
Is Economics a Science? - cs702
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/robert-j--shilleron-whether-he-is-a-scientist
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skwirl
If you were to claim economics is not science because it rarely involves
repeatable experiments, you would have to throw out a large chunk of what we
commonly think of as science. Did we discover that the moon orbits the earth
with repeatable experiments? Did we discover black holes, the existence of
dinosaurs, the big bang, the causes of earthquakes, the causes of volcanoes,
the cause of hurricanes, etc. with repeatable experiments? Do you want to
throw all that out as nonscientific nonsense?

It took us a long time to discover such basic things as the fact that the
Earth goes around the sun despite the fact that people had been trying to
figure it out for millenia. For much of that time, research was hampered by
politics and the unwillingness of people to accept the consequences of
possibilities beyond what was widely held as true, some of the same problems
pinned by many on economics today.

Economics is a discipline that is really in its infancy. Like astronomy, it is
going to rely on observation much more than experimentation. Like astronomy,
it is still a science, and like astronomy, it always has been and always will
be, even if we draw inconclusive, politically tainted, or wrong conclusions
today.

~~~
mgraczyk
All of those discoveries you listed were originally confirmed with repeatable
experiments. In fact the the existence of black holes and the occurrence of
the big bang were only hypothesized as explanations for the results of other
repeatable scientific experiments.

It wasn't hard for Galileo to show that the earth orbits the sun. His methods
and results would still be acceptable to the scientific community if he did
the experiments today. Just because the public didn't accept his work did not
make it any less scientifically valid.

~~~
kbenson
I think what you mean is they were _eventually_ confirmed by repeatable
experiments )even if eventually was shortly after the theory in some cases).
Science begins with theory. It's appropriate to criticize people presenting
theories as likely without evidence, but it's important to distinguish theory
that is intended to be tested, but just can't or hasn't been yet from that
which doesn't really expect to be tested.

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nathan_long
I'd say that if it isn't a system of discovering truth by repeatable
experiments, it isn't a science. Ergo, economics isn't (at least not on a
macro scale).

That doesn't make it invalid. There are other ways to discover truth; eg,
reasoning, mathematical proof, or detective work. The latter applies the
knowledge gained from science, but the crime itself isn't repeatable.

Then again, given how divided economists are on basic questions, there must be
a lot of blarney in the field.

~~~
jljljl
There are fields in economics (e.g., behavioral) that attempts to produce
insights and theories through repeatable, controlled experiments. The
assumption that no scientific testing or experimentation happens in econ is
overgeneralizing.

I actually don't think repeatable experiments is a necessary characteristic of
science. I would argue that science is more about generating falsifiable
hypotheses that can be tested through some method, whether through repeatable
experimentation or through observation (what you call detective work).

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steauengeglase
Most fields within economics fall within social science, not natural science.
That doesn't make a non-science, but like psychology there is a lot of weak
ground for shills and hacks to cause major damage.

I'd rather know Shiller's ideas on how to throw out the bad ideas in the
public consciousness than if his field of study will make it in the long term.
Policy is too often treated more like a religion than an implementation of
tested ideas.

~~~
mrow84
I agree with this analysis. One way to characterise the problem is as a lack
of verifiability, which, interestingly, has been much touted recently as a
problem in science more generally.

I think that the verifiability problem in economics is, however, more
pernicious than that for other sciences precisely because of the subject area
which it addresses, namely the economy. The standard of evidence for the
implementation of some economic policy is, quite generally speaking, vastly
lower than for the application of other scientific advances, and the impacts
of either can be large. This means that unverified or even unverifiable
policies can quite easily be implemented in the real world, and then cause
significant damage, as steauengeglase mentioned.

If we are incapable of verifying that a given policy might work, because the
theory it is derived from is so incomplete as to ignore the things which might
cause the policy to fail, then why should _we_ consider that policy's
adoption? It is surely far more sensible to generally apply well-tested ideas,
and conduct small-scale policy trials to expand our knowledge.

The obvious problem with this latter approach is that the "well-tested ideas"
are very often derived from distinctly inequitable modes of thinking. I would
still contend that adopting and then adapting those ideas is preferable to
applying radical ideas that ignore most of the system they purport to explain.

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dreamdu5t
No, economics isn't a science. It cannot discover truth using repeatable
experiments.

