http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMn2R5txO28
I ran across this video recently and was wondering if anybody here was familiar with the story behind it. I found it interesting that 1) comments were disabled and 2) his youtube channel contains just this one video. Was curious as to whether or not comments were ever enabled on it.
Anyway, I found it interesting that he equated an axiomatic-deductive approach with religion, as if a purely positivist approach is based on nothing but assumptions that are all empirically verifiable. What a dork.
Mises called the Positivists and others who believe in Quantatative Economics the more accurate term of Historians. Unfortunately this approach is what the current crazy Keynesians adivising the govenrment and running the central bank believe. To see how much of disaster this is, think of driving a truck on a highway when you can only see behind you. Austrian Economics is the only part of the profession that tries to use reason to determine human action instead of looking at human action in the past. So the Austrains are the only ones who try to look forward and drive the truck instead of looking in the review mirror.
I love the truck analogy…!
At 2:45 he misrepresents the deductive approach. “The [deductive approach] applies preconceived notions to the data”
The deductive approach has nothing to do with data. Premises → logical deduction → conclusions.
It seems like his problem is with the assumptions/premises. I suppose it has to be taken on faith that humans act.
Then he sets up strawmen.
And then he jumps to comparing it to dogmatism! Oh geez…