3 ms·

i suspect that economics is something of a bullshit science, where they draw arbitrary conclusions from hand picked data; (In this case one could ask both sides

i suspect that economics is something of a bullshit science, where they draw arbitrary conclusions from hand picked data; (In this case one could ask both sides on what kind of professions they were surveying) also economists always act surprised when a real event like the great recession or great depression happens; other social sciences seem to be less detached from actual reality.

thirdplace_ 5y ago
I also had this suspicion for some time. In reality they have a large amount of premises in their economic models which must be true in order for the conclusion to follow. Also there is e.g. a large amount of empiric data supporting minimum-wage laws are beneficial and also a large ammount of empiric data showing it's harmful! Conslusion: there are no solutions only tradeoffs.
mardifoufs 5y ago
Its weird to see people completely dismiss an entire field just because they disagree with it. If someone said the exact same thing about another social science, like sociology or gender studies, it would see a pretty big pushback in the same circles that dismiss economics. And I frankly I don't see how you could argue that modern economics are more prone to arbitrary conclusions and cherry picking than idk say psychology or race studies. Btw I'm curious, do you have an example of economists being surprised by a recession? Because they usually don't claim to be able to predict one in the first place. There's a huge difference between pop econ columnists who write clickbait predictions and the actual academic consensus in the field.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  1. Some of the harshest criticisms of economics (both orthodox and heterodox) comes from ... economists. 2. Some of the harshest criticism of other social sciences comes from ... economists. (Notably of sociology, though also variously ecology, systems theory, and cybernetics.) 3. The 2007-8 Global Financial Crisis rocked mainstream economics to its core. a) Queen Elizabeth famously asked why nobody saw it coming (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/3386353/The-Queen-asks-why-no-one-saw-the-credit-crunch-coming.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/33863...), the failure is b) called the "Crisis of Economics" (https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-did-economists-not-foresee-the-crisis https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-did-economi... and c) Nobel Laureate in economics Paul Krugman has asked "why economics failed" (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/opinion/krugman-why-economics-failed.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/opinion/krugman-why-econo...). None of which is "pop economists".
  - ThreeJewels 5y ago
    Economists have predicted 11 of the past 3 recessions.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      And yet in this case missed the biggest one of the previous 79 years.

thirdplace_ 5y ago

I also had this suspicion for some time. In reality they have a large amount of premises in their economic models which must be true in order for the conclusion to follow. Also there is e.g. a large amount of empiric data supporting minimum-wage laws are beneficial and also a large ammount of empiric data showing it's harmful! Conslusion: there are no solutions only tradeoffs.

mardifoufs 5y ago

Its weird to see people completely dismiss an entire field just because they disagree with it. If someone said the exact same thing about another social science, like sociology or gender studies, it would see a pretty big pushback in the same circles that dismiss economics. And I frankly I don't see how you could argue that modern economics are more prone to arbitrary conclusions and cherry picking than idk say psychology or race studies. Btw I'm curious, do you have an example of economists being surprised by a recession? Because they usually don't claim to be able to predict one in the first place. There's a huge difference between pop econ columnists who write clickbait predictions and the actual academic consensus in the field.

dredmorbius 5y ago
1. Some of the harshest criticisms of economics (both orthodox and heterodox) comes from ... economists. 2. Some of the harshest criticism of other social sciences comes from ... economists. (Notably of sociology, though also variously ecology, systems theory, and cybernetics.) 3. The 2007-8 Global Financial Crisis rocked mainstream economics to its core. a) Queen Elizabeth famously asked why nobody saw it coming (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/3386353/The-Queen-asks-why-no-one-saw-the-credit-crunch-coming.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/33863...), the failure is b) called the "Crisis of Economics" (https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-did-economists-not-foresee-the-crisis https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-did-economi... and c) Nobel Laureate in economics Paul Krugman has asked "why economics failed" (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/opinion/krugman-why-economics-failed.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/opinion/krugman-why-econo...). None of which is "pop economists".
- ThreeJewels 5y ago
  Economists have predicted 11 of the past 3 recessions.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    And yet in this case missed the biggest one of the previous 79 years.