
Is economics a science? - zootar
http://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2013/nov/06/is-economics-a-science-robert-shiller
======
saosebastiao
Of course it is a science, but most critics of it should remember that it is a
social science, and comes with all of the difficulty of proof that all social
sciences suffer from. There are some common principles of the field that have
strong theoretical and empirical foundations, and the rest of them are trying
to make do with the constraints forced upon them by virtue of working with
humans.

The principle of Supply and Demand is one that has so much historical
empirical evidence that it might as well be called a physical law...but we
can't call it that because the principle relies on human cognition, culture,
and other non-deterministic influences. Trade theory also has an extremely
strong empirical evidence. A lot of microeconomics is also very emprical, and
even has a lot of experimental control mechanisms for which macroeconomics
does not. Still, we can accept these ideas as true beyond any reasonable
doubt. However, we have an extremely long way to go before the rest of the
field catches up to the same standards.

~~~
bayesianhorse
Which "law" of supply and demand are you thinking of? To my knowledge, there
is no single such law, just a general rule of thumb. Simple mathmatical models
in economy, in which "laws" can be proven often don't predict the real markets
all that well.

~~~
saosebastiao
I explicitly did not call it a law, and even explained why it cannot be called
such, so I have no clue why you are calling me out on that.

Regardless, I take exception to the claim that they "often don't predict the
real markets all that well". They can predict real markets very well in most
scenarios. Most theoretical-basis predictions of price ceilings and floors
(such as rent control or minimum wages) are perfectly sound, but there is
plenty of ambiguity in the results that critics seem to misinterpret as proof
of the failure of Supply and Demand to predict outcomes.

Price ceilings tend to result in shortages, but occasionally result in no
effect at all. But that isn't enough evidence to say that Supply and Demand
doesn't apply to this scenario. In order to disprove the applicability of
Supply and Demand, you would have to show that a price ceiling _increased_ the
quantity supplied. Such scenarios are as rare as black swans.

~~~
collyw
>They can predict real markets very well in most scenarios.

Amazing that we are in the longest recession in years, and back in 2006 most
economists were saying the only way is up.

~~~
saosebastiao
Amazing that you would claim such a thing when the majority of economists
never bother to publicly make a single macroeconomic prediction.

------
raverbashing
Questions like "is X a science" looks often like the "True Scotsman" fallacy

Or better, if you want to keep strict, to things that can have an experiment
"perfectly reproduced" infinite times, then you have physics and chemistry for
that.

Biology? No. A simple example, the LD for a substance. At LD50 you have 50% of
samples dying. Here you have a substance with a very strong effect (death), at
a high dose (because it kills 50%) and still, the chance of it effecting the
sample is 50% (ok, 50% by design of experiment, and you'll have an spectrum of
reactions)?

An electron suffers a force inside an electrical field, 100% (exactly) of the
time. Some things have some probabilities, like nuclear decay, where it decays
to substance 1 A1% of the time and to substance 2 A2% of the time, but that's
it, no in-betweens.

~~~
lutusp
> Questions like "is X a science" looks often like the "True Scotsman" fallacy

True about Scotsmen, false about science. Science is easy to define, therefore
easy to detect.

Either a field has testable, falsifiable ideas -- ideas that can be compared
to reality in practical tests, indeed are compared to reality, and are
promptly discarded if they fail the test -- or they do not. End of story,
fini, full stop.

> Biology? No.

Biology, yes. Either DNA is the source of heredity or it isn't. It's testable
and falsifiable. Either natural selection produces new species or it doesn't.
Again, testable and falsifiable. Biology can make and test empirical claims,
and it does, and it discards those ideas that fail the test. That's science.

Look at prions. At first no one knew what was going on, so they did some
research. They took body fluid from one victim and passed it through a filter
that would have stopped a virus, but the prions got through. This forced the
explanation that something smaller than a virus was reproducing and causing
fatal illnesses. This led to a much better assessment of what prions are. A
falsifiable test was performed, the test succeeded, prions are real. Mad cow
disease, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease and a handful of other diseases would have
remained unexplained, except for the science.

> An electron suffers a force inside an electrical field, 100% (exactly) of
> the time.

It's easy to describe physics as a science, for the reason that it is very
much a science. What's hard is comparing physics to other endeavors that might
or might not be sciences. But there's no reason to use physics as a science
yardstick -- all one needs to do is ask, "what theories have you tested,
falsified, and discarded?"

[http://xkcd.com/435/](http://xkcd.com/435/)

~~~
raverbashing
> Biology, yes. Either DNA is the source of heredity or it isn't.

