Harsh rays of reality

As Shapiro puts it economic theory has developed a perverse sense of rigor where the dread of being thought insufficiently scientific spawns a fear of not flying among young scholars.

The result is that the models take no account of real human behaviour which is far too messy to permit any theorems that can be proved regorously. So economic models become citadels of crystalline mathematical perfection that would shatter if touched by the harsh rays of reality.

The famous segregation model of economist Thomas Schelling, who pioneered the agent based modelling ABM, approach in the 1970s, showed that a high degree of social segregation does not, as one might assume, imply extreme intolerance. Conversely and relevant to today's political climate, it showed that a combination of mobility and choice may amplify marginal preferences or imbalances into major social divisions.

Agent-based models may not describe reality, but they can show how interaction and nonlinearity produce social outcomes that could not be predicted simply by inspecting the behavioural rules. They undermine the common political presumption that group behaviour is a multiplied version of individual behaviour.

They expose how ideas such as market efficiency may mutate from predictions of simplistic theories into dogmas that are applied insistently to the real economy. They might not tell us why certain social phenomena happen, but they offer mechanisms for how they might.

The challenge which cannot be over emphasized, is to ensure that ABM does not get above its station. lt is tool not just another method for imprinting belief and prejudice with the false authority of 'theory'. As such these models could form part of a toolbox that helps social scientists to reengage with reality rather than trying to reinvent it.

Ball, P., Nature, Vol 448 Aug 2007


Power relations

Markets are conventionally distinguished from institutions. But markets are constituted through them. The market is never neutral or 'natural' - never 'God', and can be a 'prison', in the words of one panellist. Empirically-rooted work is needed on how markets express power relations embedded in a range of social structures, ideologies and norms. Phenomena such as product up-grading and industrial clusters can work for equity or the reverse depending often on the kinds of social networks and identities being constructed through them. Social norms and the need for ontological security may lead to complicity with oppressive structures and a reluctance to exert agency.

REPORT TO DFID ORGANISED BY BARBARA HARRISS-WHITE, New Development Threats and Promises, QEH 50th Anniversary Conference, July 2005, Oxford



There is a call for scientists to do a better job of communicating science to the public and media, that urges researchers to stop pretending that they are nothing but objective 'fact machines' and to instead give more general interpretations of their results and put them into a broader context.

Mooney, C., Nature, Vol 448, Aug 2007