108d4836_brary_of_Economics_and_Liberty__ast_Highlights_HIDE_HIGHLIGHTS
[Time] 1:07:43
What should we teach our students as economists? Teach anything that is true but is contrary to anything they've ever heard or can read in the newspapers. Show how wrong they can be. Show people who take that lesson to heart too far. Both sides. What should we teach our graduate students? Profession rewards dazzling theoretical brilliance and empirical work. Average graduate students if very tooled up in statistical techniques and profits from using them. Graduate student has to go native, assimilate culture. Mature academic realizes academia might be right place for me but not heaven. Ordinary human skepticism, hard to do as a newbie, or as an oldie. More curmudgeonly with age, world has limits. Easy if we make this the topic of conversation, easy to grant the points, but on something specific, whole conversation fades into the distance, abstract theorizing fades. Suddenly relevant. Should someone keep it in one's mind? Split personality. Fully human, corrected person who stands back and says how right could you be? Is that the right way to be? "My guest today has sort-of been Robin Hanson." On the couch.
Roberts (and Hanson) on Truth and Economics | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty