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**spapsinee** · 07-16-2012, 08:16 PM

What do you mean you cannot?

Sure you can. Mathematical AND computer models of society exist and they are being worked on daily.

Think about price of gas in a period before elections. Say, they didn't figure out how society reacts? Sure they did.

Besides, you don't need to have hard science on every person, it is statistics they are after.

Maybe we're defining our terms differently. When I think of a hard science, I think of mathematics, where 1 + 1 = 2, 100% of the time and it can be no other way, or a chemical reaction where X amount of chemical Y mixed with X amount of chemical Z will always produce the same reaction 100% of the time. Social sciences can't be hard sciences, because individual minds react differently to individual circumstances, and those minds change all the time. I.e. the gov't adds a regulation here and a new law there, and their mathematical models predict a certain outcome. Or the central bank makes a new model that predicts if they engage in some monetary action there will be a hard, definite response. These predicted outcomes, no matter how hard they want it to be so, cannot be 100% accurate. Sure they may be "generally" right, by prodding the citizenry in a certain direction, but it's still subjective, and nobody can guarantee a certain human response to any given action.

Read Mises' Human Action. It changed the whole way I looked at life after I read it.

07-16-2012, 08:16 PM	#8
spapsinee Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 501 Senior Member	What do you mean you cannot? Sure you can. Mathematical AND computer models of society exist and they are being worked on daily. Think about price of gas in a period before elections. Say, they didn't figure out how society reacts? Sure they did. Besides, you don't need to have hard science on every person, it is statistics they are after. Maybe we're defining our terms differently. When I think of a hard science, I think of mathematics, where 1 + 1 = 2, 100% of the time and it can be no other way, or a chemical reaction where X amount of chemical Y mixed with X amount of chemical Z will always produce the same reaction 100% of the time. Social sciences can't be hard sciences, because individual minds react differently to individual circumstances, and those minds change all the time. I.e. the gov't adds a regulation here and a new law there, and their mathematical models predict a certain outcome. Or the central bank makes a new model that predicts if they engage in some monetary action there will be a hard, definite response. These predicted outcomes, no matter how hard they want it to be so, cannot be 100% accurate. Sure they may be "generally" right, by prodding the citizenry in a certain direction, but it's still subjective, and nobody can guarantee a certain human response to any given action. Read Mises' Human Action. It changed the whole way I looked at life after I read it.
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