Is economics a science?

[CaptainKipard]

Simple question. Do discussions of it belong in this section?

[vger]

Social science, so why not? And given that a lot of mathematics, logistical analysis, and psychology is involved...

Edited April 25, 2014 by vger

[jwenting]

given that 90% of the discussions here are about pseudo science and pure fiction, don't see why economics wouldn't belong here.

[xcorps]

Social science, so why not? And given that a lot of whatever else math you like matics, logistical analysis, and psychology is involved...

It's more philosophy than science. You put forth a conclusion then use whatever methods and maths you like to support it. Hayek vs Keynes, that's not science.

[Nibb31]

It's a social science, so yes. But it's an interesting subject.

On one hand, economical phenomena are real, measurable, and complex.

On the other hand, the economy is a completely artificial area where all the interactions were voluntarily engineered by Humanity.

All other sciences strive to understand and describe nature, whereas economics tries to understand an man-made construct that we could simply tear down and replace if we wanted to.

[xcorps]

Comparative politics is a branch of Political Science.

I suppose this subforum is a good place to argue the merits of anarchocommunism?

Neh?

Then this subforum is no place for economics.

[Seret]

Ok, so are any of the social sciences actually science?

[helaeon]

A key factor of any hard science is being able to make predictions about the future that are extremely accurate, can be tested again and again, and when applied to a real-world phenomenon rather than a lab set-up it still works.

Chemistry, Physics, Biology and all of their subsets do this.

While some of the behaviors and models seen in Economics are very similar to an ecology or other competitive biological system competing or cooperating with limited resources, it as a study does not really have any absolute "physical laws" where you can put in a set of variables and certainly determine a future condition or event. There are certainly economic principles and general rules that seem to be followed (why economies often behave like ecological systems, but not always). But many of these models are highly contradictory. If you read Keynes and Hayek you read two very different views on how an economy works and how you can best influence or control it. It gets into your politics often which one you think is the most right and there will be very little that someone from the other camp could show you that would get you to change your mind and cause the incorrect one to be sent to the dust bin.

In the physical sciences we would try to reconcile models and systems that seem to accurately describe the universe proven via data (not computer models, we can make a computer model to spit out whatever we like), but seem to be incompatible, such as we are trying to do with quantum mechanics and Einstein's theories. All of which are supported by mountains of data and experimentation, but they're both wrong as they're incompatible. In economics this seems to not happen, once an economic model or theory is conceived it seems to never die.

Economics seems to be more about politics and policy prescriptions rather than understanding of systems. From what I can tell there are few testable hypotheses and when future events prove an economic model or prescription a failure it doesn't go away, it stays as it is as there's some excuse as to why it doesn't apply to a given situation, or that next time it will work because this time we didn't apply it hard enough or absolute enough. That's not a science. It very well could be as a field if it wanted to but as it's practiced and studied today it is not.

Social sciences being sciences :

Physical Anthropology absolutely, cultural anthropology probably, linguistics I would lean towards yes.

Psychology wants to go there, and I think it's getting there and certain subfields absolutely, but there's a lot of metaphysics and politics still deeply embedded. The latest DSM was met with controversy and for good reason, to the point that it seems that honoring it is optional. If your field's main diagnostic manual is optional because it's perceived by so many to be political... that's a problem. That's like Chemists and Physicists rejecting the latest version of the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.

Sociology, no. Again could be a specialized field of the macroecology of humans, but it's more about justifying one's political positions and performing "studies" to forward them rather than actually understanding the world. It seems if you want to do science on human societies anthropology is probably the route to go.

And fun fact... I studied all of these fields in college while studying biochemistry. So, the above are my personal views on it from first hand experience.

[KerikBalm]

Its not a science, there are no experiments or testable predictions.

Its an empirical doctrine. Its no more a science than phrenology or the "scientific" racism of days past. Just because you take measurements and do some math, does not make it a science. Just because you call it science, does not make it science (especially bad is scientology.... or "creation science"... ughhh)

[Nibb31]

It's an annoying trend in "hard science" circles to look down on humanities and social science as if they were somehow inferior. That's just ignorant.

Economics itself is not a doctrine. It's the study of economical systems. Those systems, whether you agree with them or not, exist, affect our lives, and deserve studying.

There are economical predictions that stand and there are also laws of economics.

What is unique in economics, is that it studies a field that is totally artificial. Money, value, and wealth are man-made concepts, yet they follow their own laws and phenomena that we can hardly control. I find that fascinating.

History is also a social science. You can't really use it to predict an outcome, but would you really argue that historians are not proper researchers ?

[xcorps]

Economics itself is not a doctrine. It's the study of economical systems. Those systems, whether you agree with them or not, exist, affect our lives, and deserve studying.

There are economical predictions that stand and there are also laws of economics.

What is unique in economics, is that it studies a field that is totally artificial. Money, value, and wealth are man-made concepts, yet they follow their own laws and phenomena that we can hardly control. I find that fascinating.

History is also a social science. You can't really use it to predict an outcome, but would you really argue that historians are not proper researchers ?

The science of economics is gone once you get past the supply and demand curve. Most everything after that is ideological, and therefore not science. Valid, important, crucial to the success of society, highly valuable. But not science.

I would not call a historian a scientist. I would call him/her a historian.

At any rate, this subforum caters to hard science. That's indubitably clear, regardless of the Warp Drive threads. There's an off topic forum for economics.

