Theres an interesting book on it, literally "Physics of wall street". Or that was the literal name translated from my language. It explored the similarities between the two, can recommend.
It isn't a difficult science from a learner's PoV.
It is, however, difficult in a sense of trying to figure out why in the world what happened happened, and most importantly, making it possible to do again.
That's because not only can you not experiment, you only gather data from observations, but once you share the product of your studies the reality changes in reacton to it.
In same Physics the object of your studies doesn't simultaniously study you.
Math gets involved to get a result that is somewhat reproducable. But even then since we can't factor everything we use degrees of probability/certainty.
Theoretically speaking if we managed to fully understand human behaviour then we coult predict the outcome of everything. As you can imagine, we're nowhere close to being able to do that.
Back to original post, yes, economics is closer to psychology than it is to physics. At least for the fact that we study human behaviour, but on a different scale. So sociology and political science are the closest, then psychology, next all of biological sciences, and chemistry, physics and everything related come last pretty much.
Math doesn't fit anywhere here, since it's a tool for measuring reality and not a study of reality itself.
Doctors of Mathematics know enough about modelling and the Garbage-in-Garbage-Out effect that they would quit the discipline of Economics within a few days of entering it.
In the areas were Economics deals with things with high Political Relevance you need the a salesman mindset - vague and self-decieving - which is almost the diametrical opposite of how Matematicians think.
Lmao what? Economists are dorks man, not salespeople. Do you actually know any economists or is this just an "I'm mad because economists don't push communism" kind of thing
That doesn't make any sense. Anything involving math is relatively easy because there's only one right answer. A lot of people have this backwards because they have shitty math education and seem to think higher maths are akin to some kind of alchemy.
No one who has even the faintest idea of what physics is would be able to conflate it with economics. About the only way the two are related is that they’re both studied by people to the point that you can get a degree that focuses on either.
And even psychology is extremely dubious. Just look at the recent Stanford scandal, and the replication crisis a few year ago....
Unfortunately, publication pressure turned psychology into total junk. You can't really believe anything unless several other institutions replicated the experiments (and good luck getting funding for that).
Daniel Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics for his research on the psychology of judgement and decision making, which drives our economic models. He's a psychologist.
Any definition of experimental that fits psychology will fit economics.
Economics, sociology and political science are the trifecta of sciences that cover human societies, rather than human individuals.
Psychology is closer to medicine. It is complex and unpredictable, because humans are complex and unpredictable, but they approach the subject empirically and can actually achieve consistentcy. For example, we are getting really good at helping people with PTSS, ADHD, Autism, learning difficulties, etc.
I would say economics, sociology and political science are at the lowest rung on the "certainty" totempole. These sciences are forever stuck in the "we don't know what we don't know, so we are driving blind" mode of operation. They only succeed in analysing and narrating what happened after the fact. At best, they prevent us from repeating some mistakes in the most obvious ways. But they also enable us to repeat old mistakes in novel ways.
The only reason people confuse economics with the hard sciences, is because it has a Nobel prize.
But it really should be seen as an equivalent to the Nobel peace and literature prizes, in a separate league of the physics, medicine and chemistry ones.
Even economists themselves call their science the dismal science.
All this said, Economists are true and capable scientists (well, some are corrupt and biased, but some doctors are, too. That's not an indictment of the whole field).
This sentence doesn't even make sense.
Econometrics is highly research driven and evidence based. In it's simplest form econometrics says if you put prices down you will (usually) sell more of your product. You'd dismiss this observation as pseudo-science?
That's dubious. Considering that economists deliberately ignore strong established psychological theories to make theirs work. Economical theory also runs contrary to a lot of established notions of sociology. Economics is closer to politics than to any science.
Economists are there to perform the job that Theology departments used to do: provide a mystical moral justification of whatever the assholes in charge want to do to everybody else.
We've had 3 "once in a lifetime" financial meltdowns in like 25 years now.
Our banks need bailing out like every 10 years.
The arrogance of thinking that we've figured out the economy even in the Newtonian sense is part of why, I think.
Like, I hear you, but at the same time it just doesn't align with even the broadest observations.
And when a theory doesn't align with observed data, I have to be critical of the theory...
I'm interested in if you can expand your explanation to account for it, though. It's super low stakes and I don't think it's really possible to prove any of it so I think it's a great subject for thought experiments.
I mean, we see the exact same uncertainty all the time in real-world applications of the hard sciences as well.
Weather prediction, for example, is still just as inexact a science as macroeconomics in its application, even though it's entirely physics-driven and we have a pretty complete understanding of each of the variables involved on a theoretical level. The system is just complex and chaotic enough that understanding the theory of weather doesn't mean that we can successfully model the real-world behavior of weather.
This doesn't mean that we should conclude that all theory relating to weather is incorrect - that would we throwing the baby out with the bathwater - it just means we still have a ways to go when modeling the real-world complexities that come with the theory.
The economist's fundamental assumptions are wrong. The free market rational actor model is wholly incompatible with the ability of a finance or marketing industry to exist because marketing could never inform or convince anyone of anything and contracts can provide anything financialisation does without giving 10% of your income to someone who did nkthing. Given that both exist and together dominate the industry of the wealthiest countries, we know that none of it is real, and that the people pushing it also know this.
Psychology and physics are founded in empiricism, not post-hoc rationalisations of what the powerful wanted to do anyway.
The economist’s fundamental assumptions are wrong. The free market rational actor model is wholly incompatible with the ability of a finance or marketing industry to exist because marketing could never inform or convince anyone of anything and contracts can provide anything financialisation does without giving 10% of your income to someone who did nkthing.
This is either an intentional strawman of economic theory or a naive understanding based off a single Intro to Economics class.
It's like arguing that physics' fundamental assumptions are wrong because basic physics problems assume that cows are spheres with no air resistance.
Psychology and physics are founded in empiricism
A significant amount of modern economic research is empiricist, but even if it weren't, empiricism and rationalism go hand-in-hand in scientific inquiry. Rationalism is what allowed Mendel to posit "units of inheritance" over a century before the existence of DNA was empirically verified, and Schwarzschild to posit the existence of black holes almost a century before black holes' gravitational waves were first measured. Decades of productive research were had in advance of these empirical discoveries thanks to models built on rationalist inquiry, so "it's not empiricist" isn't quite the insult you seem to think it is.
Oh. You were serious with the "it doesn't matter if it conflicts with reality if I thought a bit because it's 'rational' and directly contradicting reality is the same as an approximation" schtick?
I still don't see this as an oranges to oranges comparison. Or even oranges to mandarins. Or oranges to limes.
