The truth of polls and the epistemology of politics
The Poll Bludger has the numbers on the latest Nielsen poll for Victoria. Labor leads on the 2PP 55-45. The Age trumpets this result as Victorian Labor “defying the national trend”. No doubt other...
View ArticleCalculating 'Black Swan Events' or how to falsify one's own hard fought thesis
John Quiggin picks up on something that has been bugging me for a while. The idea of the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) as a ‘black swan event’ had some appeal to me. Philosophers have typically...
View ArticleEconomic faith and doctrines
Gary Sauer-Thompson has trained an observant eye on an editorial in the Fin: Yes, the road ahead looks difficult. But this is no time to abandon our faith in the capacity for enterprises and markets...
View ArticleEconomics and ideology: u r doin it wrong!
This post is a sequel to my previous one on economic faith and doctrines. When reflecting further about the ideological construction of “oppressive state intervention” and some of the comments made on...
View ArticleBérubé on Sokal
One of the ironies of the Windschuttle kerfuffle is that Alan Sokal has a new book out. Perhaps all those Sokal analogies will help his sales. At any rate, blogger and UPenn cultural studies prof...
View ArticleClimate change denialism and the future of the right
With George W. Bush having a little over a week in office left to go of what has been a very long eight years, it’s timely to turn to the question of the long term implications for the political...
View ArticleEmbedding the economy
A lot of commentary in the US has focused on both the politics of Barack Obama’s stimulus package and on the TARP II bailout announced by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner last week. In developments...
View ArticleSo what is this thing called 'neo-liberalism'?
One of the rhetorical strategies employed by people wanting to take potshots at those who sought to blame neo-liberalism for some of the structural and attitudinal causes of the Global Financial Crisis...
View ArticleThe climate crisis, politics and our years of magical thinking
I’ve had a stab, in a guest post over at Overland, at looking at how the tendencies we’ve always had to succumbing to magical thinking make climate change a very difficult challenge for politics –...
View ArticleParsing the polls: Just how strong is Labor's lead, really?
I’ve been wondering myself, recently, about the significance of Labor’s unbroken lead in the polls, which if memory serves, has persisted for over three years now. There’s little doubt that it’s Rudd’s...
View Article
