Voo Do You Think Your Are?
The more arcane the maths the less like the underlying theory is robust. I had to take a fair helping of stats courses and apply the knowledge in the real world. The money I managed wasn't big by world standards but it was enough to make me sweat on occasion and carry errors & omissions insurance.
In the 90's I read a lot of the stuff coming out of the study of Complexity. The Santa Fe Institute was the center for the founders of Complexity. The economist Brian Arthur mingled with Stuart Kauffman, M. Gell-Mann, John Holland, Per Bak and others. IIRC Mr. Arthur was doing work in an area loosely defined as non-equilibrium economics. Open, non-equilibrium systems figured large in the readings I managed. Early on a meeting took place which featured many of the players with, the late Danish physicist, Per Bak taking center stage with his Sand Pile model of self-organized criticality. Economists present brought up some ideas Per Bak recognized as derived from Spin Glass theory. The economists showed the maths backing up their ideas and Per Bak was floored by the elegance and correctness of the maths. Per Bak said (loosely recalled) that physicists use every dirty math trick imaginable and never approached the elegance and rigor demonstrated by the economists. The point I'm after is that recondite maths backing arcane theories should set off alarms.
The Canadian born 60's king of Economics, J.K. Galbraith said, "People should listen to me because I'm taller." When it comes to economic predictions maybe he had it right.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
