Re: On Failing, Ambiguity, and the Real World

Judy - I'm responding as a economist, though I think the response likely works reasonably well for many other disciplines.

Microeconomics is a metaphor. There is a methodology in applying the metaphor correctly. It is a methodology that can be applied to many open ended and ambiguous situations. There is not applying the methodology at all and claiming to do so (a lot of people talking about cost are under the mistaken impression they are talking economics, but they don't distinguish between outlays and opportunity costs), there is applying the methodology but doing so in a poor fashion (the economic analysis is done in a low quality way with some of the inferences clearly incorrect), and then there is a correct analysis done carefully. Even with the third, however, there may be ambiguity about whether the economic model fits the situation being analyzed. People can disagree about that even with a good analysis.

So, to address your question, I think we need to teach methodology and get students to understand what is good practice in analysis according to the discipline. They need to understand that applying a discipline gives some insight into the issues they want to work on, but it won't answer every question they might have. I do think there is right and wrong in applying a discipline and students should learn a sense of taste in terms of what a good analysis looks like. This doesn't preclude ambiguity. But it does get them past the point where everything is up for grabs and any approach to answering the question is as good as any other.