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Why are the social sciences backward?
In a study of Gordon Tullock's The Organization of Inquiry (the full Tullock symposium is here), Bruce Cadwell writes:
Tullock next turns to what he considers to be the real reasons behind the backwardness of the social sciences, which in his view is due to differences in the social organization of natural versus social science. The first difference is the relative absence of applied research: because there is no way to patent applied research in the social sciences (He asks, for example, how does one patent a new sales technique?), little of it is done. But this means that, unlike the natural sciences, there are many fewer checks from the applied side on pure social science research (p. 149). Furthermore, the second motive for research, curiosity, is in the social sciences “likely to get distracted to essentially non-scientific ends.” This is because in the social sciences:
[TC: this is now Tullock]. . . there is a strong possibility of artistic distraction. Literature of all kinds is quite frequently based on careful observation of human beings. A large number of brilliant men led by their curiosity to study their fellow men have produced great literature instead of science (p. 151).
Tullock is responding to Mises and Hayek, who both thought that the social sciences were different because matters of human affairs are more complex and because of the subjective dimension of human choice and expectation (NB: the views of Mises and Hayek are not exactly the same and Hayek himself changed his position over time, laying greater stress on complexity rather than subjectivity).
I would note, by the way, that while economics lags behind physics, we understand the economy better than we understand the human brain or for that matter the deep ocean. I see complexity of the topic and accessibility to information as determining the progress of a science; I am not so far from Hayek's view, although he underestimated how much progress quantitative and experimental economics could make.
It seems there were even ancient computers, not to mention advanced philosophy. So the point remains: the absence of a developed economics until the mid-18th century remains a startling anomaly in the history of ideas. Why was that?
Addendum: Arnold Kling comments.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 1, 2008 at 05:53 AM in Science | Permalink
Comments
The absence of a mathematical treatment of statistics until the 19th century is even more shocking.
Posted by: michael vassar at Apr 1, 2008 7:37:40 AM
I don't think the ancient "computer" was Turing-complete, (ie programmable) and thus not a real computer.
There is plenty of natural science that doesn't have any applications, say in modern physics, and yet where we know a lot more than in say financial economics.
Posted by: Johan Richter at Apr 1, 2008 8:20:23 AM
I don't think the ancient "computer" was Turing-complete, (ie programmable) and thus not a real computer.
There is plenty of natural science that doesn't have any applications, say in modern physics, and yet where we know a lot more than in say financial economics.
Posted by: Johan Richter at Apr 1, 2008 8:20:38 AM
Hayek "...underestimated how much progress quantitative and experimental economics could make."
Do you mean like the "progress" by financial institutions that designed economic/financial models that caused them to load up on subprime paper?
Posted by: Robert Wegner at Apr 1, 2008 8:23:00 AM
I don't think it so remarkable that economics had no serious treatment before the 18th century. Such seemingly obvious subjects as biology, medicine and even history didn't get a rigorous treatment before those days, at least from our point of view.
The examples you give, philosophy and astronomy ('computer' is really misleading), are remarkable because they got relatively advanced treatment from the earliest dates we have records of. They are the exceptions, not economics.
Posted by: greatzamfir at Apr 1, 2008 8:32:45 AM
The paper says it's written by Bruce Caldwell.
Posted by: greatzamfir at Apr 1, 2008 8:50:05 AM
In most classical philosophy, earning a living is treated lower than leisure activities such as philosophy. I remember Cicero's matter-of-fact method for becoming rich in De Officiis.
Smith's classic examples are telling. He looks at guns and butter, water and diamonds, and pin factories and the butcher. Are such base things like really worthy of study by the best and brightest? Were such things of interest to the best and brightest?
Posted by: JH at Apr 1, 2008 9:01:24 AM
Thanks, great, I will correct...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Apr 1, 2008 9:07:18 AM
Perhaps it's that those who were engaged in scientific work were less/not engaged in economic activities, and so weren't attracted to understanding grubby merchants and moneylenders.
Also, economies were much simpler then, in the sense that most people were subsistence farmers and prosperity was much more a function of the harvest than of policy variables.
Posted by: Larry at Apr 1, 2008 9:27:20 AM
You'd be surprised at what the ancient Greeks might have achieved, if only they were able to enjoy the benefits of network effects.
