6. Some Good Hands

Some Good Hands
Bob Komives
::

Economics may be the academic field that has paid least heed to the unity underlying the several sciences. It offers few if any connections to the vast underpinnings of science. We do call economics a science but see little clue where to fit its complex maxims, axioms and curves. It tries to describe reality but often does so in arcane ways that more separate it than ally it to the rest of science. This will change.

Serious and capable scientists, serious and capable economists, work to rectify this problem. I mention a few. Paul Krugman argues well that good-old-fashioned Keynesian economics is much better than the fads that have dominated public policy discussion in recent decades, but he also works at a cutting-edge economics --evolution. I heard him say that economics and evolution are almost the same subject. Paul Romer has brought technology and growth back into the mainstream of economic discussion. He notes that economists tell us nothing about why economic growth occurs (Economist, Feb. 5, 1996). At the Santa Fe Institute, Brian Arthur and others representing several fields of science have applied their growing understanding of complexity from the "hard" sciences to economic phenomena. They collaborate with colleagues from around the world (including Krugman and Romer), and they build from the insights of earlier scientists whose work was bypassed by the mainstream of economic thought. Edward O. Wilson calls for Consilience, a "jumping together", among the natural and social sciences and the humanities. He argues well why economics must incoporate the natural sciences.

I believe the impact of such work and thought will be more revolutionary than even its enthusiastic supporters now project. I think they will eventually come to conclusions similar to mine, though I doubt any of them could now agree. My arguments will not change their minds; their own research must do so. I do believe that most scientists who work at the cutting edges of economics could agree that mainstream economics has long suffered from poor connections to the vast underpinnings of science.

:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 6. Some Good Hands ::
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