On 2/22/2012 7:04 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/22/2012 6:05 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/21/2012 11:26 AM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/21/2012 11:14 AM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/20/2012 11:53 AM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/20/2012 11:44 AM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/19/2012 3:39 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/19/2012 3:17 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/18/2012 8:09 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/18/2012 6:56 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/18/2012 12:53 PM, George Plimpton wrote:

Probably got a job somewhere too. Hardly Hawke's idea of
society.

So you too are completely ignorant of sociology too, huh?

He is aware that sociology is nothing but poetry - it has zero
explanatory power regarding human behavior.


Oh, so it's just like economics.

No. Economics has magnificent predictive power. Sociology has
none.


Yeah, so you say.

So a comparison of the two proves.


To a layman like you, yes.

To the entire academic and business world.


Economics may be the best tool they have. I'm just saying it isn't
nearly as great as you make it out to be. You can cheer lead for
economics all you want but there are a lot of real smart people who
don't think much of economists. Both Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke
have a lot of people who think they are idiots and do nothing but
bungle
things.

We're not talking about individual economists.

Economics as a discipline makes generally accurate predictions about
people's behavior. It has theory behind it that yields testable
hypotheses, and when too many anomalous predictive results occur, the
theory is revised. The biggest part of economics is not concerned with
predicting exact numbers, but rather changes in behavior. When
economists predict that imposition of rent controls at below-market
rates will lead to discrimination occurring on issues other than price,
those predictions are virtually always borne out.

Sociology can't make any predictions at all, because there's no theory
behind any of it.


I'm not a sociologist, and don't claim to be one, so I am not going to
go to bat for the subject.

Political science is little better, and to the extent it is, it's
because of the influence of economics. Economics "colonized" political
science starting about 30 or 40 years ago. Political science used to be
like sociology - nothing but political opinion. The economists "invaded"
poli sci and began to explain political phenomena - voting behavior,
party strategy - that the political scientists had never been able to
explain. The political scientists now use the methods of quantitative
taught to them by economists as everyday practice. But you wouldn't have
learned anything about that at Chico.


Every time you write something it exposes the level of your ignorance.
Your "history" of political science is wrong. Why am I not surprised?
Where did you get it off an unfinished Wiki page?

Political science didn't come out of economics it came out of history.
It wasn't economists who brought anything to political science it was
science that changed political science just like it changed economics.

Unlike you I actually attended college at Chico state and got to know
the faculty there in the political science dept. There were not any
economists. There was a branch that came to being in political science
that uses quantitative analysis in its approach to the subject but most
political scientists don't follow that methodology.

You really ought not to talk about things you have so little knowledge
about. I can't help but wonder if you tell your doctor that you know
more about medicine than he does? Or your lawyer, or investment adviser,
or is it just political scientists you think you know more than?

Hawke