Speaking of which - a cuneform tablet was recently found to contain a record of a meteor that passed over the Middle East and that impacted in Austria back on June 29, 3123 BC (Julian date). The tablet itself dates from 2400 years later, which means the knowledge of the event was literally passed down across generations for thousands of years (via David Tufte). People, whether ancient or modern, are generally a lot smarter than a what a lot of so-called experts give them credit.
Posted by: Ironman at Apr 1, 2008 10:02:56 AM
I don't know if it's the cart or the horse, but the incredible persistence of the notion that wealth = stuff in the ground seems to have been so obvious for so long that no 'solution' was needed. Need wealth? Dig. Or, better still, take what your neigbor dug up.
This only changed when the merchant class made everyone pay attention to what they were doing. Maybe merchant wealth was a security dividend? I dunno.Interesting to think about though.
Posted by: JasonL at Apr 1, 2008 10:25:20 AM
What about the prevalence of methodological nominalism in most of natural science versus the prevalence of methodological essentialism in most of social science? I find it strange that the paragraphs on method in Caldwell's article don't mention this at all, though it is an important element in Popper's position.
Posted by: A Tykhyy at Apr 1, 2008 10:33:21 AM
A 14th century French philosopher called Nicole Oresme wrote a book on economics called "Treatise on Coins" talking about the nature of the value of money.
Thomas Aquinas commented on it too.
It is difficult to understand why it took so long though. Although in many countries farmers provided for themselves and there was little economics wherever there were Scholars there were generally more developed economies.
Posted by: Anonymous at Apr 1, 2008 10:48:33 AM
Maybe they just seem 'backwards' because they aren't science. And aren't really backwards at all. In the early 20th century, natural sciences had enormous prestige so inquiry into human affairs decided to transform itself into science by focusing on method. Forgetting that natural science gained prestige through results and not method.
Why do the traditional professions (Medicine, Law) tend not worry too much about what it means to be a professional while the sales oriented pseudo professions (e.g. realators) spend endless amounts of effort to convince someone (themseves, their customers) that they are professions?
I guess the point is to question the premise that the social sciences have much in common with natural science and therefore the rationale for even asking the question. Sorry if this is either too obvious or sounds snarky. I don't think History is particularly backwards.
Posted by: Ziggurat at Apr 1, 2008 11:03:08 AM
> So the point remains: the absence of a developed economics until the mid-18th century remains a startling anomaly in the history of ideas.
Oh, it's not an anomaly at all. In fact, economics has a sister-discipline that parallels it in almost every way:
Astrology.
Posted by: Stephen Downes at Apr 1, 2008 11:36:05 AM
Until the Reformation, if you could subsist with the commodities in your community, why trade? Wouldn't it have been a temptation to trangress the social boundaries set by God and guarded by the Catholic Church?
Posted by: massrepublican at Apr 1, 2008 11:56:14 AM
And even before the Catholic Church, doesn't Aristotle's criticism of usury and endorsement of "natural" economics also aim at preserving existing social arrangements by curbing "vices" like greed?
Posted by: massrepublican at Apr 1, 2008 11:59:38 AM
"So the point remains: the absence of a developed economics until the mid-18th century remains a startling anomaly in the history of ideas. Why was that?"
My guess: we couldn't grasp the concept of allocative efficiency any sooner than we could grasp the calculus of variations.
My favorite historical anachronism: Ptolemaic Egypt apparently had a modern system of real property rights, including contracts of sale, recording, and court houses:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=info:7gZbTx8qiE8J:scholar.google.com/&output=viewport
Posted by: Michael Martin at Apr 1, 2008 12:00:29 PM
What would economics lose if it just decided one day to stop worrying about whether it's a science or not? Anything at all?
I'm serious, btw. Why doesn't econ just say, "Hey, we observe, we investigate, we try to do some explaining. We use computers too, from time to time. But mainly we're looking into certain classes and categories of human behavior, and they're incredibly complex and gooey, and probably not reducible to equations in the end. Still: Given earnest effort, brains, and smarts, maybe we can make some interesting and helpful observations."?
Whenever econ starts carrying on like a science, I instantly start squabbling with it. When it presents itself more modestly, I'm often quite taken by it.
