In Defence of my Frenemy

I read a wonderful article about maths recently. It drew my attention to the treatment of maths in economics. Social scientists hold what can only be described as militant views on the use of mathematics. Those who are good at it insist that it is the only plausible reasoning mechanism. Those who aren’t argue that it’s hogwash. Oh what well-reasoned arguments.

The need for mathematics is well-established in the physical sciences. But it is, after all, just a tool. Considering a paper good just because it is sufficiently mathematical is akin to rewarding the methods employed rather than the result achieved. It could be argued that the result is more rigorous when proven mathematically, but that’s not always a valid argument when one is trying to describe human behaviour. Given that there are more than enough people who hate maths, it is probably reasonable to assume that nobody will employ a very complex reasoning process merely because some researcher believes that it is the only one sufficiently sophisticated to be attributed to a rational individual.

Asserting that the use of mathematics to derive economic results is rubbish just because it is beyond one’s comprehension is pretentious. It takes an ostrich’s brain to insist that something is not true merely because one lacks the cognitive capacity to understand it. The use of maths brings some regularity and predictability to behaviour, a necessary simplification for modelling anything. 

There might, however, be a case for substituting bedtime stories for children with bedtime mathematical equations. They’ll fall asleep quicker, there is a lower chance of them imbibing any prejudices on account of the parents’ carelessness in choosing a story and who knows, they might turn out smarter.