As always, it's more complicated than that. But you can definitely test (and
confirm) for DNA being a part of it.

But that's one part of biology, confined to planet Earth, and we're not sure
it's the whole story.

Yes, it is proven, according to science rules that, (for all biological
entities known) DNA (and RNA) conveys hereditary information.

But biological proofs are weaker than physics proofs. "Oh, you proved humans
have this thing called blood cells and they're round?" Until you find people
with congenital Anemia, and look, their blood cells are not round, because
this makes them immune to Malaria. So it's not possible to generalize as much.

In Physics I am confident that the electrons (and chemical elements) in my
computer are 100% indistinguishable from the ones in the Sun (albeit in
different quantities and temperature of course)

And speaking about physics, light was a wave and this had been tested and
verified multiple times. Until it wasn't.

~~~
lutusp
>> Either DNA is the source of heredity or it isn't.

> As always, it's more complicated than that.

No, it isn't. All one need do is demonstrate that DNA is not the source of
heredity, i.e. falsify the claim. That's how science works. Epigenetics
doesn't disprove the role of DNA, it augments it, in the same way that
conduction and convection stand alongside radiation as mechanisms for the
transport of heat energy.

> But biological proofs are weaker than physics proofs.

Not the scientific ones.

> And speaking about physics, light was a wave and this had been tested and
> verified multiple times. Until it wasn't.

That's misleading. There was a debate about whether light was a wave or a
particle -- evidence supported both views. Eventually a new theory combined
and fully validated all the prior observations by showing that light is both a
wave and a particle. That theory is the best-supported and most powerful
theory devised to date, and is the crowning achievement of 20th century
physics. And it will eventually be replaced by an even better theory, one that
explains more, with fewer preconceptions and arbitrary axioms.

That is science at its best, science driven by evidence, evidence that shapes
theories, theories that must survive testing or be discarded.

~~~
raverbashing
> All one need do is demonstrate that DNA is not the source of heredity

Oh, I'm not saying DNA isn't the source of heredity. I'm saying that there are
other smaller factors. (you can google them). Heredity in the strict sense,
yes, it's DNA, in the broader sense, well, you can have two different
fenotypes with the same genotype.

> There was a debate about whether light was a wave or a particle -- evidence
> supported both views.

Not before the 20th century, diffraction of light (amongst others) firmly put
it as a wave.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light#Wave_theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light#Wave_theory)

And the wave theory of light is still widely used (when it's applicable of
course).

~~~
lutusp
>> There was a debate about whether light was a wave or a particle -- evidence
supported both views.

> Not before the 20th century,

Yes before the 20th century. I refer you to the debate between Newton and
Huygens as well as Hooke, his contemporaries with respect to these ideas.

[http://www.studyphysics.ca/newnotes/20/unit04_light/chp1719_...](http://www.studyphysics.ca/newnotes/20/unit04_light/chp1719_light/lesson57.htm)

Such debates persisted from then until the shaping of quantum theory.

------
lutusp
I'm astonished that these questions get asked again and again, about fields
that are obviously not sciences.

Fields that can and do test their theories against reality in practical,
empirical tests, that discard falsified theories, and that have a corpus of
supporting evidence that forces all similarly equipped observers to the same
conclusion, are sciences. The rest are pseudosciences whose status is clearly
shown by innumerable articles whose titles end in a question mark.

[http://xkcd.com/435/](http://xkcd.com/435/)

~~~
eru
Microeconomics is a science by that definition. Mathematics is not (or not
really).

~~~
mike_esspe
Mathematical proofs are falsifiable, and there are a lot of hypotheses, that
are not proved yet:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_m...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_mathematics)

~~~
lutusp
> Mathematical proofs are falsifiable

No, they aren't. A mathematical proof is by definition unfalsifiable. If an
error is found in a proof (as with Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem),
that it isn't a proof ... yet. And mathematical proofs aren't empirical,
another requirement for science.

Scientific theories are falsifiable in perpetuity because the possibility
always exists for new empirical evidence to show up that falsifies an existing
theory. This possibility doesn't exist for mathematical proofs.

------
atmosx
You can't apply the scientific method and when coming back in the real world
leaving models and presumptions aside you see that economists never play an
important role. They easily justify their failures no matter how big. You
can't even trust history books to tell you if the X policy was a success or
failure.