Posted by: Michael Blowhard at Apr 1, 2008 12:37:23 PM
"There is nothing which requires more to be illustrated by philosophy than trade does"
Samuel Johnson
1776
Posted by: PJ at Apr 1, 2008 1:48:58 PM
From my point of view, its pretty obvious that social sciences don't advance quickly because they just aren't easily tested. Its a lot harder to arrive at consensuses in the social sciences than it is in the natural sciences or in engineering, so things advance more slowly. You practically have to wait for people to die for opinions to advance. The incentives for economists to pursue the truth instead of their own pet political biases are very weak compared to say, an aerospace engineer designing an airplane.
Re: Hayek, I think he is more correct today than ever before. Our society is orders of magnitude more complex than it was when he was practicing economics. Economists may understand some basic scenarios much better than ever before, but they are, IMO, much farther from understanding the potential of society's dispersed knowledge (and thus able to 'plan' or compute equilibriums) than they've ever been.
Posted by: Grant at Apr 1, 2008 4:04:13 PM
"So the point remains: the absence of a developed economics until the mid-18th century remains a startling anomaly in the history of ideas. Why was that?"
Some study of the work of Douglas North might give some valuable clues, if one has an open mind.
Unless "developed economics" has some special significance, Schumpeter's posthumous work seems to deal well with the "Economics" following right along with (mebbe a bit of lag) what we now call expanding economic activity (the non-inter-personal as North describes it). The nature of transactions in various cultures at various periods in their development seem to have brought forth useful observations to the extent of "need" or benefit.
An equal question some later day may be "What was the benefit of "Developed Economics" to the Technology Age?"
Posted by: R. Richard Schweitzer at Apr 1, 2008 4:32:01 PM
Doctors probably killed more people (e.g., George Washington) than they saved until late in the 19th Century (Greg Cochran puts the date in the 20th Century). The way you became a famous doctor, such as Charles Darwin's brilliant grandfather Erasmus Darwin, was by mastering prognosis. You only accepted as patients those applicants likely to get better on their own.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Apr 1, 2008 5:13:43 PM
A more general explanation for the backwardness of the social sciences is that they depend upon statistical reasoning, which intellectuals don't like to do. They prefer reasoning morally about Platonic absolutes.
The basic tools of social science statistics were primarily worked out by early eugenicists -- Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, and R.A. Fisher -- and how often do you hear them celebrated for the their contributions to human welfare? When they are recalled at all in the general media, it is usually to condemn them.
The social sciences remain backward today because so many of the most powerful explanatory variables -- e.g., IQ, race, ethnicity, heredity, etc. -- are off limits because of political incorrectness. It's easy to make predictions in the social sciences that turn out to be true, but it's hard to come up with predictions that are both true and popular.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Apr 1, 2008 5:21:07 PM
[It could be that none of this talk of science, microfoundations and the like is relevant. Indeed economics, and especially macroeconomics and macro-economic policy, is just a tool of the rich used to bludgeon the poor into accepting low wages. Economics is not a science and never was, but is rather auxiliary to the broader project of class domination by the rich and powerful. The poor and powerless are the victims of policy designed to shift resources and political power to capital. Economists are implicated in this grand scheme of domination, a band of self-referential (and self-refereeing) pseudo-scientists, who as a subsumed class take a cut of the surplus for themselves. Their main task is thus ideological jawboning rather than scientific. The political creed of the orthodoxy in economics is anti-progressive, essentially libertarian on domestic issues and neoliberal internationally. The scientific method is no more central to this project than it is to, say, religion or a back-yard barbecue.] - Bill Gibson, "The Current Macroeconomic Crisis", Pluralist Economics Review (Online), March 2008
[...each economist chooses the theory that supports the values the (s)he holds. It therefore follows that these differences of opinion among economists are only the reflections of the underlying political dispute. Our discipline, being far removed from the scientific status of the natural sciences and whose limits have been revealed, ought to be renamed "political economics".] - Claude Mouchot, "Towards A Realistic Epistemology For Economics", Real World Economics: A Post-Autistic Economics Reader, edited by Edward Fullbrook (Anthem Press, 2007, ISBN 1843312360)
Posted by: ideogenetic at Apr 1, 2008 5:38:46 PM
