Prediction or Prophecy?: The Boundaries of Economic Foreknowledge and Their Socio-Political ConsequencesSpringer Science & Business Media, 2007 M10 6 - 280 pages "Knowing, in order to predict". It was this leitmotiv alone that Auguste Comte, in the 19th century, considered suitable for the then rapidly developing empirical sciences. This view remains unchanged until today—not only in the empirical sciences themselves, but also in the philosophy of science. A scientific theory is and should be evaluated primarily on the grounds of its capacity to correctly predict observable phenomena. The aim of predicting takes precedence over the other important aim of science, namely to produce and purposefully manipulate phenomena by technical means in the laboratory, moreover, it even includes the latter. For if scientists successfully produce and manipulate certain phenomena in an experiment, they can ipso facto predict how that experiment will evolve under certain conditions. We live in a scientifically-dominated world: The more science progresses, the more important correct scientific predictions become. To a sometimes even fa tal extent we have made ourselves dependent on science and its results. Our scientifical-technological interventions into nature, yet also into social processes, cover ever larger spatial and temporal distances, and the consequences are ever more drastic given the increasing effort that would be required to reverse the effects—if that is possible at all. That is the reason why we ought to be very well informed about the consequences of our actions, in particular those based on science and technology. |
From inside the book
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Page vi
... arguments . This alone is quite an achievement . And many philosophers of science would be content with such a result . Not so Gregor Betz . For the realization that economics faces insurmountable forecasting limits provokes a highly ...
... arguments . This alone is quite an achievement . And many philosophers of science would be content with such a result . Not so Gregor Betz . For the realization that economics faces insurmountable forecasting limits provokes a highly ...
Page vii
... arguments like those we hear in talk - shows , " I asked the student who sat next to me in the bus , " Do you have an idea about how we could verify recommendations regarding economic policy ? " Not too sure , ei- ther , my neighbor ...
... arguments like those we hear in talk - shows , " I asked the student who sat next to me in the bus , " Do you have an idea about how we could verify recommendations regarding economic policy ? " Not too sure , ei- ther , my neighbor ...
Page x
... argument 93 93 95 97 99 108 + 113 113 7.2 Constructing self - fulfilling forecasts 117 7.3 Forecast - neutrality under rational expectations 121 • 8 Sensitive dependence on initial conditions 131 8.1 Sensitive dependence on initial ...
... argument 93 93 95 97 99 108 + 113 113 7.2 Constructing self - fulfilling forecasts 117 7.3 Forecast - neutrality under rational expectations 121 • 8 Sensitive dependence on initial conditions 131 8.1 Sensitive dependence on initial ...
Page xi
... arguments for PNS 236 13.3 Normative arguments for PNS 245 13.4 Dangers and a modification of PNS 253 Appendix 255 Bibliography 263 Index 275 List of Figures 1.1 Geometrical illustration of RMSE and MAE Contents ΧΙ.
... arguments for PNS 236 13.3 Normative arguments for PNS 245 13.4 Dangers and a modification of PNS 253 Appendix 255 Bibliography 263 Index 275 List of Figures 1.1 Geometrical illustration of RMSE and MAE Contents ΧΙ.
Page 2
... arguments that establish fundamental limits of science typically fail . As early as in the late 1920s , after the first ... argument , ( 1 ) We only know that P is a perfect predictor , if it is justified to belief that all of P's ...
... arguments that establish fundamental limits of science typically fail . As early as in the late 1920s , after the first ... argument , ( 1 ) We only know that P is a perfect predictor , if it is justified to belief that all of P's ...
Contents
1 | |
Recent performance of economic forecasts | 21 |
Historical perspective 43 | 42 |
Forecast performance in natural sciences | 53 |
Predictability of complex systems | 81 |
Expectations and reflexiveness | 113 |
8 | 123 |
Sensitive dependence on initial conditions | 131 |
5 | 153 |
Unrealisticassumption explanations | 163 |
Consequences for traditional decision making | 184 |
Rational decision making under uncertainty and ignorance | 197 |
Postnormal science | 231 |
Appendix | 255 |
Bibliography 263 | 262 |
191 | 275 |
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Prediction or Prophecy?: The Boundaries of Economic Foreknowledge and Their ... Gregor Betz No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
according agents alternative applied argument ASA-NBER assessment assume assumptions background knowledge Boyle's law bridge-principle categorical forecast chapter climate models climatology complex conditional forecasts consider consists credible decision problem discussed econometric models economic forecasting empirical epistemic equation error measures example expanded y-tree experimental explain extended peer communities fact Figure forecast errors forecast evaluation forecast failure forecast horizon forecast performance forecasting methods function Funtowicz & Ravetz future gardener paradigm give rise global heat of fusion ideal gas law improved inference IPCC latent heat limits macroeconomic forecasts maximin maximin principle McNees mean-principle nomic observation Öller & Barot openness approach outperform parameters point forecast policy-making post-normal science precision predicted variable predictive performance predictive progress probability forecasts random walk hypothesis rational reason retrodictions risk RMSE robustness scenario scientific SDIC simulating system statistical strategy studies temperature theory tion uncertainty and ignorance utility world-states worst possible outcome
Popular passages
Page 35 - It should be clear from what has been said so far that the basic needs approach is an attempt to reflect the attitudes and views of the members of a given society.
Page 226 - Some speculative physicians seem to have imagined that the health of the human body could be preserved only by a certain precise regimen of diet and exercise, of which every, the smallest, violation necessarily occasioned some degree of disease or disorder proportioned to the degree of the violation.
Page 122 - The hypothesis can be rephrased a little more precisely as follows: that expectations of firms (or, more generally, the subjective probability distribution of outcomes) tend to be distributed, for the same information set, about the prediction of the theory (or the "objective" probability distributions of outcomes).
Page 231 - If the arrangement of society is bad and a small number of people have power over the majority and oppress it, every victory over nature will inevitably serve only to increase that power and that oppression. That is what is actually happening.
Page 186 - It will appear ) that a measurable uncertainty, or "risk" proper, as we shall use the term, is so far different from an unmeasurable one that it is not in effect an uncertainty at all. We shall accordingly restrict the term "uncertainty" to cases of the non-quantitive type.
Page 168 - ... the crystalline spheres of ancient and medieval astronomy; the humoral theory of medicine; the effluvial theory of static electricity; "catastrophist" geology, with its commitment to a universal (Noachian) deluge; the phlogiston theory of chemistry; the caloric theory of heat; the vibratory theory of heat; the vital force theories of physiology; the electromagnetic aether; the optical aether; the theory of circular inertia; theories of spontaneous generation.
Page 226 - Marshall had stated it hopefully over seventy years ago: 'the social and economic forces already at work are changing the distribution of (income) for the better; . . . they are persistent and increasing in strength; and . . . their influence is for the greater part...
Page 238 - And fourth (but this would be a long-term project, which it would take generations of totalitarian control to bring to a successful conclusion) a foolproof system of eugenics, designed to standardize the human product and so to facilitate the task of the managers. In Brave New World this standardization of the human product has been pushed to fantastic, though not perhaps impossible, extremes.