Is economics scientific like Newtonian physics is scientific?
Although there are structuralist economists who argue that it is in principle scientific, the main difference is that economics deals with people who have free will. So any predictions in Newtonian physics can take account of all the variables; whereas there will always be gaps in our understanding of what free human agents do. This is why our Newtonian predictions got people to the moon, whereas economic predictions are must less trustworthy. “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice”.
Yes and no. It is not scientific in the sense that economics cannot successfully use the scientific method to change one variable at a time. A better comparison would be economics is much like the study of extinction. Because there are so many variables that could effect the outcome, it cannot be studied in the traditional scientific sense. But it is scientific in the sense that it has variables that act dependently that effect the result. It’s closer sister would be applied Calculus.
The primary difference between hard analytical science and soft economic science is that economics has too many variables to isolate and test effectively, and its works on too large of a scale for any type of testing to be practical. Alas, it is why Economics is often called “The Dismal Science” For example; in physics, if you wanted to test, say, whether or not general relativity is correct, you can go outside, wait for an eclipse, and observe the appearance of stars. If the star’s position changed, then general relativity is correct. If they don’t then general relativity is not. However, in economics, if you wanted to test, say, whether or not rent control is an effective policy for a city to pursue; one could point to the failures of rent control in Manhattan after World War II, or their modest success in Paris in 2004. Markets are such complex things that we wouldn’t be able to exactly pin down what exactly made rent control fail in Manhattan or if it even failed at all.There are j