I accept that both systems (weather and economics) are both "chaotic systems". That doesn't make them equivalent though. Some infinities are larger than others.
Trying to model the behaviour of a single human is an incredibly difficult task. Trying to model the behaviour of billions is harder. Then you need to blend in their relationships to eachother. Then you need to blend in their relationships with their means of sustainance. With their individual values. Etc etc etc.
I accept that some PORTONS of the models are pretty sound. Supply and demand curves? Sure.
I'll hit you with a thought experiment:
If it's the case that it's just a matter of reading your econ textbook and then you can accurately model the economy, or even a small part of it, then extracting disproportionate wealth becomes a simple matter of doing some math.
Why isn't every econ grad wealthy? Why are there wealthy people who run exactly the inverse plays? Why do the most powerful institutions require bailouts?
I'm not saying that the theory is bad, but it's a masterbutory exercise. Applying the theory results is such disparate actual outcomes make it more like legend then law.
However, I personally think that the frequent rejection of that reality serves a different psychological purpose, which is the need to translate wealth distribution to an explainable system... Specifically one that explains favourably to people who already have the wealth.
Why am I rich and you're poor? It's simple: I merely understand the physics of the economy. You don't. If you did, you would be where I am.
And, if someday you gain great wealth, it will be as a direct result of the actions you took, made with confidence as a result of unmistakable stimuli, that anyone could have done.
Understand me when I say I'm not discounting economic theory wholesale... Not at all. I am just saying giving it more credence than it truly deserves has a peripheral benefit in providing a justification for some kinda shitty social structures that exist now... That ALSO have science backing them. For example, the study of social mobility.
Trying to model the behaviour of a single human is an incredibly difficult task. Trying to model the behaviour of billions is harder. Then you need to blend in their relationships to eachother. Then you need to blend in their relationships with their means of sustainance. With their individual values. Etc etc etc.
Trying to model the behavior of a single eddy of wind is an incredibly difficult task. Trying to model the behavior of billions is harder. Then you need to blend in their relationships to eachother. Then you need to blend in their relationships with the causes of those individual eddies. With their individual values. Etc etc etc.
If it’s the case that it’s just a matter of reading your econ textbook and then you can accurately model the economy, or even a small part of it [...]
It's not the case. My entire comment was about why that's not the case at all. Extracting disproportionate wealth is hard for the same reasons weather forecasting is hard. Not because of the theory, but because of the complexity of the system the theory describes.
I’m not saying that the theory is bad, but it’s a masterbutory exercise. Applying the theory results is such disparate actual outcomes make it more like legend then law.
You still haven't shown how this is any different to applying the theory of weather forecasting, or applying the theory of plate tectonics and still failing to predict earthquakes, etc.
However, I personally think that the frequent rejection of that reality serves a different psychological purpose, which is the need to translate wealth distribution to an explainable system… Specifically one that explains favourably to people who already have the wealth.
You're conflating the science of economics with the meta-discussion surrounding the politics of economics.
This is just like someone arguing that weather science is bullshit because we can't successfully predict the weather, and it therefore only exists as an excuse to implement more damn liberal environmental policies.
You still haven't shown how this is any different to applying the theory of weather forecasting, or applying the theory of plate tectonics and still failing to predict earthquakes, etc
Well the sentience and self-determination of the agents involve, in my mind, make the constituent agents significantly more difficult to predict in the case of the economy than predicting the weather.
Do... You disagree? Maybe I'm missing something, I probably am, I'm not a smart man... But it appears that you're appealing broadly towards some echo of "rational market theory" and I don't really understand how people do that in the age of Elon Musk. Many major factors in how the economy works are governed by passionate and irrational agents.
The air, and pressure systems, while complex, aren't rational or irrational. They don't have childhood trauma, fear, mortality... Greed, desire of any kind.
So, you're right, I suppose I can't show that humans are more difficult to predict the behaviours than air. It seems obvious to me, but I can and will freely admit the difference between what I know, and what I think I know.
I guess, from my undeducated and naive perspective, economics is primarily applied sociology with some pretty rudimentary math sprinkled in... And so I would assume that it would inherit the same issues as sociology (being that it's actually pretty hard to develop models to describe how groups of people behave).
I don't mean to strike a nerve. I took like 2 econ courses like 15 years ago... so I admit I have a super elementary understanding of what the study entails. I'm just a guy on the internet with not a very valuable opinion on the subject, coloured primarily by what, in my opinion, the study of economics has failed to do or achieve, rather than having an in depth understanding of what the study is.
We have a fairly solid understanding of an ideal economy. If the economy was run according to current theory, we'd avoid a lot of issues (and find new ones we would address, of course).
However, the economy is run according to political whims, so most of the economic theory gets thrown out the window. It's pretty easy to run into major issues when nothing stays consistent for more than a couple years, and the interests of those in charge do not include a stable and sustainable economy.
Yeah I might be making the mistake of thinking that economic policy is made by economic scientists.
We don't do that with climate, energy, education, or health... So I guess it's not fair to make the assumption for economic matters either.
I guess like many other areas of social policy (which... I assume we agree economic policy is) it that I'm very... I don't know... "Aware", maybe of the limitation of fields driven primarily by study as opposed to more hands on experimental methods.
Yeah, policy is not made by economists. Which is both good and bad! Ideally you don't want somebody who only looks at their own corner of the world running things, because they'll end up sacrificing everything else to make that corner look good.
"If reality was the thing we made up, the thing we made up would be science" isn't a great defense. Neoclassical economics is not science, it's barely even a semi-coherent fairy tale.
It's more "if people quit trying to break the system to enrich themselves, and the politicians actually agreed to empower the agencies which are supposed to oversee and regulate large companies and financial institutions, and we actually listened to the data instead of the soundbites that sound good as long as you don't think about them much, we'd be much better off."
Economists are not in charge of anything, politicians and rich people are. And they aren't incentivized to run things like an economist, because then they would make less money.
Just because the people with an incentive to blow up the economy to make money end up blowing up the economy to make more money every few years doesn't mean economics is at fault for that. It's like saying climate science isn't real because earlier projections of global warming were more optimistic, when the real reason is the science was suppressed and downplayed by the people making boatloads of money off fossil fuels.
The correct analogy would be if the climate deniers working for Chevron were held up as field experts, and that the institution of climate science stood behind them, then anyone who pointed it out was just told we need to organise agriculture on more +4.5 degree compatible terms.
Economics is an extremely broad field, encompassing things that are closely related to psychology (e.g. behavioral economics), and things that are related to physics and natural science (e.g ecological economics), as well as pure mathematics (e.g. game theory) so trying to say it has more in common with one than the other is kind of a vacuous statement or category error.
