In ordinary usage we are inclined to admit as predictions only statements which narrow down the admitted phenomena fairly closely, and to draw a distinction between ‘positive’ predictions such as “the moon will be full at 5h 22′ 16″ tomorrow”, and merely negative predictions such as “the moon will not be full tomorrow.”  But this is no more than a distinction of degree.  Any statement about what we will find or not find within a stated temporal and spatial interval is a prediction and may be exceedingly useful: the information that I will find no water on a certain journey may indeed be more important than most positive statements about what I will find.  Even statements which specify no single specific property of what we will find but which merely tell us disjunctively that we will find either x or y or z must be admitted as predictions, and may be important predictions.  A statement which excludes only one of all conceivable events from the range of those which may occur is no less a prediction and as such may prove false [and, because it can be proven false, is ‘scientific’].

MD: Ok. We have a pretty straight forward assertion of the obvious. But we don’t know anything yet about what this assertion is supporting. Let’s see if that comes out in DBx treatment. Hint: No it doesn’t

DBx: I have always found “Degrees of Explanation” to be Hayek’s most challenging article, yet one that repays close study handsomely.  No summary statement by me can do this article justice, but it’s one of Hayek’s attempts to explain (!) why the method of the social sciences must differ from the method of the physical sciences (especially from physics) and why social scientists must be more modest in their claims about what they can explain or predict.

MD: The first thing that should be ruled out is that “social” can ever be “science”. We see empirical evidence that it cannot be science on a daily … hourly basis.

Applying the insight in the passage above to economics, we rediscover the most important practical role for the economist – namely, to warn the general public that much of what they suppose government action can achieve is, in fact, not achievable (or, at least, not achievable at the zero, low, or finely targeted costs that the general public supposes).

MD: Wait? The role of the economist is to “warn”? This leaves me wondering what we have to warn us of the nonsense that economists bring to the table? How can you trust a collection of people to warn you about anything, when down to last member of that collection, there is disagreement … major major disagreement? There is no science. There is not even a trace of a scientific method. There is just incestuous circular references in footnotes.

The economist is much like someone who follows a quack doctor around to warn the quack-doctor’s gullible audiences that none of the quack’s miracle cures will work and that many, or even most, of them will actually result in greater illness and injury.

MD: Actually, it’s more about “my quack doctor is better than your quack doctor.” I have yet to engage a single economist who knows what money is. And when presented with the obvious definition and proof, they will not embrace the obvious fact. If they were scientists, they would accept and support the obvious. Or they would easily prove the fallacy. They do neither. They are all going in different directions and cannot agree on anything.

The quack, of course, denies the ‘negativity’ while his gullible audiences, eager to believe in miracle cures, discount the economist as an unimaginative or mercenary naysayer.  And the real world, being far more complex than either the quack or his audiences realize, easily find reasons to reject the economist’s counsel.

MD: Gullible … yeh …. like gold-is-money, even though there is only 1oz per person on Earth and miners are willing to create new ounces for about $2,000 …. and to be money, that $2,000 per person on Earth has to be used for “all” in-process trading promises … plus all savings (i.e. trading processes that will be in process for an indeterminate period of time). And knowing an average person making just $50,000 /year (3/4ths of which is taken from them by governments without their ever seeing it)  … they will go through that $2,000 in less than a month … and never have it again. It will forever after, be held by the money changers to restrict trade over time and space … and it will always be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And when these people (a faction of so called economists) are confronted with the obvious proof that gold has never been money, that it is just a hopeless, inefficient, expensive, insufficiently supplied clumsy stand-in for real money (real money which they use the slur “fiat” to dispel), they resort to religion: gold has been money for 5,000 years.

You gotta love them. They all live in very nice houses and drive very nice cars. Quack quack quack.