Must-Read: Noah Smith: Do Economists Have Physics Envy?

Must-Read: I am starting to think Phil Mirowski has lost what he needs to play the game:

Noah Smith: Do Economists Have Physics Envy?: “Philip Mirowski… is not too happy with my post. In a recent interview, he explains why…

…Let’s take a recent example of a popular contemporary economist blogger, insisting that economists don’t suffer from physics envy…. He just blurts out some random impressions…. I cannot make this stuff up…. The level of arrogance combined with parochial ignorance is pretty stunning, but not unusual. He has no conception of the historical track record of the disciplines of economics and physics evolving through time, with earlier points of interaction being masked by later developments, and further waves of strange action at a distance…

A couple of observations here. First, responses that rely on phrases like “I cannot make this stuff up” and “the level of arrogance combined with parochial ignorance”, but fail to substantively address the argument in question, are indicative of a degraded discourse…. There’s no reason at all that Mirowski should spend time and effort addressing or rebutting my points… but if he’s not going to, at least he might consider ignoring my post completely instead of lobbing some sputtering disdain in my direction and moving on!…

I think this is very good advice from Noah.

I would add: if you are going to attack someone in such terms, it is very bad manners not to name them, and not to link to what they wrote: calling them “a popular contemporary economist blogger” rather than “SUNY finance professor Noah Smith” is untold.

And if you want to demonstrate that you understand–or even have read–the literature in physics, you do not misquote: Einstein did not say “strange action at a distance”. What he said was: “spooky action at a distance”.