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Please note that the origins of modern science in Europe lie in astronomy [1]. Astronomy has always has been and is an observational science, yet has been enorm

Please note that the origins of modern science in Europe lie in astronomy [1]. Astronomy has always has been and is an observational science, yet has been enormously successful at creating models of what we see in the skies. Would you critique astronomy the same ways as economics? What is the critical difference? [1] Yes, there was a lot of simultaneous work in other areas as well.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
A more revealing symmetry is what happened in Astronomy when a powerful political force didn't like the answer the scientists were coming up with, Galileo vs the Church. (More recent examples are climate change and COVID, but let's not get too controversial). So when we criticize "economists" are we criticizing the scientists like Galileo and Copernicus that were right and got their books banned, or are we criticizing the ones that supported the political power of the day? Note that some of those scientist would have genuinely believed their 'church-approved' theories. Just their opponents couldn't challenge them openly without incurring wrath. And would generic criticism of "scientists" have benefitted science or the established political power at that time?
grey-area 5y ago
What is the critical difference? Economics is a dismal science and models rarely predict real word outcomes correctly. It’s more akin to astrology than astronomy.
runeks 5y ago
> What is the critical difference? Whether the stuff you’re observing can read and understand your observations, and then choose to do the exact opposite.
- toyg 5y ago
  Schrodinger's cat problem on a social level, basically.
esarbe 5y ago
> What is the critical difference? - Astronomers cannot influence the system they are describing; there's no feedback. In economics there is. - Astronomy describes systems with a few, simple particles whose inner state is not relevant to the behavior at large. Economics describes (tries to..) systems with many complex 'particles' whose inner state is essential to the behavior at large. Not saying that this is what's fundamentally separates astronomy from economics, just pointing out some potential differences.
guyomes 5y ago
You might be interested in this book [0]. One idea from the author is that in astronomy, you model the behavior of a set of objects, where each individual object or "atom" of your simulation (planets, rocks) has a behavior simple and easy to model. In economics and social science, the "atoms" of your simulation are human beings, and there is no good intrinsic model for the behavior of a single human beeing. One of the observation of the author is that models work better if the human beings accept to restrict their behavior and follow simple rules. Another observation is that in social science, it is hard to design models that do a prediction significantly better than "tomorrow will behave the same as yesterday". [0]: http://www.ens-lyon.fr/en/article/research/your-life-numbers-modeling-society-through-data http://www.ens-lyon.fr/en/article/research/your-life-numbers...
_dain_ 5y ago
>Would you critique astronomy the same ways as economics? What is the critical difference? Astronomy doesn't fight back, economics does.
vishnugupta 5y ago
> What is the critical difference? * Observers are also actors. They can and will significantly influence the observed. * Once observations are revealed at large it'll have short/long term consequences. There's a good reason fed gives multiple indications before changing any parameters such as interest rates, tapering etc., * Humans don't necessarily act like rational selfish agents (as economists expect) all the time. * Economics is often entangled with other aspects such as trade agreements, geopolitics some of which take years and decades to manifest.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

A more revealing symmetry is what happened in Astronomy when a powerful political force didn't like the answer the scientists were coming up with, Galileo vs the Church. (More recent examples are climate change and COVID, but let's not get too controversial). So when we criticize "economists" are we criticizing the scientists like Galileo and Copernicus that were right and got their books banned, or are we criticizing the ones that supported the political power of the day? Note that some of those scientist would have genuinely believed their 'church-approved' theories. Just their opponents couldn't challenge them openly without incurring wrath. And would generic criticism of "scientists" have benefitted science or the established political power at that time?

grey-area 5y ago

What is the critical difference? Economics is a dismal science and models rarely predict real word outcomes correctly. It’s more akin to astrology than astronomy.

runeks 5y ago

> What is the critical difference? Whether the stuff you’re observing can read and understand your observations, and then choose to do the exact opposite.

toyg 5y ago
Schrodinger's cat problem on a social level, basically.

esarbe 5y ago

> What is the critical difference? - Astronomers cannot influence the system they are describing; there's no feedback. In economics there is. - Astronomy describes systems with a few, simple particles whose inner state is not relevant to the behavior at large. Economics describes (tries to..) systems with many complex 'particles' whose inner state is essential to the behavior at large. Not saying that this is what's fundamentally separates astronomy from economics, just pointing out some potential differences.

guyomes 5y ago

You might be interested in this book [0]. One idea from the author is that in astronomy, you model the behavior of a set of objects, where each individual object or "atom" of your simulation (planets, rocks) has a behavior simple and easy to model. In economics and social science, the "atoms" of your simulation are human beings, and there is no good intrinsic model for the behavior of a single human beeing. One of the observation of the author is that models work better if the human beings accept to restrict their behavior and follow simple rules. Another observation is that in social science, it is hard to design models that do a prediction significantly better than "tomorrow will behave the same as yesterday". [0]: http://www.ens-lyon.fr/en/article/research/your-life-numbers-modeling-society-through-data http://www.ens-lyon.fr/en/article/research/your-life-numbers...

_dain_ 5y ago

>Would you critique astronomy the same ways as economics? What is the critical difference? Astronomy doesn't fight back, economics does.

vishnugupta 5y ago

> What is the critical difference? * Observers are also actors. They can and will significantly influence the observed. * Once observations are revealed at large it'll have short/long term consequences. There's a good reason fed gives multiple indications before changing any parameters such as interest rates, tapering etc., * Humans don't necessarily act like rational selfish agents (as economists expect) all the time. * Economics is often entangled with other aspects such as trade agreements, geopolitics some of which take years and decades to manifest.