Talk:Anthony Downs

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I don't see anything on A. Downs' page that is disputable or controversial...so remove the little dispute icon please... unless it's about his book Revolution in Real Estate finance (but he was largely wrong on that call).

This is a vanity piece taken from Mr. Downs' biography. It should be rewritten to reflect his contributions to social science rather then focus on why you should hire him as a speaker. --Hedgeman 08:44, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Why don't you rewrite it then?Rangerdude 19:14, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Because I don't believe I could write it with a NPOV. Some of Mr. Downs' early work is controversial in some quarters of the Social Sciences because it helped lay the foundation for Rational Choice Theory. Since I'm highly critical of RCT, I am critical of Downs.--Hedgeman 00:37, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the link about Rational Choice Theory 69.107.96.61. Learned something new. RCT seems rational to me, and while the work of Kahnerman, Tversky and others about behavioral economics is good reading, I think RCT is a good approximation to how things work. Kind of like in the game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", where the contestant asks the audience for the correct answer. RCT is the collective wisdom of the audience; it's amazing how often the audience is right, just like the stock market seems to be right more often than wrong (but when it's wrong, it's obvious after the fact, like in 2000). So RCT is when the audience is right; while behavioral economics of the Kahnerman school is when the audience is wrong. 69.107.96.61.

I went ahead and removed the NPOV tag, as I pretty much agree with User:69.107.96.61 that there's nothing particularly egregious on this page. I did remove the humerous speeches bit since it was rather superfluous, and changed famous to notable, but everything else looks ok. Hedgemen, there's no particular reason that criticism can't be included on a page as long as it is reasonably sourced and not just a wild accusation. If you feel that something of that nature is missing, please include it. --CVaneg 05:34, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)