A Challenge For Economists: Name Something in General Theory That's Been Falsified

      It's clear that mainstream economists hold Keynes' GT in very low regard. Even alleged New Keynesians like Greg Mankiw, Simon Wren-Lewis, and Krugman don't see the point in reading the GT-they all are mystified how anyone could care 'What Keynes really meant.'

      Whoever would care must be into 'literature' not the hard-headed science of economics. Here is Wren-Lewis saying that reading Keynes-or Marx or Adam Smith-are a waste of time:

      "I do not think economics students should be made to read Smith, Marx or even Keynes. They can get a breadth of perspective in better ways."

       http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/economists-and-methodology.html

       Again, remember he considers himself a friend of Keynes, he calls himself a Keynesian yet actually reading Keynes greatest book is a waste of time, full of mere 'intuitions.'

       Again, WL is not a bad guy-as mainstream economists go, he's pretty openminded. That post where he said this he was actually arguing for economists to actually consider the methodology they use-he says most just presume that methodological questions are a waste of time. 

      So I went to engage my buddy Unlearning Economics on Twitter and asked him what this means when they say things like 'Who could possibly care about what Keynes really meant?'

     Here is UL's answer:

     "they think economics has progressed like a science so past insights such as Keynes' have been incorporated and improved upon"

So I asked what in say the GT has been falsified. His answer:

"both Lamarckism & Darwin's gradualism have been falsified & biology has progressed. Similar examples in economics would convince me."

"I don't think they exist. I can't think of a single falsified theory in economics and neither can anyone I ask."

So what about it economists? Let's just relegate ourselves to GT: name me 1 thing that's been falsified. If it's easy then go ahead and name me 3.

C'mon guys, Don't be bashful.

P.S. I have to remark that the idea that you incorporate and improve in past insights-and thereby have no need to read these previous works again-is a scientific prejudice I don't know I wholly follow.

Maybe because I think less like a scientist than a philosopher of science. For a philosopher of science something like Darwin's The Descent of Man is not 'm ere literature.'

We also get the idea that scientists at least in economics have just utter contempt for what they imagine is 'literature.'

Speaking of literature, there is a field which is quite different from science that is always declaring previous books obsolete. No one says that Shakespeare is a waste of time to read now compared with the wonderful writers of today-if anything, many tend to look at it the reverse-which is not exactly the ideal way to look at things either.

In philosophy it certainly doesn't seem to work this way-though that might depend on one's field. According to what Richard Rorty said, the typical American philosopher is someone who may have read Kant or Aristotle, but probably not both.

Yet it seems to me that despite how much progeny a book like Kant's Category of Pure Reason has, I would argue that there is always new and original insights for someone reading the book itself-even if you have read it before, even numerous times.

UPDATE: Actually, part of the trouble with today's 'Modern Macro' that folks like Stephen Williamson get so hot when they believe it's being in any way criticized, is, as WL himself says, not really about falsification, or at least falsification by evidence.

The importance of evidence to Macro is at most indirect which is itself totally counterintuitive.

"This is a long winded way of saying that the methodology used by economics is interesting because it is unusual. Yet, as I say, you will generally not find economists writing about methodology. One reason for this is the one implied by my opening paragraph: a feeling that the methodology being used is unproblematic, and therefore requires little discussion."

     "I cannot help giving the example of macroeconomics to show that this view is quite wrong. The methodology of macroeconomics in the 1960s was heavily evidence based. Microeconomics was used to suggest aggregate relationships, but not to determine them. Consistency with the data (using some chosen set of econometric criteria) often governed what was or was not allowed in a parameterised (numerical) model, or even a theoretical model. It was a methodology that some interpreted asPopperian. The methodology of macroeconomics now is very different. Consistency with microeconomic theory governs what is in a DSGE model, and evidence plays a much more indirect role. Now I have only a limited knowledge of the philosophy of science, and have only published one paper on methodology, but I know enough to recognise this as an important methodological change. Yet I find many macroeconomists just assume that their methodology is unproblematic, because it is what everyone mainstream currently does."

    So from consistency with the data to consistency with microeconomic theory. So presumably the average Macro guy is going to say GT is falsified as it's not in line with today's theory-rather than any failure to correspond with data.