Economics is statistics mixed with political philosophy. Usually political
philosophy using statistical regressions on historical data to advance their
political claim.

~~~
jljljl
>>It cannot discover truth using repeatable experiments.

Behavioral Economics is a field that attempts to do exactly this.

Additionally, repeatable experiments is one method of falsifying claims, but
it is not the only method. Observational studies and prediction testing can
serve as a means to falsify claims.

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Fando
What a pointless argument. It is clear that economics is both a science and
not a science. Yes, it has overlapping parts with other sciences, but also
parts which are unique to it, such as the human element, which make it
difficult to fit into the category. But such fitting is not what matters.
Let's move on to the real issue. That economics is difficult, which makes a
large part of its application ambiguous, vague, subjective, hard to test, and
etc. Through these properties, which are not prevalent in other scientific
fields, economics lends itself nicely to exploitation by the natural human
flaws. These flaws have to do with subjectivity which arise as a result of
ambiguity and lack of fundamental understanding. For this reason, I consider
economics to be a much more difficult field than other, more scientific
fields. Of course, but what's next. How do we evolve the field to be more
useful. How do we begin understanding it intrinsically. I don't know. But it
would probably include a fundamental innovation in the scientific method
itself which accounts for the human flaw to exploit ambiguity. But perhaps
not. Perhaps it would eventually be ousted like an idea and replaced by a
better hypothesis and working model.

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moocowduckquack
The defense of economics by comparing it to string theory is a novel one,
however last time I checked nobody has tried to impose the conclusions of
string theory on a population, so the consequences of playing with maths in
that field are much less severe (edit - unless the playing with maths proves
successful, in which case all bets are off).

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atmosx
The most famous British political satire TV-series is "Yes Prime Minister"[1].
Believe the IMDB 8.2 doesn't make justice to this masterpiece which most often
than not proved to be spot-on about how matters of the state are approached by
politicians.

Here is a snippet from Episode 1, season 2:

\----------------

 _Late in the evening PM at home. Bernard, PM’s personal secretary, enters the
room:

PM: All the cabinets have got to make cuts in their spending plans.

PM’s wife: Bernard would you like a scotch?

Bernard: Yes, I can have a large one please!

PM’s wife: Another triple!

PM: Humphrey should have seen this coming and warn me.

Bernard: I don’t think Sir Humphrey understand economics prime minister. He
did read the classics you know.

PM: Well that’s the thing. He is head of the treasury.

Bernard: Well prime minister, I’m afraid he is in even greater disadvantage
understanding economics. He is an economist._

\----------------

I never heard of a more accurate description of an _economist_.

[1]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086831/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086831/)

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atmosx
Can anyone give me a fair example of something positive produced of of
economics? Some sort of phenomenon we didn't understand before?

If it's a science, which is ridiculous to believe so, what good has done to
the human kind?

Competing chemistry and physics or engineering to math is hilarious. The
logistics of a large magazine can be easily handled by someone who has never
has no idea about "economics". Would trust a non-architect to build you a
house? Or a physician who has no idea about chemistry? A cryptographer that
doesn't know what a prime is?

Blah...

~~~
LukeWalsh
You can't dismiss an entire subject matter as nonscientific just because many
of the major players aren't advocating scientific methods of exploration.

At its root, science is about testing, observing, forming conclusions, and
retesting. It just so happens that in the subject of economics you have an
extremely large number of variables because of human behavior.

While concrete conclusions are difficult to come by, we should absolutely
continue trying to understand things that we do not currently. Consider a
future where the entire human brain could be mapped, and we entirely
understood behavior. In this case studying economics and decision making would
be much more realistic.

Just because our tools are extremely limited doesn't mean we should stop
observing, and that very act is true science.

~~~
wuliwong
I'm not sure as to what defines a field as "science" nor do I found it a very
interesting question. What I do find interesting is the desire to apply the
scientific method in economics.

The issue comes with the "testing" portion of the method. One is unable to
setup economic experiments to perform these tests. Economists can make claims
about historical events but they must a priori decide which data to ignore and
which to include in their analysis. Things like this lead to two seemingly
cogent, logical analysis of the great depression with one concluding that the
Fed was the cause of the depression and another claiming it to be the savior.
They both may have sound logic but their a priori assumptions were different.

In physics, you rarely have this scenario as experimentalists can setup
artificial testing situation where they have control over how variables
change. They can systematically change variables and observe the effects. A
great deal of the work in physics goes into the explanation of the magnitude
of effect variables have on results, largely to justify why certain effects
can be ignored.

Ludwig von Mises wrote extensively about the problem attempting to apply the
scientific method economics. He felt economics was fundamentally different
from a field of study such as physics. I tend to agree with this. Side note, I
have a Ph.D. in physics and am just an amateur economist. :)

~~~
dreamdu5t
I think, at the least, it's extremely disingenuous of contemporary economists
to act as if this is not the case and that there aren't serious
epistemological issues to reconcile in their field.

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ThomPete
No economics belong to the field of social science (neither a science).

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X4
It is a meta-science. Not a nature science. I think that's it. Yes it's still
a science. The reason it's not thought really scientifically is a different
problem, common to this field.

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nfoz
Anyone have a link to a scientific economic paper?

~~~
grimtrigger
Is this a joke?

[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1752366](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1752366)

~~~
nfoz
Nope, that's great, thanks. Here we plainly see game-theory science being
conducted in the name of economics. If this is considered an economic paper,
then economics indeed can be considered a science.

(Of course not all economists are scientists, and not everything an economic
scientist says is a scientific result or conclusion, but these disclaimers
shouldn't be necessary.)

~~~
atmosx
NO it's not. Repeat the same experiment using Italian or Greek or African or
Chinese or Japanese students. See if you get the same results in _conditions
parity_ and then we can start discussing about it.

------
Tycho
Economics may not ever become a science. But is science becoming economics?

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st0neage
There is no Nobel prize in economics.

~~~
dbecker
What do you call the thing described here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economic_Sciences)

~~~
st0neage
Fraud. "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred
Nobel"

It is not a Nobel Prize. It's deliberately misnamed to make it look like it
is.

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ffrryuu
It is just an attempt to justify our unjust system, it is definitely not an
science.

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Theodores
The "Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences" came along in 1968, therefore
it is not a 'real' Nobel Prize. As for the question, Betteridge's law applies:

"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

~~~
jljljl
>>> The "Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences" came along in 1968,
therefore it is not a 'real' Nobel Prize.

People keep saying this like it's some profound insight or knock against
economics.

The Nobel Memorial Prize is still one of the highest possible awards in the
field. It doesn't diminish Schiller's standing just because it wasn't one of
the original Nobel Prizes.

It's sort of like pointing out that "Best Animated Feature" is not a real
Oscar because they only started awarding it in 2001.

~~~
st0neage
It is a profound knock against the "there is a nobel prize for it, therefore
it is science"-logic.

~~~
jljljl
Where are all the people denouncing the Peace Prize? And why isn't there more
clamoring for a Nobel Prize in Mathematics?

~~~
st0neage
How does that have anything to do with what I said?