To those who are angry at normative claims and policy prescriptions from the economic orthodoxy/zeitgeist, I understand your frustration. I would say what you're angry at is not economics itself (which is simply the study of scarcity and related human behavior) but economics done badly. Such as the Chicago school.
Setting aside the emotional baggage related to these issues, there are some really beautiful and fascinating topics in economics that borrow very directly from statistical physics in the analysis of financial time series data (and also apply to a wide variety of fields like network traffic, the distribution of metals in ore, turbulent flows in fluid dynamics, and the distribution of galaxies in space), originally identified by Benoit Mandelbrot.
It's crazy how much people will vehemently defend a position with little to no knowledge of the subject. It's easy to just pin it on the dunning-kruger effect, but in this case I think it's definitely tied to how much people despise economists. Which I find kinda funny since it's like getting angry at the weatherman for bad weather.
Also, are there any communities dedicated to actually discussing economics? I'd really like to spitball actual solutions to a shitty economy rather than the wishful thinking capitalists & communists rely on.
I can sympathize with them, as the way economic thought is portrayed in popular journalism makes it seem like ivory tower eggheads concocting overly-mathematized models to support bad policies. And I do believe there is some truth to this, with bad economists hiding shitty ideas behind the veneer of respectability that math provides. Science and technology are almost fetishized in our culture, especially by those who don't really study them academically, and I believe disingenuous economists and politicians use this fact to their advantage.
What they must realize is that whatever flaws they might identify to overhaul these bad economic models leads to... more economics! Hopefully better economics. But they're still participating in the field known as economics.
For instance, noting that the "homo economicus" doesn't exist IRL isn't really the gotcha that many people think it is. Rather, anybody doing economics properly is acutely aware of this fact, and is just exploring the limits of what such a simplifying assumption can yield. E.g. a surprisingly large mileage from the very parsimonious axioms of utility given by Von Neumann and Morgenstern. The really interesting and difficult part is thinking about how and why real life data deviates from the predictions made by the simple assumptions.
numerology surely. Because you can properly use mathematical operations and statisticsl tools in ways that are physically meaningless.
A sled-dog laden with taxidermied heads goes faster and faster as heads are removed. The economist is surprised but the biologist is not when removing the final head doesn't make the dog run even faster, but stops it dead.
Behavioral economics was my favorite and I'd say it's tied closely to game at its core, they're both trying to predict human choices game theory just tries to quantify it with math. None of it is "pure math" it's all theory with math attempting to support it. It's only in like the last 100 years math even came into economic theory. I always enjoyed reading theory from the less recent economists (before they were even called economists) because it's more pure theory/philosophy.
Hard science — inquiry into the nature of the “hard materials” like rocks.
Social science — inquiry into shared meanings on the material stuff around us, including the “hard materials” like mountains, and “soft intangible stuff” like taboos and beliefs, prices, and demand.
A lot of people assume “hard” means the serious stuff and social science as the easy and abstract stuff. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Economics is a social science. Sadly, the fascination with it being “hard” is largely to be seen as the cool tough stuff. Inferiority complex, if you may.
I would actually love to hear you elaborate on that.
In what way sociologists work harder than economists?
I'd argue that when it comes to science, you can't study economics without studying sociology and politics. Because then you will be lacking context. Wouldn't that mean more research?
No one here has acknowledged the difference between classical economics and neoclassical economics (or even the difference with post-keynesian economics). Classical economics makes descriptions and predictions that can be falsified.
It also takes into account social context by understanding the social forces that come into play in a society at a given point. For example, the profit motive is understood as a historical force reinforced by capitalism itself.
All of this is modeled in a stochastic manner, which reflects both the variation in human behavior and the strong tendencies in human behavior. Once again, these models are testable.
All of this contrasts with the idealized and unscientific notion of economics that was cooked up at the end of the 18th century: neoclassical economics. This is what is taught to most people.
Neoclassical economics doesn't seek to describe the forces that motivate human beings as much as assume that people are utility maximizers. Therefore, social context is explained reductively. Predictions are harder, because what leads the way isn't evidence, but assumptions. Of course, there's a political component to not show capitalism as a historical reality as much as both a reflection of universal truths of human nature and a desirable social arrangement.
It's sad to confirm that neoclassical economics has dominated the economics departments and school curricula of the world. However, many scholars fortunate enough to be given a stable job despite not believing in the contemporary doctrine are doing amazing work. For example, Shaikh.
With this in mind, classical economics has to resemble physics to the extent that physics describes stochastic processes. In fact, Shaikh explicitly recognizes that pressure as a measure is a stochastic measure because, even though you can't predict the trajectory of a single atom, you can predict how many atoms will interact on an aggregate level. The same happens with humans.
Pretty sure this isn't that controversial of an opinion. Pretty sure any economist that disagrees with you is a shit economist. There's a reason there's a related field called "socioeconomics"
Also fuck this meme format. Stop using this facist for memes.
Economics started as a branch of philosophy that got a lot of support because it draw a lot of support for its theory from maths.
Then, more recently, a good number of very inteligent people noticed the behaviours of economic models could be better predict and understood by using very simple psychological analysis and models.
I remember reading an article by two physicists where they just picked the oh-so-precious math of a given economic model, analysed it using the methods used to analyse physics and concluded the model was faulty by x+y+z.
No science started out as a "hard science". Psychology is hard to quantify yet, because our currently available options for measurements are insufficient.
? That would still be biology and therefore reducible to chemistry and physics.
The approach of "everything is reducible to physics" is actually a philosophical theory that tries to describe what is reality. Is the material world everything that exists? Or are our thoughts (our knowing of things) actually a different reality? Etc.
In the end, the differentiation into the different sciences is simply an aid for people. I wouldn't pay it that much attention because it really doesn't tell you anything.
Being reducible is part of it, but I think reproducible is more important. Psychology is not reproducible. You can get statistical equivalents, but not exact reproduction of results.
I think being reducible is all of it. Even if it's reproducable you can know THAT something is true, but not WHY it's true. I think the why, or at least the ability and intention to get there, makes something a hard science.
It's a branch of sociology dominated by people who refuse to accept sociological research practices in the name of deluding themselves that they're uncovering grand truths about the universe. It would be hilarious and sad if politicians and journalists didn't listen to them.
The invisible hand is just bullshit and prices in our economy are often centrally planned by a monopoly or a cartel that decides how an industry ought to set prices.
Not the OP and IMO centrally planned prices doesn't really apply to cartels, but a cartel set price that nearly everyone is familiar with is OPEC+ prices for petroleum.
