How are the humanities and language courses at Imperial?

One more link and thats it .

2nd year microeconomics at UCL

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctp100/b201/b201dual.pdf

You mean that is for people on BSc or BA Economics???

haha they should just spend more time on economic theories

...it doesn't mean scientists make good economists though...all it means is that you're going to help mitigate economics professors inferiority complex towards science

Still doesn't hide the fact, that its the least regarded course.

Howcome it's least regarded?

Howcome it's least regarded?

Its quite clear to see academic economics has lost the plot, i just don't understand why that guy can't understand it. If the subject is failing to explain 10% of empirical data, then its quite obvious the subject is useless.

Where on earth are you getting this statistic from?

Given you are so enlightened, maybe you should drop the Director of the LSE a line, tell him to pack up shop

I heard it on another forum i was browsing through, i can't be bothered to go dig it up, if you research it yourself, you'll see what i am correct. I give up arguing with you. If you still can't see whats going on with the academic economics, your obviously blinded by stupidity.

Oh yes, very rigorous. Glad to see your Imperial education is teaching you to evaluate sources well.

You are obviously far too dogmatic and biased (not to mention ill-informed) to have a decent discussion on this.

Well thanks for the ample quoting, good to see that people actually read the things that one writes on TSR.

I have indeed commented quite extensively on my scepticism about the current state of academic economics. That being said, I don't think that the subject is "useless". There is a lot of economic nonsense being espoused by the media, policy makers and the general public these days and I consider it important to have trained economists who can breath some clarity and sense into all the convolution (though this often entails yet further convolution among economists). This does not, however, require detailed knowledge of real analysis. As a scientific endeavour, I would admit that the subject seems to be lacking a clear sense of direction.

Actually, proper quantification in certain branches of economics is quite a recent development. For instance, with Von Neumann's effort the mathematical principles of game theory were founded with his publication explaining 2 person games, and this was less than 60 years ago. Yet even he could not figure out how to quantify n-person games (the interesting ones).
Proper quantification in all the sciences occured at least a century ago, and thus I must say I support the argument.

Davetherave's actual point was that economics is being unnecessarily "mathematicized." Not that economics problem is a lack of math; it's too much.

In the same thread, we discovered that a student at Oxford doing E&M, claiming to have a specialty in development economics, didn't know the names and theories of the founders of the discipline--which I had covered in my economic history course. Presumably, he's been doing math problems instead of actually studying a framework through which to understand economic development.

Thus, the death of a social science.

Finally, Shady Lane is speaking some sense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maths is a great subject, probably the most respected, but this doesn't mean it should be abused. Economics is NOT maths. Econometrics i accept needs to be mathematical, as its empirical by nature, but economic theory doesn't. Unfortunately economics by is not a rigorous science like the physical sciences. Forcing it too be rigorous will only lead to its downfall (like Shady lane said "the death of the social science"). This can be seen in the fact that modern economic theory, is failing to explain the threshold, 10%, of empirical data. This is really sad. I remember my economics teacher saying to me, the mathematicization of economics is very recent, so when i say economics is useless, i'm referring to modern economic theory, i.e neo-classical economics, not the old-school classical theories, which make perfect sense. We all know why this happening, where not stupid. Economics academics have an inferiority complex toward science. They want to be classed as a science, not a social science, they'd give everything they have for this. Unfortunately, this is never gonna happen, unless that 10% figure moves closer to 90%, while maintaining the mathematical rigour. But we all know thats not going to happen. Tell me, fellow economists, why in the purple green hell are third year economists, solving differential equations all year, this is a joke. I know for certain, it's easier for the mathematicians and physicists to get into postgrad economics schools, than econ grads. Thats hilarious. I've even heard that quantum physics and chaos theory are being applied in economics. You guys need to get a grip of yourselves, this is getting embarrasing.

Further proof for my argument. The modern new area of interest in economics 'econophysics' (the applications of physical theories to economics). For the love of God, would you guys stop embarrassing yourselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econophysics

I think its a bit arrogant for you to say economists have an inferiority complex and that thats the only reason they're trying to develop economics.

(so you dont have to quote that 'only %10 of data is explainable' fact again for the 20th time) but it would explain the underlying causes and explain how you could affect economies in a quantitative but general sense.