> strictly speaking, no propositions at all can be "proved" with statistics. All one can say is that your hypothesis survived a statistical test.
True, but it occurs to me that this might be too strongly worded, insofar as SOME propositions could be proved with statistics. For example, take proposition p which states that y will always greater than x. I go and measure y and I measure x and by golly, yep, I cannot find any single case where p is false. Now you could of course say, tomorrow I could encounter an example which contradicts p, and that is possible. This would demonstrate what we knew logically anyway, namely that there is no absolute proof of p, and, any counterexample of p is proof of that theorem. Nevertheless, in terms of the most basic tools of human cognition, i.e. stimulus discrimination and stimulus generalisation, the very fact, that we statistically established that p holds true as a rule, except in a few odd cases, is significant, because then we are not just talking logical entailment but real experience. Of course, I could also argue that p is true simply because it is true, or because A says so, or because it follows logically from q, but an appropriate statistical quantification of observations does I think add to the credibility of the argument. In general, these days, you get a lot of intellectually lazy people. They want to skim off the most advanced knowledge around for the purpose of gratifying their needs and so on, spy on other because they cannot think for themselves or create anything for themselves. A lot of it just revolves around a postmodernist spinning-out of concepts undisciplined by any real experience beyond a bit of screwing around (nothing wrong with a bit of screwing around, but it's not all of reality, if you know what I mean). In this situation, I think quantitative empirical inquiry has definite merit insofar as it limits the amount of waffle people can talk about the aggregate effects of their individual interactions. I.e. we try to count the horse's teeth, rather than hypothesise they are there. Personally, I'm happy to say that I do admire Al Greenspan for his great personal dedication to "finding out" about economics and his great concern for the facts of experience, which many economists simply do not have. It's just that I think that his deregulation policies have different economic effects and consequences from what he thinks they have. I think the real evolution of the monetary and credit system since 1981 raises questions which his theory just cannot answer, and indeed contradicts it. Regards, Jurriaan
