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Economics can be practised as a science or not, depending on the individual. Austrian economics, for example, is more of a religion while mainstream economics i

Economics can be practised as a science or not, depending on the individual. Austrian economics, for example, is more of a religion while mainstream economics is more scientific. Economics is a science of human behaviour, which is not exact. Economic models are like weather models. They cannot be exact because what they are modelling (weather, human behaviour) is incredibly complicated with millions of parameters. Science is about observing something, forming a hypothesis about why it is that way, and then testing the hypothesis to determine whether it is correct. Many Economics researchers do all of the above, so they are scientists.

_heimdall 1y ago
Totally agree that economists observe behavior and crest hypothesise, and model what might happen. That doesn't make it science though, especially when they can't really run any type of controlled studies that support the results and hypothesise claimed.
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago
  > when they can't really run any type of controlled studies In that case, is geology a science? I too am sceptical about economics (mostly macro, the micro stuff is fine) but there are lots of places where you can't run experiments and some of them are science.
  - seunosewa 1y ago
    Evolutionary biology is another case where direct experiments don't work for the most part. Even in physics, Einstein's theories had to be supported by things like astronomical observations.
    - _heimdall 1y ago
      This touches on another area I view as wholely unscientific - quantum physics. The most fundamental hypothesis of the field is untestable by design. We will never know if quantum state exists or if probability clouds collapse upon observation because by that very principle we will never know the state prior to observing it.
      - krapp 1y ago
        We have technology that only works because quantum physics is a thing. Lasers, LEDs (particularly blue LEDs), GPS and MRIs and semiconductors are some examples. Computer chips are getting small enough that quantum tunneling is a real engineering concern. Quantum entanglement has been experimentally verified numerous times. Calling it "wholely unscientific" makes you seem like a crank.
        _heimdall 1y ago
        We have technologies that work, and we believe that quantum theory plays a part. We don't know that and we simply can't given that (a) its a theory and (b) it is untestable as I said earlier. How would you propose we could test quantum state and collapse to validate that the concept is actually correct?
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    How can it be science if you can't follow the scientific method? It can be a field of study for sure and it can be useful too. My argument isn't that only scientific study is useful, I'm arguing that economics isn't scientific.
    - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
      Science doesn't require experimental designs, certainly they are incredibly helpful but they don't work for everything. Like (I grumble about this approach a lot) observational studies at a population level are certainly science, even though there's no experiments. Granted, in medicine at least they end up feeding into RCTs and controlled studies which is good, but in a lot of cases (child development is a big one) lots of hypotheses can't ethically be tested using experimental designs. We can't get sets of identical twins and raise one in a rich home and another in a poor home, holding everything else constant. Does this mean twin studies aren't science? I actually kinda agree that a lot of economics is very poor science (far too much maths on far too little data) but that's reflective of the difficulty of collecting such data rather than an indictment of the approach.
- Supernaut 1y ago
  In the EU, inflation surged in the wake of the double-whammy of COVID and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The standard economic prescription for high levels of inflation is to raise interest rates, and that is what the ECB did. Inflation duly sank back again and the level is now hovering around the ECB's ideal of 2%. I agree that this doesn't match the definition of a scientific experiment, in that there is no control group within the bloc to which the higher interest levels were not applied. Nonetheless, it seems to be a textbook example of an economy proving to be manipulable in exactly the way that economic theory suggests it will be.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    I agree that in that case the economy ended up moving in the direction one would expect given the economic policy response taken, but without any way of ever being able to scientifically support causality we simply can't make the claim. Its too easy with economics to look backwards and retroactively attribute what happened to a cause that would have made sense. It seems likely that Covid and the Russian war were causes of inflation, but we don't really know even that. For one thing, during the pandemic in the EU most stores and restaurants were closed. One could look at the economic relief (money printing) and expect inflation, but one could also look at the massive drop in spending and expect deflation instead. Had we seen deflation I fully expect today's economic analysis would be that lockdowns and business closures were clearly going to lead to deflation.

_heimdall 1y ago

Totally agree that economists observe behavior and crest hypothesise, and model what might happen. That doesn't make it science though, especially when they can't really run any type of controlled studies that support the results and hypothesise claimed.

disgruntledphd2 1y ago
> when they can't really run any type of controlled studies In that case, is geology a science? I too am sceptical about economics (mostly macro, the micro stuff is fine) but there are lots of places where you can't run experiments and some of them are science.
- seunosewa 1y ago
  Evolutionary biology is another case where direct experiments don't work for the most part. Even in physics, Einstein's theories had to be supported by things like astronomical observations.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    This touches on another area I view as wholely unscientific - quantum physics. The most fundamental hypothesis of the field is untestable by design. We will never know if quantum state exists or if probability clouds collapse upon observation because by that very principle we will never know the state prior to observing it.
    - krapp 1y ago
      We have technology that only works because quantum physics is a thing. Lasers, LEDs (particularly blue LEDs), GPS and MRIs and semiconductors are some examples. Computer chips are getting small enough that quantum tunneling is a real engineering concern. Quantum entanglement has been experimentally verified numerous times. Calling it "wholely unscientific" makes you seem like a crank.
      - _heimdall 1y ago
        We have technologies that work, and we believe that quantum theory plays a part. We don't know that and we simply can't given that (a) its a theory and (b) it is untestable as I said earlier. How would you propose we could test quantum state and collapse to validate that the concept is actually correct?
- _heimdall 1y ago
  How can it be science if you can't follow the scientific method? It can be a field of study for sure and it can be useful too. My argument isn't that only scientific study is useful, I'm arguing that economics isn't scientific.
  - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
    Science doesn't require experimental designs, certainly they are incredibly helpful but they don't work for everything. Like (I grumble about this approach a lot) observational studies at a population level are certainly science, even though there's no experiments. Granted, in medicine at least they end up feeding into RCTs and controlled studies which is good, but in a lot of cases (child development is a big one) lots of hypotheses can't ethically be tested using experimental designs. We can't get sets of identical twins and raise one in a rich home and another in a poor home, holding everything else constant. Does this mean twin studies aren't science? I actually kinda agree that a lot of economics is very poor science (far too much maths on far too little data) but that's reflective of the difficulty of collecting such data rather than an indictment of the approach.
Supernaut 1y ago
In the EU, inflation surged in the wake of the double-whammy of COVID and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The standard economic prescription for high levels of inflation is to raise interest rates, and that is what the ECB did. Inflation duly sank back again and the level is now hovering around the ECB's ideal of 2%. I agree that this doesn't match the definition of a scientific experiment, in that there is no control group within the bloc to which the higher interest levels were not applied. Nonetheless, it seems to be a textbook example of an economy proving to be manipulable in exactly the way that economic theory suggests it will be.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  I agree that in that case the economy ended up moving in the direction one would expect given the economic policy response taken, but without any way of ever being able to scientifically support causality we simply can't make the claim. Its too easy with economics to look backwards and retroactively attribute what happened to a cause that would have made sense. It seems likely that Covid and the Russian war were causes of inflation, but we don't really know even that. For one thing, during the pandemic in the EU most stores and restaurants were closed. One could look at the economic relief (money printing) and expect inflation, but one could also look at the massive drop in spending and expect deflation instead. Had we seen deflation I fully expect today's economic analysis would be that lockdowns and business closures were clearly going to lead to deflation.