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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Are economists better than others?

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/repugnance-revisited-or-are-economists-really-evil/

Stephen Dubner over at Freakonomics seems to imply so - that Economists may be one of the few individuals able to analyze things objectively and free of bias. Now, perhaps I'm no expert, but I know enough economists and read enough news to know that that is ridiculous. I've said before that the arrogance of the economic profession is a big concern of mine, and here it again shows its head. Economists have their biases - they call them "assumptions."

It's time for the economic profession to stop pretending they are somehow immune to being human or somehow loftier than other fields of inquiry just because they know how to differentiate an equation.

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