Invited Lecture at Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, on 22 Apr 2021. ABSTRACT: A materialistic approach to life locates problems in external reality, and attempts to find technological, political, or economic solutions. This represents a misdiagnosis which makes cures impossible to find. The anthropocene was brought about by the spiritual stunting now widespread across the… Read More Becoming the Change You Want to See

The current vaccination scenario calls for a reflection on the conceptualization of underdevelopment as a process of dependency. Nowadays, to understand the big picture of the production and trade of vaccines, for instance, it is necessary to consider the analysis of the dynamics of the world-wide capitalist system. Indeed, the access to vaccines has put… Read More Vaccines and underdevelopment as dependency

{bit.ly/RSIA10A} In previous lectures (Causal Explanation of Autonomy & Invariance of Regression Relationships ), we have seen the essential importance of analyzing the causal structure of the variables under study via path diagrams. In this lecture, we study one aspect of this which creates serious problems for understanding and interpreting regression results. This is the problem… Read More Spurious Regressions

While the study of wicked problems is not new, there is a need to develop a broader understanding of its scope in policies under the paradigm of complexity. The origin of the term “wicked Problem” goes back to Rittel and Webber’s (1973) questioning of the validity of technical-scientific approaches in social policy and urban planning.… Read More WICKED PROBLEMS IN ECONOMIC POLICY

As discussed by Hoover in “Lost Causes”, the concept of causality was dropped from econometrics for many decades, although it is currently making a resurgence. Nonetheless the revolution launched by Judea Pearl in the 1990’s has not percolated to econometrics textbooks. As a result, satisfactory definitions of key concepts required to make sense of regression… Read More Causal Explanation of Autonomy & Invariance of Regression Relationships

Defining Feature of Real Econometrics: {bit.ly/RSIA10C} We can define “Real Econometrics” as being the search for causal relationships within a collection of variables. There exists an enormous amount of confusion about what exactly is a causal relationship. We will take a simple and practical approach, developed by Woodward in his book on “Making Things Happen”.… Read More Causal versus Positivist Econometrics

The term “science” represents a claim to universality, but modern social science is based on lessons from European historical experience. Why, then, does it claim to have universal application? In this paper, I suggest that Weber’s dictum that social science should be value free led to the concealment of Eurocentric values within an apparently objective… Read More The Puzzle of Western Social Science

This is a continuation of the previous post on Econometrics Versus Reality, which provided the philosophical background for the nominalist methodology of science underlying regression models. In this post, we will discuss a specific data set and illustrate the differences between a regression model and a real model (short for a model based on realist… Read More Regression vs Reality

This is the second in a sequence of lectures about regression models and methodology (for first lecture, on underlying philosophy of science, see: Flawed Foundations of Social Sciences). These regression models are central in econometrics. Current methodology underlying these models makes them completely useless for learning about the real world. To learn how and why, we… Read More Econometrics Versus Reality

{bit.ly/rsia10a} The central goal of this Lecture 10A on “Real Statistics: An Islamic Approach”, is to establish that standard methodologies currently in use in statistics/econometrics, particularly regression, are built on the wrong foundations, and incapable of generating knowledge. To understand WHY this is so, it is necessary to study the flawed philosophy of science used… Read More Flawed Foundations of Social Sciences