The science of business in business schools?

13y

Best Response

Just speculating here, but what I expect is you'll be given precise, smart, logical, "scientific" answers, even though none exist. In other words, business professors will make the unscientific appear scientific, just like economists do. To quote F.A. Hayek:

F.A. Hayek:
It seems to me that this failure of the economists to guide policy more successfully is closely connected with their propensity to imitate as closely as possible the procedures of the brilliantly successful physical sciences - an attempt which in our field may lead to outright error. It is an approach which has come to be described as the "scientistic" attitude - an attitude which, as I defined it some thirty years ago, "is decidedly unscientific in the true sense of the word, since it involves a mechanical and uncritical application of habits of thought to fields different from those in which they have been formed."

F.A. Hayek:
Yet the confidence in the unlimited power of science is only too often based on a false belief that the scientific method consists in the application of a ready-made technique, or in imitating the form rather than the substance of scientific procedure, as if one needed only to follow some cooking recipes to solve all social problems.

derivstrading

13y

precise answers in imprecise fields are generally not worth a dime.

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econ

13y

derivstrading:
precise answers in imprecise fields are generally not worth a dime.

Well, said. Let me offer a few more Hayek quotes (again, from the same Nobel speech) which make a similar point.

Hayek:
And because the effects of these facts in any particular instance cannot be confirmed by quantitative evidence, they are simply disregarded by those sworn to admit only what they regard as scientific evidence: they thereupon happily proceed on the fiction that the factors which they can measure are the only ones that are relevant.

Hayek:
On this standard there may thus well exist better "scientific" evidence for a false theory, which will be accepted because it is more "scientific", than for a valid explanation, which is rejected because there is no sufficient quantitative evidence for it.

numm

Orangutan

13y

randombetch:
I like having precise answers like in economics

You lost me here.

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econ

13y

numm:
randombetch:
I like having precise answers like in economics

You lost me here.

Haha, I think what he means is he prefers answers that "appear" precise, even when no precise answer exits - like in econ. :)

For more on this topic.

randombetch

Senior Gorilla

13y

numm:
randombetch:
I like having precise answers like in economics

You lost me here.

Have you ever taken a microeconomics course? The answers to the problems are always precise, ie: something like... p = a^2-c/(4ab)

My major is economics, all my classes have had precise answers to problems.

LIBOR

Senior Neanderthal

13y

take an epistemology course and realize no precise answers exist for anything

looking for that pick-me-up to power through an all-nighter?

randombetch

Senior Gorilla

13y

<span class=keyword_link><a href=//www.wallstreetoasis.com/finance-dictionary/what-is-london-interbank-offer-rate-libor>LIBOR</a></span>:
take an epistemology course and realize no precise answers exist for anything

1+1 = ...?

econ

13y

randombetch:
<span class=keyword_link><a href=//www.wallstreetoasis.com/finance-dictionary/what-is-london-interbank-offer-rate-libor>LIBOR</a></span>:
take an epistemology course and realize no precise answers exist for anything

1+1 = ...?

Math is different though; it's more about a philosophy. It turns out that it's an incredibly useful philosophy for understanding the real world, but it's a philosophy none the less. You could have completely different axioms that give you a completely different branch of mathematics, where different things would be "true." I hope I'm not talking out of my ass here, because I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

ANT:
Go read the black swan.

Or that article I've already linked to in this thread. ;)

Blank999

The Addict

13y

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