Human rationality in science

How much weight should we put on "human rationality" when it comes to scientific research? The answer is "it depends on which discipline we are taking about." Let's investigate what we can learn from Psychology and Economics by looking at the two recent articles in the NYTimes.

• Magic by Numbers: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/opinion/17gilbert.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage
• The X Factor of Economics -- People: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/weekinreview/17segal.html?scp=2&sq=economics&st=cse

Here are a few key highlights from Psychology:

• Daniel Gilbert, a psychologist at Harvard, made an argument that there are certain numbers such as 7, 10, 24 that may dominate our thinking, decisions, and ultimately our behaviors. For example, why do we have to take antibiotics for 7 days? Gilbert argued: "A recent study of antibiotic treatment published in a leading medical journal began by noting that “the usual treatment recommendation of 7 to 10 days for uncomplicated pneumonia is not based on scientific evidence” and went on to show that an abbreviated course of three days was every bit as effective as the usual course of eight."
  
• What is such a big deal about the amount of pills to take or the length of time to take them? The answer is it has implications on healing costs if each of us is taking a few pills too many to cure our diseases. On the other hand, if we take too few, it may create the superbugs that can prove to be more detrimental to human kind in the far future.
• My take is our decisions and behaviors do not always follow the law of rationality and rational calculus. In some cases, heuristics win over rational thinking not only in our every day life but also in science.

Here are a few key highlights from economics:

• The NYTimes article started out with an interesting observation about economists. Why they do not always agree on key questions such as which policy decisions we should take? and what are the impacts of important policy such as the $787 billion stimulus? These are important questions that guide fiscal and other national policies.
• The answer is economists look at complex phenomena i.e., a country's economy. As Solow argued "It (the stimulus bill) has run its course over the past year and a half, but it is not an isolated event. One thousand other things were happening that had an effect on employment and real G.D.P.,” a measure of a nation’s total output adjusted for changes in prices. “You want to trace the effect of one of a very large number of significant causal effects, and that’s a very hard thing to do.”
• For economists to predict/explain complex economic outcomes, they have to make a strong assumption on "human rationality". Prof. Ariely from Duke University argued: “But there’s a good reason that human irrationality isn’t part of the standard economic models, and this gets to the dilemma of economics. If you have a simple problem, you can offer a simple solution. But the economy is a hugely complex problem. So we either simplify the problem and offer a solution, or embrace the complexity and do nothing.”