What was the big deal with Copernicus and Galileo, really? I mean, if you live on the Earth's surface, what difference does it make if the earth or the sun or some other spot is the center of the universe? What difference does it make if the sun and planets move around the Earth in epicycles on crystal spheres or if Tycho Brahe was right and Kepler was wrong. You can hold these views and still explain anything you'd be likely to observe. Stick ellipses on Tycho and you can even explain the phases of Venus. There really is no reason for such a person to prefer modern cosmology to Ptolemy, is there?
In fact, there's a good reason for such a person to reject modern cosmology. The Ptolemaic system doesn't require you to accept the obviously ludicrous notion that the earth is moving. Only some ivory tower mooncalf, with no knowledge of the real world, could possibly believe a theory that requires the obviously still and solid world to be hurtling through space.
Now replace "Copernicus and Galileo" with "modern economists" and "Ptolemy" with "certain commenters in the 'I Am Speechless' threads" and I think you'll see where I'm going.
There is, really, no reason for the vast majority of people, even successful business people, to think in the way economists think. It is not necessary for them to interpret the world with our concepts in order to make and sell products. They can happily take as given and fixed all the information that economists know is being constantly generated and recalibrated through interactions in the market. They can make decisions using this information, without being aware of their own role in changing and generating new information.
They can even believe they are putting one over on their customers -- that they are, for instance, selling them goods purposely designed to wear out "too fast" and thereby sell more and earn more than if they made the sturdy, quality products the customers really want. They can believe this even while the relative prices for durable and disposable goods are reflecting consumers' time preferences and discount rates with exquisite precision, leading the businessman to supply exactly the mix of goods the consumers desired.
I've never quite understood, though, what was the point of getting so shirty when economists explain what's really going on. But then, Galileo got a few goats in his day too.
13 comments:
Great analogy, Kathy. As you say, true things are true regardless of whether anybody recognizes them to be so, and the pretense that they are untrue is a means of comfort for people who simply cannot accept that the earth does indeed move.
"As you say, true things are true regardless of whether anybody recognizes them to be so, and the pretense that they are untrue is a means of comfort for people who simply cannot accept that the earth does indeed move."
What, like evolution?
Oh, how droll, Jamie. Do it again.
Of course, there's only the small detail that macro-evolution is unobservable, while economic behavior is explicitly so.
You may not realize it, but one of the great unanswered questions of science is STILL, "How does one species turn into a completely different species?" Or "How and why does simple life turn into complex life?" Or "How does life even begin from non-life in the first place?"
The old theory of swampy, soupy atmosphere charged with lightning or something like it doesn't actually work. We really don't know. We have a best operating theory, but we don't know.
In other words, evolution ain't quite the elliptical path of heavenly bodies or gravity.
Better wear that orange jacket, J.E. Hunter is shooting bull's-eyes.
Too bad the target is his foot.
Tlaloc, you should check out the Harpers Magazine archives. There's an utterly brilliant piece by Gordon Bigelow on just that subject. It's awesome.
Oh, and Hunter? Don't call me "Jamie," please. If you want to be informal, call me Jim. If you want to be rude, go ahead and use a real insult instead of a condescending dimunitive.
Sorry, JFE, it may just be that you hit the "anybody who questions anything about Darwin must be irredeemably stupid" button one time too many.
Hunter, don't worry, you're not irredeemably stupid. You're redeemably so.
Tlaloc -- have you ever personally observed retrograde motion of the outer planets? My point was not that Ptolemaic cosmology explains everything, but that it explains everything the vast majority of people are ever likely to witness. Just like the half-baked economic ideologies that include nonsense like the profitablity of planned obsolescence are good enough for the vast majority of business people, who are not trying to explain a global economic system, they're just trying to make do with their little piece of it.
I just think I have a shot at being redeemed period.
I have a personal theory that God has a low tolerance for a-holes. You and I are burning forever, dude.
I've learned one thing on this blog, and that was Bono's "Being a Christian in a nutshell." (sorry, I don't have the link, but you can search this blog and find it).
His synopsis is that if we were to rely on karma, we'd ALL be screwed, not just a-holes (or condescending jerks like me) but EVERYBODY.
Thus, we can't rely on karma, but instead need God's grace. Its really quite simple ... and beautiful.
But James, you haven't observed my a--hole curve in action. I am far less a--holish than I was at, say, 19 or 20. I might get somewhere if you give me another couple of lifetimes.
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