I think Aesthelete better cleared up what I am trying to say using OPEC as an example. Other versions of this behavior is in Dairy / Milk in the US. They're wasting millions of gallons of milk in order to keep the price higher where it's set by a central planner in the industry. Farmers will choose certain days to sell their crop as to try and get the highest price - and this is an innocent behavior - but capitalism literally has a built-in mechanism to encourage this form of price stability. Another bad example is poultry production in the US. There's 4 companies only, and small farmers actually license and rent all of the stuff from the big 4. These farmers are treated so terribly, and at the end of the day they don't actually get to sell or set the price. The central company does.
It's possible to do that in Economics, but most of them are very unethical. It's not impossible.
For example, you would have to have complete control over an economy to make experimental changes. Say increasing interest rates just for certain subjects and leaving them alone for the control group. It would be very illegal.
Usually economists take advantage of local law changes to observe the results. Like you can look at the effects of increasing minimum wage on unemployment by looking at cities that do it before and after. Or you can compare similar states that when some of them pass a law, but others don't.
The movie "Trading Places" is a kind of unethical economic experiment, although the record keeping was sparse.
This is a normal standpoint for anyone who has any meaningful knowledge of the world. The whole study of economics depends on a social construction - the economy.
Well, apparently a "good" economy destroy the planet, kills workers and don't provide anymore healthcare. In fact, healthcare is detrimental to a good economy apparently, it liberals wouldn't be so hard on destroying healthcare everywhere?
There is nothing which inherently says an economy has to be environmentally bad, indeed there are many examples of economic success on the back of renewable power.
I'd agree in too many cases an environmentally bad policy is persued with economic measures being given as a justification, but that is just bad policy.
A good economy can invest green, a bad economy is a collection of of people just trying to make ends meet - the environment will never benefit from this, environmentally distructive options are usually cheaper than their greener alternatives.
What do you think the economy is?
I would argue Iceland has a very good economy, yet it is world leading in renewable power and has minimal inequality.
Funny enough, this is a really underrated comment @snooggums
It's like most of the weather forecasters predicting the weather by watching other weather forecasters
And people making bets on cyclones and hurricanes
And if you get enough weather forecasters to agree it will rain, then it will rain.
With people cheering for sunny skies and rain clouds, and then arguing over breaks in the clouds vs gathering storms
the number of comments here who use hard sciences' criteria as the ones and only defining the validity of knowledge is concerning. Human sciences don't have the same foundations, methodologies, etc. as harde sciences, they don't have the same system of validation either, which doesn't mean it's less valid.
Economics is a branch of philosophy. It doesn’t just observe norms, it creates them. Any descriptive model in economics is also prescriptive.
If a well-regarded economist publicly says the stock market will crash tomorrow, then it will crash, regardless of the soundness of their logic leading up to the statement — even if it was the result of a cocaine binge, botched autocorrect, or a stroke.
This is why treating economics like a hard science is so dangerous. If the prevailing “thought leaders” advocate for a model that says XYZ people are mathematically doomed to live in abject, dehumanizing squallor… then that’s exactly what will happen, regardless of whether that was true before they said it.
Edit: It’s also why it’s such a crime that we only teach neoclassical economics in K-12, as if it’s the One True Way™.
Ceteris paribus, or all things equal is a super common economics phrase. It's basically impossible to maintain in the real world. Economics used to be considered philosophy for a reason. As someone with a economics degree I do pretty much agree with you.
The "hard science" part of it is using past data to build models. You're still more or less trying to tie the figures into a theory of why they happened that may or may not be true. There are so many factors it's impossible to know. For instance I truly believe that the stronger anti-monopoly enforcement and higher taxes played a major role in America's success and the rise of the middle class from post WW2-80s. I have to admit that there are an insane amount of other factors at play here that might invalidate all the trends during the same time though. Every other developed countries info structure being bombed to the ground giving the US a huge start not being the least of which.
Mine wasn’t random. By showing up to spout some one liner you didn’t come up with, you’re acting as an instrument of someone else’s leverage, instead of as a participant in the discussion.
Stop using this abusive, fascist sycophant as a meme template.
Damn right. Fuck Crowder. Abusive spouse, sexually abusive co-worker.
Never even knew the original. What was it?
Steven Crowder
First you would have to find someone who thought economics were closer to physics.
No, at least someone who graduated kindergarden.
Theres an interesting book on it, literally "Physics of wall street". Or that was the literal name translated from my language. It explored the similarities between the two, can recommend.
Thanks, looks like an interesting book. Looks like he also wrote on misinformation.
is this a controversial opinion? i think pretty much every economist would tell you it's a social science
I think the internet thinks economics is a hard science. I think it’s mostly due to the math involved.
It isn't a difficult science from a learner's PoV.
It is, however, difficult in a sense of trying to figure out why in the world what happened happened, and most importantly, making it possible to do again.
That's because not only can you not experiment, you only gather data from observations, but once you share the product of your studies the reality changes in reacton to it.
In same Physics the object of your studies doesn't simultaniously study you.
Math gets involved to get a result that is somewhat reproducable. But even then since we can't factor everything we use degrees of probability/certainty.
Theoretically speaking if we managed to fully understand human behaviour then we coult predict the outcome of everything. As you can imagine, we're nowhere close to being able to do that.
Back to original post, yes, economics is closer to psychology than it is to physics. At least for the fact that we study human behaviour, but on a different scale. So sociology and political science are the closest, then psychology, next all of biological sciences, and chemistry, physics and everything related come last pretty much.
Math doesn't fit anywhere here, since it's a tool for measuring reality and not a study of reality itself.
You literally need a doctor's in mathematics to be an actual economist.
Doctors of Mathematics know enough about modelling and the Garbage-in-Garbage-Out effect that they would quit the discipline of Economics within a few days of entering it.
In the areas were Economics deals with things with high Political Relevance you need the a salesman mindset - vague and self-decieving - which is almost the diametrical opposite of how Matematicians think.
Lmao what? Economists are dorks man, not salespeople. Do you actually know any economists or is this just an "I'm mad because economists don't push communism" kind of thing
I worked a decade in Investment Banking.
This wall of text only means that economy is not even a science like psychology or social sciences could be.
Economy is a fraud.
Lmao "economists don't like my economic views so economics isn't real"
That doesn't make any sense. Anything involving math is relatively easy because there's only one right answer. A lot of people have this backwards because they have shitty math education and seem to think higher maths are akin to some kind of alchemy.
Great. I'm not referring to your ideas. I'm referring to popular understanding.
