I am guessing that, to the extent that it cares, the broader world sees the current argument between Richard Posner, on one side, and Paul Krugman, Brad Delong, Mark Thoma and Menzie Chinn, on the other, as some sort of esoteric pissing contest. This is because all of these people are very smart and write very well.
The problem is that Posner is just plain wrong--I mean, he gets his arithmetic wrong in so many ways, it is breathtaking. For instance, he doesn't understand the difference between a quarterly growth rate and a quarterly annualized growth rate. This does not particularly surprise me--very good lawyers are often not good at math. One of my dearest friends is a brilliant lawyer (and political analyst), and he couldn't calculate a present value if his life depended on it. He was also amazed that one had to strip the casing off of speaker wire before one hooked up a stereo. The other thing about lawyers is they are not particularly good at admitting when they are wrong--their entire training teaches them not to do so (although the friend I just mentioned is endearingly modest).
In the current context, this is a problem, because Posner is hurling ad hominems [h/t to William Adelman for correcting the spelling] while not knowing what he is talking about.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
you're right! if i told my friends that Richard Posner, on one side, and Paul Krugman, Brad Delong, Mark Thoma and Menzie Chin on the other were having an arguement on the blogs, almost all would say "who?"; thats why i will never link to this type of article...
This could work on television...
A reality show. We drop everyone on an island for a week and film them to see which ideas survive.
Taiwan's flooding caused by the disaster, let us love to play together to help those in need of help, and now you need to do is click on any one keyword for each link will be sponsored by the NT one dollar, let us work together to create world peace ~ thank you!
台灣這次受到洪水侵襲造成巨大災難，讓我們發揮愛心一起幫助這些需要幫助的人，現在你只要每點擊任何一個關鍵字連結，將會得到新台幣一元的贊助，讓我們一起共同創造世界和平~感謝您!
旅遊 法拍屋 服飾
婦產科 大陸外籍新娘 新娘
納豆保健食品 瑜珈教室
彌月蛋糕 汽車旅館MOTEL 台中住宿
清潔公司 法拍屋 看護
隔熱紙 seo 網路行銷
整形外科 看護 整形
室內設計 系統傢俱 網頁設計
柴犬 哈士奇 網頁設計
防爆工具 瑜珈 機票
I don't think academics are particularly good at admitting when we're wrong. Our training doesn't favor that either, and our publication-media-seeking behavior favors positive results rather than negative results, so disproving is way harder than it probably should be.
Fair point, Lisa. Although we are supposed to respect evidence--even if it contradicts what we once thought.
You got a point there!!!
One more correction:
"...Posner is hurling ad hominems..." [h/t to William Adelman for correcting the spelling while not knowing what he is talking about.]
Post a Comment