PRESUPPOSITIONS we need to look at and see if they hold water.
Hard Science- if you can account for all of the parameters you can model mathematically what has happened in the past to predict the future without knowing the behavior or individual choices
What is Praxeology? and What is Neoclassical ?
Praxeology- soft science of Human Action- individual purposeful behavior (Austrian)
Mathematical- the guys required to take Calculus and therefore use math (Neoclassical )
A apt quotation is as good as a original remark, SOooo the following text is from Gene Callahan's book Economics for Real People :
Mathematical economics models the phases of markets when plans are not being created or revised, in other words, when the events that are of interest to Austrian economists, human choices, are absent.
None of the above should be taken to mean that the mathematical approach to economics is useless, only that it cannot capture the essence of human action.
TODAY’S ECONOMIC MAINSTREAM—neoclassical economics—is thoroughly mathematical. The vast majority of papers in academic journals are dense with mathematical notation. Non mathematical approaches to the subject are often viewed as unscientific and imprecise.
However, the success of the mathematical approach in breaking new economic ground has been minimal. Bryan Caplan, admits, “[Mathematical approaches] have had fifty years of ever-increasing hegemony in economics. The empirical evidence on their contribution is decidedly negative.”
The study of the correlations provided by mathematical descriptions of events is central to physics and chemistry because in those fields we can determine constants of correlation that allow us to make predictions. We feel confident that electrons will not suddenly decide that they aren’t quite so attracted to protons, and that oxygen will not come to the conclusion that it would really prefer to bond with three hydrogen molecules rather than two.
Neoclassical Economists (the math guys) remove the very subject matter of praxeological economics, human action, from their theories.
Austrian - (Praxeology)-the logic of economic events, not the correlations existing between them is the key
The fact that supply and demand curves can give us a rough picture of market behavior is an effect of human action, and certainly not the cause of it.
No one acts with the goal of bringing supply and demand into balance.
---I which I could have said it better---
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