There is no math involved in economics. Every equation in the field is a definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_economics
No one who has even the faintest idea of what physics is would be able to conflate it with economics. About the only way the two are related is that they’re both studied by people to the point that you can get a degree that focuses on either.
I think you would be surprised how much math used in physics is used in economics and then there is statistics which is heavily used in both.
Meh, math and statistics are (ab)used pretty much anywhere in science. Carpenters and blacksmiths both use hammers, but so do roofers and geologists.
There is a specific area of economics that deals with psychology: behavioral economics.
Also, can we retire using Steven Crowder, who abused his wife for years, as a meme?
My mind did tricks with that last comma , "You know, that funny meme where he abused his wife"
Maybe he did abuse her as a meme, we don't know his motives
And even psychology is extremely dubious. Just look at the recent Stanford scandal, and the replication crisis a few year ago....
Unfortunately, publication pressure turned psychology into total junk. You can't really believe anything unless several other institutions replicated the experiments (and good luck getting funding for that).
Shouldn't that be the case with every scientific discipline?
I mean, define experimental?
Daniel Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics for his research on the psychology of judgement and decision making, which drives our economic models. He's a psychologist.
Any definition of experimental that fits psychology will fit economics.
I agree.
Economics, sociology and political science are the trifecta of sciences that cover human societies, rather than human individuals.
Psychology is closer to medicine. It is complex and unpredictable, because humans are complex and unpredictable, but they approach the subject empirically and can actually achieve consistentcy. For example, we are getting really good at helping people with PTSS, ADHD, Autism, learning difficulties, etc.
I would say economics, sociology and political science are at the lowest rung on the "certainty" totempole. These sciences are forever stuck in the "we don't know what we don't know, so we are driving blind" mode of operation. They only succeed in analysing and narrating what happened after the fact. At best, they prevent us from repeating some mistakes in the most obvious ways. But they also enable us to repeat old mistakes in novel ways.
The only reason people confuse economics with the hard sciences, is because it has a Nobel prize.
But it really should be seen as an equivalent to the Nobel peace and literature prizes, in a separate league of the physics, medicine and chemistry ones.
Even economists themselves call their science the dismal science.
All this said, Economists are true and capable scientists (well, some are corrupt and biased, but some doctors are, too. That's not an indictment of the whole field).
Their subject is just difficult to analyze.
Psychology is "experimental" only in its loosest possible definition.
Wrong
Sociology is an actual science with a methodology and it tries to learn from other sciences.
Economy considers it pure like maths despite the evidences it is not the case.
Economy is pseudo-science at its best.
This sentence doesn't even make sense.
Econometrics is highly research driven and evidence based. In it's simplest form econometrics says if you put prices down you will (usually) sell more of your product. You'd dismiss this observation as pseudo-science?
That's dubious. Considering that economists deliberately ignore strong established psychological theories to make theirs work. Economical theory also runs contrary to a lot of established notions of sociology. Economics is closer to politics than to any science.
Economists are there to perform the job that Theology departments used to do: provide a mystical moral justification of whatever the assholes in charge want to do to everybody else.
We've had 3 "once in a lifetime" financial meltdowns in like 25 years now.
Our banks need bailing out like every 10 years.
The arrogance of thinking that we've figured out the economy even in the Newtonian sense is part of why, I think.
Like, I hear you, but at the same time it just doesn't align with even the broadest observations.
And when a theory doesn't align with observed data, I have to be critical of the theory...
I'm interested in if you can expand your explanation to account for it, though. It's super low stakes and I don't think it's really possible to prove any of it so I think it's a great subject for thought experiments.
I mean, we see the exact same uncertainty all the time in real-world applications of the hard sciences as well.
Weather prediction, for example, is still just as inexact a science as macroeconomics in its application, even though it's entirely physics-driven and we have a pretty complete understanding of each of the variables involved on a theoretical level. The system is just complex and chaotic enough that understanding the theory of weather doesn't mean that we can successfully model the real-world behavior of weather.
This doesn't mean that we should conclude that all theory relating to weather is incorrect - that would we throwing the baby out with the bathwater - it just means we still have a ways to go when modeling the real-world complexities that come with the theory.
The economist's fundamental assumptions are wrong. The free market rational actor model is wholly incompatible with the ability of a finance or marketing industry to exist because marketing could never inform or convince anyone of anything and contracts can provide anything financialisation does without giving 10% of your income to someone who did nkthing. Given that both exist and together dominate the industry of the wealthiest countries, we know that none of it is real, and that the people pushing it also know this.
Psychology and physics are founded in empiricism, not post-hoc rationalisations of what the powerful wanted to do anyway.
This is either an intentional strawman of economic theory or a naive understanding based off a single Intro to Economics class.
It's like arguing that physics' fundamental assumptions are wrong because basic physics problems assume that cows are spheres with no air resistance.
A significant amount of modern economic research is empiricist, but even if it weren't, empiricism and rationalism go hand-in-hand in scientific inquiry. Rationalism is what allowed Mendel to posit "units of inheritance" over a century before the existence of DNA was empirically verified, and Schwarzschild to posit the existence of black holes almost a century before black holes' gravitational waves were first measured. Decades of productive research were had in advance of these empirical discoveries thanks to models built on rationalist inquiry, so "it's not empiricist" isn't quite the insult you seem to think it is.
Lol.
Okay. You Poe'd me. Nice parody. Well done.
??
Oh. You were serious with the "it doesn't matter if it conflicts with reality if I thought a bit because it's 'rational' and directly contradicting reality is the same as an approximation" schtick?
I don't know if that sad or even funnier.
I still don't see this as an oranges to oranges comparison. Or even oranges to mandarins. Or oranges to limes.
I accept that both systems (weather and economics) are both "chaotic systems". That doesn't make them equivalent though. Some infinities are larger than others.
Trying to model the behaviour of a single human is an incredibly difficult task. Trying to model the behaviour of billions is harder. Then you need to blend in their relationships to eachother. Then you need to blend in their relationships with their means of sustainance. With their individual values. Etc etc etc.
I accept that some PORTONS of the models are pretty sound. Supply and demand curves? Sure.
I'll hit you with a thought experiment:
If it's the case that it's just a matter of reading your econ textbook and then you can accurately model the economy, or even a small part of it, then extracting disproportionate wealth becomes a simple matter of doing some math.
Why isn't every econ grad wealthy? Why are there wealthy people who run exactly the inverse plays? Why do the most powerful institutions require bailouts?
I'm not saying that the theory is bad, but it's a masterbutory exercise. Applying the theory results is such disparate actual outcomes make it more like legend then law.
