Comment on It's barely a science.
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 3 days agoWhat makes a difference is how models are evaluated in light of new evidence. If a model makes predictions that turn out to be incorrect, then a big part of scientific progress is in re-examining the underlying assumptions of the model.
My beef with economics isn’t that it’s often wrong, but that economists are often keen to present themselves as scientists to boost their epistemic authority, whilst also acting in a deeply unscientific way.
The worst economists for this get very offended if you say that economics is a soft science, with more in common with psychology than physics. This offends them because they hear “soft science” as a pejorative. Economics absolutely is a science, but the more that economists try to pretend that their object of study isn’t wibbly wobbly as hell, the less I respect them.
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I’d consider economics a subgenre of sociology.
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
Yeah, I think I’d agree with that. Although it’s gotten large enough that it doesn’t feel like a subset of sociology anymore, it still feels descended from sociology. (To give an example of what I mean by being large enough it’s now distinct from sociology, biochemistry sprang forth from biology/biomedicine, but now is its own distinct field, with methods and modes of inquiry that are distinct from biology/biomedicine)