Continuing on the theme of yesterday’s post: could future economic research be conducted in Medical schools rather than Economics departments? A growing branch of economics is neuroeconomics (click here for its learned society), which is where neural scientists and economists study the human brain in attempt to get a handle on economic behaviour. Robert Shiller, a leading behavioural economist, believes that the future of economics lies in a better understanding of how Keynes’s idea of animal spirits (our emotions and our less-than-rational psychological make-up) affects our behaviour. You can read an op-ed piece by Shiller here and his co-authored book with George Akerlof is here.
The Berkeley Earth Project , an independent study of global warming, has found that the earth has become a degree warmer over the past half century. However, the statistical uncertainty surrounding pre-1920 estimates makes it very hard to say much about long-term trends - click here for graph . This is one of my concerns with the global warming debate - we simply don't have trustworthy long-run data which looks at temperature changes over the last millennium (or two). My second concern with the global warming debate is that it is very hard to prove any sort of casual link between global warming and human activity. The scientists may be able to show correlation between global warming and our production of carbon dioxides etc., but correlation is not causation. My third concern with the debate is that those who are sceptical or agnostic are stereotyped as flat-earthers or intellectually-challenged crackpots. This only stifles debate and the progress of science itself.