[Seret]

History is not a science in my book. It's a perfectly valid and fascinating field of research, and I'm sure they're rigorous, but the science of the past is archeology. Granted there's some overlap, and one informs the other.

[Red Iron Crown]

Economics is applied psychology. If psychology is considered a science, then economics must be as well.

Of course, there are those that do not consider psychology a science.

[Seret]

There are branches of psychology that are science, and branches that definitely aren't.

[rkman]

With the theories about economics that most economists adhere to (specifically those who work in the financial sector and thus help shape the policies that affect the economy at large), they repeatedly fail to predict such events as market crashes and economic depressions.

So if economics is a science, it is in its infancy, more akin to alchemy than science.

[Red Iron Crown]

With the theories about economics that most economists adhere to (specifically those who work in the financial sector and thus help shape the policies that affect the economy at large), they repeatedly fail to predict such events as market crashes and economic depressions.

With the theories about weather that most meteorologists adhere to, they repeatedly fail to predict where lightning will strike or tornadoes will touch down. That doesn't make meteorology any less of a science.

So if economics is a science, it is in its infancy, more akin to alchemy than science.

Economics has literally been studied for thousands of years. Its more basic principles are so well-established that we treat them as fact. It is only when large, complex markets are studied that difficulties arise, as reliable observations and measurements are a challenge and so much has been co-opted by people with agendas other than actual discovery (i.e. they want the observations to support their pet theories).

[rkman]

With the theories about weather that most meteorologists adhere to, they repeatedly fail to predict where lightning will strike or tornadoes will touch down. That doesn't make meteorology any less of a science.

That is a false equivalency:

In economics it would be the equivalent of predicting which businesses and household would be affected by the crash or depression.

But economists (who work in 'the business') basically never predict crashes/depressions. Not even roughly when the event might take place.

Meteorologists otoh do routinely predict correctly when and in which area there very likely will be lightning strikes or tornadoes.

Thar means meteorology is much more of a science than economics.

[xcorps]

With the theories about weather that most meteorologists adhere to, they repeatedly fail to predict where lightning will strike or tornadoes will touch down. That doesn't make meteorology any less of a science.

A meteorologist can predict no rain every day for a year with 87% accuracy...

[vger]

With the theories about weather that most meteorologists adhere to, they repeatedly fail to predict where lightning will strike or tornadoes will touch down. That doesn't make meteorology any less of a science.

Yep, on the basis of repeatability, meteorology isn't even a science. With that, just like economics, you're dealing with almost infinitely complex systems. The 'Butterfly Effect' describes how easy it could be to change the weather, and the same certainly applies to economics.

[rkman]

So the way to make economics look as though it is a science is to use logical fallacies to make other sciences look as bad as economics.

[vger]

So the way to make economics look as though it is a science is to use logical fallacies to make other sciences look as bad as economics.

Naa, it's more like the way to make economics look as though it is not a science, is to call something a logical fallacy when it isn't.

[Red Iron Crown]

That is a false equivalency:

In economics it would be the equivalent of predicting which businesses and household would be affected by the crash or depression.

But economists (who work in 'the business') basically never predict crashes/depressions. Not even roughly when the event might take place.

Meteorologists otoh do routinely predict correctly when and in which area there very likely will be lightning strikes or tornadoes.

Thar means meteorology is much more of a science than economics.

Economists routinely predict when the market needs a correction, and they do. The problem is that there is a lot of "pseudoscience" in economics where observations and statistics are manipulated to support conclusions or theories based on political agendas, which muddies the waters in finding what is accurate and what is not. Meteorology suffers from this when it comes to climate change models.

You do have a good point that weather is much easier to model accurately than large scale human economic behavior, so I guess one could say that meteorology is a "harder" science.

A meteorologist can predict no rain every day for a year with 87% accuracy...

Similarly, an economist can predict no market crashes every day for a year with >99% accuracy.

[vger]

You do have a good point that weather is much easier to model accurately than large scale human economic behavior, so I guess one could say that meteorology is a "harder" science.

That may quickly go the other way if weather control ever happens, and already sort of is. The scientists who seem to have had success 50+ times at making rain in a bone-dry desert, are now stuck with the difficulty of proving that the rain wouldn't have fallen anyway if their ionization towers weren't there. This gives technological weather control an only slightly better chance at being proven than rain dancing.

[lajoswinkler]

The science of economics is gone once you get past the supply and demand curve. Most everything after that is ideological, and therefore not science. Valid, important, crucial to the success of society, highly valuable. But not science.

I would not call a historian a scientist. I would call him/her a historian.

At any rate, this subforum caters to hard science. That's indubitably clear, regardless of the Warp Drive threads. There's an off topic forum for economics.

History is a term with multiple meanings. It can be everything that has happened before this moment, and it can be a science that studies it. It's a social science, and social sciences are science as well, obviously. Historiogrpahy would be the social science which studies how history is obtained.

Economics is a social science. There is no doubt about that.

This sub-forum should be called (or contain it its description) "natural sciences" or something akin to that, if we want only physics, psychology, chemistry, geology, biology etc. to be discussed. Until it's defined as such, it welcomes all sciences.

[xcorps]

Economists routinely predict when the market needs a correction, and they do.

But then you have the issue of some economists arguing that markets should never be corrected. That's ideology.

Similarly, an economist can predict no market crashes every day for a year with >99% accuracy.

ROFLSTOMP. zzzzing.