Method in Experiment: Rhetoric and Reality

Vernon Smith ()

Experimental Economics, 2002, vol. 5, issue 2, 110 pages

Abstract: The methodological ideal of experimentalists, E, is easily stated: derive a testable hypothesis, H, from a well-specified theory, T; implement experiments with a design; implicitly in the latter are auxiliary hypotheses, A, that surface in the review/discussion of completed research reports (payoffs are 'adequate,' Ss are 'relevant,' instructions, context are 'clear,' etc.). We want to be able to conclude, if statistical test outcomes support not-H, that T is 'falsified.' But this is not what we do; rather we ask if there is a flaw in the test, i.e. not-A is supported, and we do more experiments. This is good practice—much better than the statistical rhetoric of falsificationism. Undesigned social processes allow E to accumulate technical and instrumental knowledge that drive the reduction of experimental error and constitute a more coherent methodology than falsificationism. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2002

Keywords: experimental economics; science; methodology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1020330820698 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:expeco:v:5:y:2002:i:2:p:91-110

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ry/journal/10683/PS2

DOI: 10.1023/A:1020330820698

Access Statistics for this article

Experimental Economics is currently edited by David J. Cooper, Lata Gangadharan and Charles N. Noussair

More articles in Experimental Economics from Springer, Economic Science Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().