“In general then, and contrary to Friedman, abandoning a factually false heuristic asumption will normally lead to a better theory — not a worse one.”

—  Steve Keen

Source: Debunking Economics - The Naked Emperor Of The Social Sciences (2001), Chapter 7, There Is Madness In Their Method, p. 153

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In general then, and contrary to Friedman, abandoning a factually false heuristic asumption will normally lead to a bet…" by Steve Keen?
Steve Keen photo
Steve Keen 27
Australian economist 1953

Related quotes

George Santayana photo

“Religions are not true or false, but better or worse.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

This statement is presented in quotes in The Philosophy of Religion and Advaita Vedanta (2008) by Arvind Sharma, p. 216, as a "Santayanan point", but earlier publications by the same author, such as in A Primal Perspective on the Philosophy of Religion‎ (2006), p. 161, state it to be a stance of Santayana without actually indicating or in any ways implying that it is a direct quotation.
Disputed

Claude Bernard photo

“When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.”

Claude Bernard (1813–1878) French physiologist

Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1865)

Christopher Hitchens photo

“The first False Issue one normally encounters is the claim that it has 'no real power'.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

1990s, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish
Context: The first False Issue one normally encounters is the claim that it has 'no real power'. One never quite knows what 'real' is intended to mean here, but the conventions of the False Issue lead one to guess that the word is doing duty for 'formal'. Thus is the red herring introduced. A moment later, the same speaker is telling another listener of all the good things that monarchy is a 'force' for. These good things invariably turn out to be connected to power. They are things like 'stability', 'unity', 'national cohesion', 'continuity' and other things for which powerless people would find it difficult to be a force. Edmund Wilson would have had little trouble noticing, furthermore, that all the above good things are keywords for conservative and establishment values.

Wendell Berry photo

“There are moments when the heart is generous, and then it knows that for better or worse our lives are woven together here, one with one another and with the place and all the living things.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Jayber Crow

Homér photo

“Few sons, indeed, are like their fathers.
Generally they are worse; but just a few are better.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

II. 276–277 (tr. E. V. Rieu).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
Source: The Odyssey

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux photo

“Often the fear of one evil leads us into a worse.”

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711) French poet and critic

Souvent la peur d'un mal nous conduit dans un pire.
Canto I, l. 64
The Art of Poetry (1674)

Albert Einstein photo

“All generalizations are false, including this one.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“Where does that leave me? Trying, as usual, to square general truths with particular circumstances. That’s the difference between pure ethics and political theory; but it isn’t resolved by simply abandoning the tension and sliding to one end of the pole.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

in Tony Judt: the last interview http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/tony-judt-interview by Peter Jukes (2010)

John Hicks photo

“While economic theory in general may be defined as the theory of how an economic condition or an economic development is determined within an institutional framework, the welfare theory deals with how to judge whether one condition can be said to be better in some way than another and whether it is possible, by altering the institutional framework, to achieve a better condition than the present one.”

John Hicks (1904–1989) British economist

Kenneth Arrow and John Hicks (1972) From Nobel Lectures, Economics 1969-1980, Editor Assar Lindbeck, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1992 ( online http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1972/presentation-speech.html)

Related topics