However, I personally think that the frequent rejection of that reality serves a different psychological purpose, which is the need to translate wealth distribution to an explainable system... Specifically one that explains favourably to people who already have the wealth.
Why am I rich and you're poor? It's simple: I merely understand the physics of the economy. You don't. If you did, you would be where I am.
And, if someday you gain great wealth, it will be as a direct result of the actions you took, made with confidence as a result of unmistakable stimuli, that anyone could have done.
Understand me when I say I'm not discounting economic theory wholesale... Not at all. I am just saying giving it more credence than it truly deserves has a peripheral benefit in providing a justification for some kinda shitty social structures that exist now... That ALSO have science backing them. For example, the study of social mobility.
Trying to model the behavior of a single eddy of wind is an incredibly difficult task. Trying to model the behavior of billions is harder. Then you need to blend in their relationships to eachother. Then you need to blend in their relationships with the causes of those individual eddies. With their individual values. Etc etc etc.
It's not the case. My entire comment was about why that's not the case at all. Extracting disproportionate wealth is hard for the same reasons weather forecasting is hard. Not because of the theory, but because of the complexity of the system the theory describes.
You still haven't shown how this is any different to applying the theory of weather forecasting, or applying the theory of plate tectonics and still failing to predict earthquakes, etc.
You're conflating the science of economics with the meta-discussion surrounding the politics of economics.
This is just like someone arguing that weather science is bullshit because we can't successfully predict the weather, and it therefore only exists as an excuse to implement more damn liberal environmental policies.
Well the sentience and self-determination of the agents involve, in my mind, make the constituent agents significantly more difficult to predict in the case of the economy than predicting the weather.
Do... You disagree? Maybe I'm missing something, I probably am, I'm not a smart man... But it appears that you're appealing broadly towards some echo of "rational market theory" and I don't really understand how people do that in the age of Elon Musk. Many major factors in how the economy works are governed by passionate and irrational agents.
The air, and pressure systems, while complex, aren't rational or irrational. They don't have childhood trauma, fear, mortality... Greed, desire of any kind.
So, you're right, I suppose I can't show that humans are more difficult to predict the behaviours than air. It seems obvious to me, but I can and will freely admit the difference between what I know, and what I think I know.
I guess, from my undeducated and naive perspective, economics is primarily applied sociology with some pretty rudimentary math sprinkled in... And so I would assume that it would inherit the same issues as sociology (being that it's actually pretty hard to develop models to describe how groups of people behave).
I don't mean to strike a nerve. I took like 2 econ courses like 15 years ago... so I admit I have a super elementary understanding of what the study entails. I'm just a guy on the internet with not a very valuable opinion on the subject, coloured primarily by what, in my opinion, the study of economics has failed to do or achieve, rather than having an in depth understanding of what the study is.
If weather prediction were based on the idea that eddies were produced by gnomes with wooden spoons, you'd have an argument.
We have a fairly solid understanding of an ideal economy. If the economy was run according to current theory, we'd avoid a lot of issues (and find new ones we would address, of course).
However, the economy is run according to political whims, so most of the economic theory gets thrown out the window. It's pretty easy to run into major issues when nothing stays consistent for more than a couple years, and the interests of those in charge do not include a stable and sustainable economy.
Yeah I might be making the mistake of thinking that economic policy is made by economic scientists.
We don't do that with climate, energy, education, or health... So I guess it's not fair to make the assumption for economic matters either.
I guess like many other areas of social policy (which... I assume we agree economic policy is) it that I'm very... I don't know... "Aware", maybe of the limitation of fields driven primarily by study as opposed to more hands on experimental methods.
Yeah, policy is not made by economists. Which is both good and bad! Ideally you don't want somebody who only looks at their own corner of the world running things, because they'll end up sacrificing everything else to make that corner look good.
"If reality was the thing we made up, the thing we made up would be science" isn't a great defense. Neoclassical economics is not science, it's barely even a semi-coherent fairy tale.
It's more "if people quit trying to break the system to enrich themselves, and the politicians actually agreed to empower the agencies which are supposed to oversee and regulate large companies and financial institutions, and we actually listened to the data instead of the soundbites that sound good as long as you don't think about them much, we'd be much better off."
Economists are not in charge of anything, politicians and rich people are. And they aren't incentivized to run things like an economist, because then they would make less money.
Just because the people with an incentive to blow up the economy to make money end up blowing up the economy to make more money every few years doesn't mean economics is at fault for that. It's like saying climate science isn't real because earlier projections of global warming were more optimistic, when the real reason is the science was suppressed and downplayed by the people making boatloads of money off fossil fuels.
The correct analogy would be if the climate deniers working for Chevron were held up as field experts, and that the institution of climate science stood behind them, then anyone who pointed it out was just told we need to organise agriculture on more +4.5 degree compatible terms.
If your argument is "we'd be describing the economy if the economy would be what we described" you're just demanding reality change to fit the story.
Economics is an extremely broad field, encompassing things that are closely related to psychology (e.g. behavioral economics), and things that are related to physics and natural science (e.g ecological economics), as well as pure mathematics (e.g. game theory) so trying to say it has more in common with one than the other is kind of a vacuous statement or category error.
To those who are angry at normative claims and policy prescriptions from the economic orthodoxy/zeitgeist, I understand your frustration. I would say what you're angry at is not economics itself (which is simply the study of scarcity and related human behavior) but economics done badly. Such as the Chicago school.
Setting aside the emotional baggage related to these issues, there are some really beautiful and fascinating topics in economics that borrow very directly from statistical physics in the analysis of financial time series data (and also apply to a wide variety of fields like network traffic, the distribution of metals in ore, turbulent flows in fluid dynamics, and the distribution of galaxies in space), originally identified by Benoit Mandelbrot.
It's crazy how much people will vehemently defend a position with little to no knowledge of the subject. It's easy to just pin it on the dunning-kruger effect, but in this case I think it's definitely tied to how much people despise economists. Which I find kinda funny since it's like getting angry at the weatherman for bad weather.
Also, are there any communities dedicated to actually discussing economics? I'd really like to spitball actual solutions to a shitty economy rather than the wishful thinking capitalists & communists rely on.
I can sympathize with them, as the way economic thought is portrayed in popular journalism makes it seem like ivory tower eggheads concocting overly-mathematized models to support bad policies. And I do believe there is some truth to this, with bad economists hiding shitty ideas behind the veneer of respectability that math provides. Science and technology are almost fetishized in our culture, especially by those who don't really study them academically, and I believe disingenuous economists and politicians use this fact to their advantage.