In order to understand economics in my view, you have to know how politics
work. Politicians and nations or people in power at any given time can turn a
debt to 0 or to a war. Of course in a democracy it's more complicated, but
generally that's the main idea. The their puppets try to justify the move.

It is what is happening in Greece, in the USA, in Italy and in other parts of
world.

Rationality and math has little to do with economics. So since economists
never predict anything really (when they do they get a Nobel), I hardly see
this as a science.

As for the argument that physics or biology is not a science, I can know this:
the same experiment can done time and again giving the same result. Try it in
real-life economics...

~~~
yetanotherphd
Lacking predictive power is indeed a big issue of economics.

However you are completely wrong about sovereign debt. It is a minor issue,
and defaults almost never result in wars. Argentina defaulted or restructured
its debt 4 times since 1980.

------
yetanotherphd
I love to hear Schiller speak, even though I don't subscribe to his particular
behaviorist ideas (they are quite outside the mainstream of academic
research). He is very measured in his criticism of the mainstream, and his
article is a very fair summary (in my opinion) of how scientific mainstream
economics is. Schiller is a moderate dissenter in that he thinks the current
ration-agent-model approach is flawed, bout doesn't advocate abandoning
mathematical models.

Like Schiller, I believe that it is possible to test and validate theories,
but at the same time we cannot have the same certainty as in physics, and the
"irreducibly human element" will also prevent the same deep mathematical
theories that we see in physics, ever being developed for economics.

------
forgottenpaswrd
No, it is not. Nor it should be.

Economist call their discipline "social science" basically because they suffer
from "science envy". They want to believe that there are simple things like
"water molecule is the bonding of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen". But in
economy they are not, as economy is about the most flexible thing on Earth,
humans and the relationship between them.

Economy is about dogma, there are Keynesians dogma followers(that look like
never read a book of Keynes), Austrian dogma followers, and so on. Nothing to
do with science but with power grabbing. Today all institutions are dominated
by keynesians ands as everybody can see they are making the world a worse
place.

------
downer99
It's Science as much as any social science is Science.

The only reason we can't transform social sciences into hard sciences is
because it would be horrifically cruel and unethical to exert rigid,
inflexible rules on thinking, breathing, feeling human beings.

You can't turn human beings into raw predictable numbers without killing them,
or throwing them in jail (however intangible such a prison might be, loss of
choice and free will is enslavement).

------
acd
It is a social science with assumptions on how things works. A lot of economic
theories are just that assumptions, assumptions on how the market works.

If you have the time watch Professor Steve Keens one of the economists who
predicted the 2008 subprime bubble criticize main stream economics.

Especially the Federal reserve system which is privately owned by the biggest
banks. Read on Edward Griffins google the creature from Jekyll island. In that
information you will find that the FED was created by a among others senator
Aldrich who's daughter was married to one of the banks who created the FED.

Thus private banks create debt out of thin air more now so than ever they are
backed up by central banks. In the European central bank, the head of the bank
comes from Goldman Sachs. There is a documentary called 97% owned which states
97% of all money in circulation are now debt just 3% is cash.

Ever wonder how the rich gets richer?

------
grogenaut
No. Social sciences aren't sciences. They're "Social" sciences. That doesn't
keep it from straying into the real sciences, just like computer science
sometimes strays into real science.

~~~
j2kun
Are you saying that computer science isn't a science?

------
jokoon
You can hardly innovate in economics if politics don't follow.

Economical decisions are so much entangled and tainted with politics, that's a
big reason why it's not really scientific. The theory is sound, but practice
is awful for many reasons, mostly political and because of the human factor.

Capitalism is a decent and somewhat balanced practice of economics, but the
fact that it's not a hard science shows that there is a disconnect between
theory and practice.

------
troymc
I once thought that large-scale macro-economics was derived from empirical
behavioral economics and microeconomics, similar to the way thermodynamics is
derived from basic laws of physics (via the methods of statistical mechanics).
That's _not_ what was done, but maybe someday...

Also, imagine a world where macroeconomic models get thrown out, or at least
modified, when their predictions fail. Wouldn't that be neat?

------
tomcdonnell
I consider economics to be more like a branch of philosophy than a science.
The way to judge a good economic theory from bad one is to evaluate the
soundness of its arguments. Historical data can never confirm or refute an
economic theory because people have free will, and can act any way they
choose.

