The problem with economics is the money riding on it. If one day the consensus becomes "raising the minimum wage by $5 only impacts profit; it doesn't impact employment" then a lot of very rich people stand to lose a lot of money as it becomes more politically palatable.
Economics is the most highly paid soft science for a reason.
Climate science has the same issue but fortunately they have managed to resist the corrupting influence of money.
Their hard science fetish isn't really the issue. Money is.
> The problem with economics is the money riding on it. If one day the consensus becomes "raising the minimum wage by $5 only impacts profit; it doesn't impact employment" then a lot of very rich people stand to lose a lot of money as it becomes more politically palatable.
Reality is a bit more nuanced than you depict it [1][2].
> Climate science has the same issue but fortunately they have managed to resist the corrupting influence of money.
So scientists are more or less corrupt, depending on how much you think they agree with you?
There is a good good comment by Martin Gardner about fallacious science. Which is when the evidence and scientific feedback are weak[1] then scientific theories strongly mimic the cultural biases of the people involves.
That's modern economic orthodoxy in a nutshell.
It's not just economics that's an issue a friend used to date a lady that was getting (25 years ago) a double major in anthropology and artificial intelligence. She said from an anthropological perspective AI research was nothing but white academic introspection.
[1] Example of strong feedback, two 737-MAX's crashing within a few months.
Yeah 1960-80's post modern literary criticism is just embarrassing and no cares. Modern architecture is merely ugly. But economics enabled real harm to people and communities.
Economics is the most highly paid soft science for a reason.
Climate science has the same issue but fortunately they have managed to resist the corrupting influence of money.
Their hard science fetish isn't really the issue. Money is.