements and a concrete physical organ to base your studies off of.

Economics and psychology are subject to minds, biology and physics happens at a lower level

>>2259588
I contrive the unit "Jesus," where the SI unit for a Jesus is 1mV/kg*dB, and the typical value of a Jesus for a given churchgoing indivdual is 3mV produced in the religiosity cortex per kilogram of brain matter in said cortex, per decibel of preaching sound amplitude.

It has units. Theology is now a science.

>>2259485
http://www.cba.ua.edu/~wenders/Becker_Enders_hurn-rewrite1.pdf
Economics uses Fourier lots. I'm sorry to break this false mentality you have of economics only being a bunch of guys sitting around a table thinking about public policy, but when it comes to actual econometric theory, it is highly mathematical. I was a math major that switched into economics because I wanted to do something that was actually applicable to the real world on a larger scale. Also economics is way funner than physics. You're wrong if you disagree.

Economics uses calculus like fucking crazy. Were doing triple integration to analyze 3D monetary models in my econ class. That's enough to be called a science for me.

Economics is not a science because most Economists refuse to understand Mathematics.

The other day I read a paper where an Economist (Austrian School, unsurprisingly) tried to argue that the Socialist Calculation Problem is Undecidable because the quantity of potential goods is uncountable. Now, never mind the fact that any argument for Undecidability by a single Turing Machine (Central Planner) extends naturally to multiple machines (Free Market), we are left with the fact that this marlin of Mathematics feels that the set of finite configurations of countably many molecules, composed of finite configurations of countably many atoms, is somehow uncountable. This is not the Scientific Method. This is the Social Scientific Method. Namely:
-Make a claim your audience will agree with (Socialism is bad, hurr)
-Say some words your audience will not understand (Undecidability, Turing Machines, uncountable, durr)
-Get published

It is a sad state of affairs because there is a lot of very interesting, very rigorous work done in Microeconomics, and all the potential to use that as a foundation for a credible science of Choice. Unfortunately insofar as men perceive the discipline as a means to get rich rather than to pierce the veil of nature, that will not prove forthcoming.

>>2259599
Math is not science. Math is math. If you want to argue that Economics is science by arguing that economics is math, well I strongly advise you to continue your path as an economist and never pursue a career as a logician.

>>2259616
Whatever. Math > Science

>>2259620
Science is to math as sex is to masturbation.

i got a bachelors in economics using nothing but really basic algebra

i learned nothing lol