------
jahaja
It was much clearer when it was more appropriately called "Political Economy".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy)

------
alan_cx
Surely the question should be, "Can you apply the scientific method to
economics?".

~~~
berntb
There are lots of non-experimental subjects at any university -- history,
archeology, etc.

The ideologists wanting to demote economics never seem to want to also throw
geology out of the university.

(In the future, some gigantic geo engineering might make geology experimental,
the same goes for "perfect" computer models of society and economic
experiments. Don't hold your breath, unless we argue inside such a model now;
wonder what the hypothesis is? :-) )

~~~
marcosdumay
Eh, sorry, but geology is full of theories that were (and are) later tested,
most getting discarded after the testing, and a few holding up and being
accepted as true. Just like any science out there.

Do you know of any macroeconomical (because, really, that's all about macro)
theory that was discarded since Keynes become mainstream?

~~~
berntb
The "scientific method" \-- which I commented on -- needs to formulate
hypotheses, test them and so on. That can't reliably be done in any mostly
historical science, by definition.

(And of course you can randomly test _some_ things in historical sciences too.
E.g. finding historical trading patterns by looking at materials used for
artefacts, diet by looking at enamel of skeletons, etc etc. Other things won't
find any possible test solution, ever.)

------
yason
Why does it matter, why is that question such a hot potato?

~~~
bjourne
Take all the fast food workers that strikes to raise their minimum wage from
~$7 to $15/hour because they need to work more than 8h or are dependent on
food stamps.

Many (most?) economists think that that will have disastrous consequences for
the US economy. Iff economy is a science, then their view should be taken into
account because it is based on solid scientifically-backed evidence. Exactly
like how you would take the view of climate scientists very seriously if you
knew climate science was a real science.

But if economy is not a science, that means there is no evidence either or.
Then you have no one else results to rely on and have to use your own common
sense to analyze questions like the above one.

~~~
yason
And does that matter? Most things are like that.

The miniscule subset of all things in the universe that we do know
scientifically doesn't mean that the things outside that subset don't provide
any value.

If an economic theory is useful even if it doesn't have a proof like in hard
sciences it provides value nevertheless.

There are scientifically proven things that are undisputable but which, on the
other hand, aren't much of a value either _now_ but maybe of great value
later, at some point in the future. But merely having scientific evidence is
not an implication of value.

If something seems to work, it seems to work. If that something also gets
scientifically verified at some point it might turn out to have additional
value, too. But it still works if it happened to worked before that.

Of all the information verified in hard sciences only a part is practically
valuable in running societies, governments, states, and efforts involving
humans. The minimum wage of fast food workers is a problem that has no
scientific answer and which is also probably quite hard to approach
scientifically in the first place. I suppose that the majority of question in
a human society are like that.

An inflated appreciation towards scientifically verified information tends to
overlook everything else that isn't scientifically verified. Yet all those
things lacking scientific verification are things among which new theories are
discovered and some of those do eventually become proven and verified.

Yet ultimately, there are no truths, just opinions. Some opinions are
individual opinions and may not be shared by many. Some opinions are
reasonably based on evidence from various scientific experiments and some of
that evidence is so solid that it would be hard to _convince_ most of
individuals in our culture otherwise. The physical theories involving air
travel are accepted and tested by millions of people every day: they're
effectively betting their lives against the theories explaining flight being
correct. So the opinions are shared by many if not most people and they
practically become something we consider a truth. Yet what happens is not that
it becomes more true or a more absolute truth: what happens is that you
_convince_ more people —— and often for a good reason, but objectively that's
what can be seen happening. In the end, all we have is our mind and the way we
make it up.

------
brianbreslin
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience#Psychology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience#Psychology)
is psychology a real science?

~~~
dmpk2k
What does that link have to do with your question?

To answer your question: some subdisciplines of psychology are (e.g.
biological psychology), and some are not (e.g. psychoanalysis). From what I've
seen, all world-class universities emphasize the former; the latter is only
taught in passing in psych 101 as history.

I've yet to see anybody seriously discuss psychoanalysis nowadays outside
of... well, to be honest, women's studies. Of course, that field never claimed
to be a science. Oh, Žižek does too.

------
_Simon
Yet more intelligentsia bullshit from the Guardian. No. Economics is
categorically not a science. It's not even a social science. It is, at best,
one of the humanities.

