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Economics is not a science. The end. It's mostly ideology with mathematical excuses. At best, it's non predictive modeling.

FabHK 8y ago
> Economics is not a science. The end. That’s too facile. I’d say, insofar as it is a science, it’s not about the real world, and insofar as it’s about the real world, it's not a science. But even that doesn’t give it enough credit.
- kurtisc 8y ago
  To me that's hiding another question of whether or not it's worthwhile. Like when we ask if something is or isn't art, or if writing software is or isn't engineering. There shouldn't be any link between saying economics is or isn't a science and giving it credit.
wjnc 8y ago
Such and utter BS. There is so much science in econ. Just look at some of the work of the nobel laureates. Gary Becker treating social relationships as outcomes of economic relations. Great and provacative work. Ostrom on tragedy of the commons and solutions? That has properly changed the way we treat things like fishery, with more sustainable outcomes when applied correctly. Had we learned more of Douglas North, we wouldn't have so much kleptocracy in eastern Europe in the post-USSR period. Fama in finance, etc. etc. Too easy to dismiss that much work. And don't blame economists for the crisis. That's politics. There are a lot more lawyers in politics than economists... We don't discredit the whole of psychological science for the failures of a load of social pop-psychologists. Perhaps, perhaps we can discredit the whole of nutritional science. And even there I'd say we have learned some but that the financial incentives are so biased against proper learning that it's hard to blame the field as a whole.
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  Sane people do discredit most of psychological science. BTW, they're a real science where people could find an answer, and economics almost entirely isn't. Probably the best piece of economics I've seen is Coase's theorem. While we base our laws on this idea, it's still a shaggy dog story, and basing it on dialectical materialism, the divine right of kings or Schmitt's friend/enemy principle would work just as well. Citation: places which never heard of Coase's theorem work/worked just as well.

FabHK 8y ago

> Economics is not a science. The end. That’s too facile. I’d say, insofar as it is a science, it’s not about the real world, and insofar as it’s about the real world, it's not a science. But even that doesn’t give it enough credit.

kurtisc 8y ago
To me that's hiding another question of whether or not it's worthwhile. Like when we ask if something is or isn't art, or if writing software is or isn't engineering. There shouldn't be any link between saying economics is or isn't a science and giving it credit.

wjnc 8y ago

Such and utter BS. There is so much science in econ. Just look at some of the work of the nobel laureates. Gary Becker treating social relationships as outcomes of economic relations. Great and provacative work. Ostrom on tragedy of the commons and solutions? That has properly changed the way we treat things like fishery, with more sustainable outcomes when applied correctly. Had we learned more of Douglas North, we wouldn't have so much kleptocracy in eastern Europe in the post-USSR period. Fama in finance, etc. etc. Too easy to dismiss that much work. And don't blame economists for the crisis. That's politics. There are a lot more lawyers in politics than economists... We don't discredit the whole of psychological science for the failures of a load of social pop-psychologists. Perhaps, perhaps we can discredit the whole of nutritional science. And even there I'd say we have learned some but that the financial incentives are so biased against proper learning that it's hard to blame the field as a whole.

scottlocklin 8y ago
Sane people do discredit most of psychological science. BTW, they're a real science where people could find an answer, and economics almost entirely isn't. Probably the best piece of economics I've seen is Coase's theorem. While we base our laws on this idea, it's still a shaggy dog story, and basing it on dialectical materialism, the divine right of kings or Schmitt's friend/enemy principle would work just as well. Citation: places which never heard of Coase's theorem work/worked just as well.