Thoughts On Economics: Vocabulary Word: Mumpsimus

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Joan Robinson had lots to say about the Cambridge Capital Controversy. I find this remark to be amusing:

"I was delighted to find in a dictionary the word mumpsimus, which means stubborn persistence in an error that has been exposed" -- Joan Robinson

Anonymous said...: How about this wonderful Scots word?

Numpty -- "Someone who (sometimes unwittingly) by speech or action demonstrates a lack of knowledge or misconception of a particular subject or situation to the amusement of others."

Now that applies to quite a few people I've read, particularly the propertarians we were discussing recently...

Iain
An Anarchist FAQ; October 18, 2007 3:51 AM
Anonymous said...: For another example of mumpsimus, see this post on the persistence of the erroneous belief in a general factor for human intelligence (denoted g), despite the absence of any valid statistical evidence for it.

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/523.html

One has to ask, as Cosma Shalizi does regarding g, just who benefits from the persisistence of an erroneous belief?; October 19, 2007 6:04 PM
Robert Vienneau said...: Factor analysis, which provides the mathematics for arguments over g, is a subject I would like to understand in more detail than I do. The theory of linear production models draws heavily on the Perron-Frobenius theorem. I think it neat that it shows up in Cosma's exposition, too.; October 23, 2007 4:48 AM

Thoughts On Economics