Comment by pohl
8 hours ago
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.
8 hours ago
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).
Astrophysics cannot make experiments either, but it's a (most fascinating) science indeed.
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.
Etymology helps.
Eco: house, household, or dwelling place.
The -logy suffix is 'science'. So ecology is: the scientific study of how living organisms interact with one another and with their physical surroundings.
The -nomy suffix is a field or system of something.
Economy is the ecology of finance. Or, Economy is a field of science that predicts financial systems. Any scientific field helps you make predictions, once you know the material. But useful predictions require useful measurement.
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