What they must realize is that whatever flaws they might identify to overhaul these bad economic models leads to... more economics! Hopefully better economics. But they're still participating in the field known as economics.
For instance, noting that the "homo economicus" doesn't exist IRL isn't really the gotcha that many people think it is. Rather, anybody doing economics properly is acutely aware of this fact, and is just exploring the limits of what such a simplifying assumption can yield. E.g. a surprisingly large mileage from the very parsimonious axioms of utility given by Von Neumann and Morgenstern. The really interesting and difficult part is thinking about how and why real life data deviates from the predictions made by the simple assumptions.
Making such reasonable and well thought comments under the name "Prager U" should be a crime.
numerology surely. Because you can properly use mathematical operations and statisticsl tools in ways that are physically meaningless.
A sled-dog laden with taxidermied heads goes faster and faster as heads are removed. The economist is surprised but the biologist is not when removing the final head doesn't make the dog run even faster, but stops it dead.
Behavioral economics was my favorite and I'd say it's tied closely to game at its core, they're both trying to predict human choices game theory just tries to quantify it with math. None of it is "pure math" it's all theory with math attempting to support it. It's only in like the last 100 years math even came into economic theory. I always enjoyed reading theory from the less recent economists (before they were even called economists) because it's more pure theory/philosophy.
Hard science — inquiry into the nature of the “hard materials” like rocks.
Social science — inquiry into shared meanings on the material stuff around us, including the “hard materials” like mountains, and “soft intangible stuff” like taboos and beliefs, prices, and demand.
A lot of people assume “hard” means the serious stuff and social science as the easy and abstract stuff. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Economics is a social science. Sadly, the fascination with it being “hard” is largely to be seen as the cool tough stuff. Inferiority complex, if you may.
Economists rarely actually work as hard as Sociologists or similar soft sciences.
I would actually love to hear you elaborate on that.
In what way sociologists work harder than economists?
I'd argue that when it comes to science, you can't study economics without studying sociology and politics. Because then you will be lacking context. Wouldn't that mean more research?
In fact, how do you define "hard work"?
I'm acually curious, it's an interesting topic.
I do not have the answers you're looking for, I was being flippant.
Life goes smoothest when you recognize that effort is a limited resource
No one here has acknowledged the difference between classical economics and neoclassical economics (or even the difference with post-keynesian economics). Classical economics makes descriptions and predictions that can be falsified.
It also takes into account social context by understanding the social forces that come into play in a society at a given point. For example, the profit motive is understood as a historical force reinforced by capitalism itself.
All of this is modeled in a stochastic manner, which reflects both the variation in human behavior and the strong tendencies in human behavior. Once again, these models are testable.
All of this contrasts with the idealized and unscientific notion of economics that was cooked up at the end of the 18th century: neoclassical economics. This is what is taught to most people.
Neoclassical economics doesn't seek to describe the forces that motivate human beings as much as assume that people are utility maximizers. Therefore, social context is explained reductively. Predictions are harder, because what leads the way isn't evidence, but assumptions. Of course, there's a political component to not show capitalism as a historical reality as much as both a reflection of universal truths of human nature and a desirable social arrangement.
It's sad to confirm that neoclassical economics has dominated the economics departments and school curricula of the world. However, many scholars fortunate enough to be given a stable job despite not believing in the contemporary doctrine are doing amazing work. For example, Shaikh.
With this in mind, classical economics has to resemble physics to the extent that physics describes stochastic processes. In fact, Shaikh explicitly recognizes that pressure as a measure is a stochastic measure because, even though you can't predict the trajectory of a single atom, you can predict how many atoms will interact on an aggregate level. The same happens with humans.
This is really interesting, although some of it goes over my head! Can you recommend any good videos on the subject?
More like astrology, it’s all just correlation til the models fails and then they invent a new one
Well, do they?
Trickle down baby!
https://images3.memedroid.com/images/UPLOADED153/5efca02de9e21.jpeg
You can use astrology as a very, very crude psychological model.
Hey come on now, don't insult psychology by comparing it to economics.
The primary function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
Wait, do people actually disagree with this? I thought this was just common knowledge.
Maybe they mistyped psychics? I get all my stock market advice from fortune tellers.
Pretty sure this isn't that controversial of an opinion. Pretty sure any economist that disagrees with you is a shit economist. There's a reason there's a related field called "socioeconomics"
Also fuck this meme format. Stop using this facist for memes.
Exam questions are the same every year. But the answers are different.
Steven Crowder is an assclown.
Economics started as a branch of philosophy that got a lot of support because it draw a lot of support for its theory from maths.
Then, more recently, a good number of very inteligent people noticed the behaviours of economic models could be better predict and understood by using very simple psychological analysis and models.
I remember reading an article by two physicists where they just picked the oh-so-precious math of a given economic model, analysed it using the methods used to analyse physics and concluded the model was faulty by x+y+z.
Economics is... a very strange thing.
All science started as an offshoot from Philosophy.
Yes but most people tend to think Economics is an offshoot of Mathematics, due to its connection with it.
What connection? It has about as much connection to math as astrology or social science
Social Sciences use statistics and probability mathematics.
Astrology, to what I know, uses a lot of trignometry.
After checking the syllabus for an Economics degree in my country there courses of Calculus, Accounting and Algebra, all mandatory.
Whatevs. That doesn't make Economics a branch of mathematics
There's an assumption there that psychology is not a hard science. An assumption that I agree with though.
No science started out as a "hard science". Psychology is hard to quantify yet, because our currently available options for measurements are insufficient.
Hard sciences are reducible. Pharmacology reduces to biology, reduces to chemistry, reduces physics.
The hard science of the brain and mind is neuroscience.
? That would still be biology and therefore reducible to chemistry and physics.
The approach of "everything is reducible to physics" is actually a philosophical theory that tries to describe what is reality. Is the material world everything that exists? Or are our thoughts (our knowing of things) actually a different reality? Etc.
In the end, the differentiation into the different sciences is simply an aid for people. I wouldn't pay it that much attention because it really doesn't tell you anything.
What would still be biology?
Neuroscience is either in medicine or in biology. And following the weird meme of science hierarchy, neuroscience is just biology.
It reduces to biology. That's why it's a hard science. Saying it's just biology is like saying biology is just chemistry.
Being reducible is part of it, but I think reproducible is more important. Psychology is not reproducible. You can get statistical equivalents, but not exact reproduction of results.
I think being reducible is all of it. Even if it's reproducable you can know THAT something is true, but not WHY it's true. I think the why, or at least the ability and intention to get there, makes something a hard science.
