'Freshwater’s Wrong Turn'

Paul Krugman follows up on Paul Romer's latest attack on "mathiness":

Freshwater’s Wrong Turn (Wonkish): Paul Romer has been writing a series of posts on the problem he calls “mathiness”, in which economists write down fairly hard-to-understand mathematical models accompanied by verbal claims that don’t actually match what’s going on in the math. Most recently, he has been recounting the pushback he’s getting from freshwater macro types, who seem him as allying himself with evil people like me — whereas he sees them as having turned away from science toward a legalistic, adversarial form of pleading.

You can guess where I stand on this. But in his latest, he notes some of the freshwater types appealing to their glorious past, claiming that Robert Lucas in particular has a record of intellectual transparency that should insulate him from criticism now. PR replies that Lucas once was like that, but no longer, and asks what happened.

Well, I’m pretty sure I know the answer. ...

It's hard to do an extract capturing all the points, so you'll likely want to read the full post, but in summary:

So what happened to freshwater, I’d argue, is that a movement that started by doing interesting work was corrupted by its early hubris; the braggadocio and trash-talking of the 1970s left its leaders unable to confront their intellectual problems, and sent them off on the path Paul now finds so troubling.

Recent tweets, email, etc. in response to posts I've done on mathiness reinforce just how unwilling many are to confront their tribalism. In the past, I've blamed the problems in macro on, in part, the sociology within the profession (leading to a less than scientific approach to problems as each side plays the advocacy game) and nothing that has happened lately has altered that view.