Comment by gwerbin
8 hours ago
> Ironically, the experts, the ones building the "wrong" models, tend to be the ones most aware of this.
This varies substantially by field, or by subfield. There is a vast decades-long intellectual wasteland of bad economics predicated on bad models that are only appealing on normative grounds. The entire field of behavioral psychology might be a scam. Etc etc. Science advances one funeral at a time hard part because people are unwilling to let go of their models, even when they have outlived their usefulness or have been simply proven too wrong to be useful even in their original purpose.
> The entire field of behavioral psychology might be a scam
I studied cognition and came to the very same, sad conclusion. There’s a reason there was a reproduction crisis and it’s far from over. I remember vividly how one of my professors, during a paper debate, would end criticism with: “but it’s been published” as if that handwavy gesture could explain away serious research gaps that even graduate students saw through right away. Shoddy statistics in a system that rewards quantity can do a lot of damage.
Until this moment, I hadn't even thought that economics might be a scientific field. Do they really see themselves as one? It hasn't seemed like one from the outside.
without getting too deep into "field purity" [0], it's certainly a field of study insofar as game theory, psychology, anthropology, etc. are fields of study. It's possible to make certain models of behavior or outcome potentials, but running experiments is significantly more difficult than e.g. physics or biology.
So it's science inasmuch as anything with n=1 repeatability can be science
[0]: https://xkcd.com/435/
Weirdly, it's much easier to run empirical experiments in psychology (my field), but economics for whatever reason is MUCH more rigorous and empirical than psychology in my experience.
It may have to do with the overall complexity being easier to effectively model. Psychology has such big error terms that you either give up or get comfortable with a lot of hand-waving and dogma. A huge proportion of psychologists are just activists and have no real interest in being scientists (beyond the prestige).
Economics is a scientific field in the same sense that Astrology and Politics are. You formulate theories about what your customers want to hear. Then test those theories by telling your customers things, while observing both immediate reactions and how situations develop over time. That latter in conjunction with formulating updated theories about what your customers want... Endless loop.
Do they believe it's a science? Assume that Upton Sinclair's famous quote applies.
This is silly. Economics is not science in the same way physics or chemistry is. But it is not totally without predictive power like astrology is.
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