It's a branch of sociology dominated by people who refuse to accept sociological research practices in the name of deluding themselves that they're uncovering grand truths about the universe. It would be hilarious and sad if politicians and journalists didn't listen to them.
The invisible hand is just bullshit and prices in our economy are often centrally planned by a monopoly or a cartel that decides how an industry ought to set prices.
Current day Economics is just propoganda.
What are some centrally planned prices?
Not the OP and IMO centrally planned prices doesn't really apply to cartels, but a cartel set price that nearly everyone is familiar with is OPEC+ prices for petroleum.
I think Aesthelete better cleared up what I am trying to say using OPEC as an example. Other versions of this behavior is in Dairy / Milk in the US. They're wasting millions of gallons of milk in order to keep the price higher where it's set by a central planner in the industry. Farmers will choose certain days to sell their crop as to try and get the highest price - and this is an innocent behavior - but capitalism literally has a built-in mechanism to encourage this form of price stability. Another bad example is poultry production in the US. There's 4 companies only, and small farmers actually license and rent all of the stuff from the big 4. These farmers are treated so terribly, and at the end of the day they don't actually get to sell or set the price. The central company does.
Economics isn’t a science because there’s no way to falsify hypotheses or theories.
It's possible to do that in Economics, but most of them are very unethical. It's not impossible.
For example, you would have to have complete control over an economy to make experimental changes. Say increasing interest rates just for certain subjects and leaving them alone for the control group. It would be very illegal.
Usually economists take advantage of local law changes to observe the results. Like you can look at the effects of increasing minimum wage on unemployment by looking at cities that do it before and after. Or you can compare similar states that when some of them pass a law, but others don't.
The movie "Trading Places" is a kind of unethical economic experiment, although the record keeping was sparse.
We have video games and simulation to do any sort of things. Politics to try new things.
Economy is pseudo-science.
Also they can change the way the "world" works to fit a bad hypothesis, whereas in science the hypothesis has to change.
If you look up soft science you will see them lumped together. I dont even know why this is even said, everyone knows this.
This is a normal standpoint for anyone who has any meaningful knowledge of the world. The whole study of economics depends on a social construction - the economy.
Does it matter tho? It's all useful in some way or another.
Well, as a matter of fact, economy is actually detrimental to societies.
Partially true, a bad economy is indeed very detrimental to society. People starve, people don't get healthcare. People die.
Well, apparently a "good" economy destroy the planet, kills workers and don't provide anymore healthcare. In fact, healthcare is detrimental to a good economy apparently, it liberals wouldn't be so hard on destroying healthcare everywhere?
There is nothing which inherently says an economy has to be environmentally bad, indeed there are many examples of economic success on the back of renewable power.
I'd agree in too many cases an environmentally bad policy is persued with economic measures being given as a justification, but that is just bad policy.
A good economy can invest green, a bad economy is a collection of of people just trying to make ends meet - the environment will never benefit from this, environmentally distructive options are usually cheaper than their greener alternatives.
You might need to back that up with info...
Climate change? Inequalities on the rise?
What do you think the economy is?
I would argue Iceland has a very good economy, yet it is world leading in renewable power and has minimal inequality.
That's an element of economics.
But economics as a whole? Start giving up claims with info.
Economics is like weather forecasting, but less reliable.
Funny enough, this is a really underrated comment @snooggums
It's like most of the weather forecasters predicting the weather by watching other weather forecasters
And people making bets on cyclones and hurricanes
And if you get enough weather forecasters to agree it will rain, then it will rain.
With people cheering for sunny skies and rain clouds, and then arguing over breaks in the clouds vs gathering storms
“Water makes most things it touches wet. Change my mind.”
But does psychology have lines that go up like stonks?
If you made a graph of how many people have mental illness on a timeline starting from the inception of psychology to now, then yes.
the number of comments here who use hard sciences' criteria as the ones and only defining the validity of knowledge is concerning. Human sciences don't have the same foundations, methodologies, etc. as harde sciences, they don't have the same system of validation either, which doesn't mean it's less valid.
Our econ prof told us "Never trust a statistic you haven't forged yourself".
Economics is a branch of philosophy. It doesn’t just observe norms, it creates them. Any descriptive model in economics is also prescriptive.
If a well-regarded economist publicly says the stock market will crash tomorrow, then it will crash, regardless of the soundness of their logic leading up to the statement — even if it was the result of a cocaine binge, botched autocorrect, or a stroke.
This is why treating economics like a hard science is so dangerous. If the prevailing “thought leaders” advocate for a model that says XYZ people are mathematically doomed to live in abject, dehumanizing squallor… then that’s exactly what will happen, regardless of whether that was true before they said it.
Edit: It’s also why it’s such a crime that we only teach neoclassical economics in K-12, as if it’s the One True Way™.
Ceteris paribus, or all things equal is a super common economics phrase. It's basically impossible to maintain in the real world. Economics used to be considered philosophy for a reason. As someone with a economics degree I do pretty much agree with you.
The "hard science" part of it is using past data to build models. You're still more or less trying to tie the figures into a theory of why they happened that may or may not be true. There are so many factors it's impossible to know. For instance I truly believe that the stronger anti-monopoly enforcement and higher taxes played a major role in America's success and the rise of the middle class from post WW2-80s. I have to admit that there are an insane amount of other factors at play here that might invalidate all the trends during the same time though. Every other developed countries info structure being bombed to the ground giving the US a huge start not being the least of which.
Well, the human mind is based on chemistry/physics sooo
You can say that about anything that isn't abstract sooo
Now hold on guys... I think I would put it slightly more useful than reading tea leaves.
Only thing any of them share in common is that they link back to the Wikipedia page for Philosophy.
This implies psychology is not a hard science.
Just because a physicist wouldn’t know how to do science in a realm as complex as psychology doesn’t mean psychologists don’t know how to.
Have to love this meme
Economy is pseudo-science. Change my mind.
I more believe that physics governs economies. Meanwhile, economics provides insights into how the resources are done by physics.
Economics is just a tool of politics.
You’re just a tool of politics
Your mother.
Mine wasn’t random. By showing up to spout some one liner you didn’t come up with, you’re acting as an instrument of someone else’s leverage, instead of as a participant in the discussion.
Economics is inherently about how resources are allocated. Does a more obvious tool of politics exist? Apparently you think this is propaganda.
Definitely. I've seen examples of economists failed attempts at math. It explained a lot about the state of the economy.
Ah yes, let me use my Lagrangian to optimize the system, because this is what psychologists do.
Now that we did that, let's take the derivative of the rectangular area of this curve to maximize it, like a psychologist would.