Via Duckduckgo.com:
Is economics a science?
Raj Chetty (economist), NYT: Yes
Robert Shiller (economist), The Guardian: Yes Is economics a science? | Robert Shiller | The Guardian
My belief is that economics is somewhat more vulnerable than the physical sciences to models whose validity will never be clear, because the necessity for approximation is much stronger than in the physical sciences, especially given that the models describe people rather than magnetic resonances or fundamental particles. People can just change their minds and behave completely differently. They even have neuroses and identity problems, complex phenomena that the field of behavioral economics is finding relevant to understanding economic outcomes.
But all the mathematics in economics is not, as Taleb suggests, charlatanism. Economics has an important quantitative side, which cannot be escaped. The challenge has been to combine its mathematical insights with the kinds of adjustments that are needed to make its models fit the economy’s irreducibly human element.
Quora: https://www.quora.com/Is-economics-a-science-If-not-what-is-it Matthew Might (U of Utah, Computer Science, Pharmaceutical Chemistry): Yes Economics makes falsifiable claims about the world, although it’s often difficult to find “natural experiments” where only one economic variable changes at a time.
Sylvia Nasar, Economics Reporter, NYTimes: Sure.
Michael Wernecke, Stanford Philosophy Major, emphasis added
I think the easiest way to answer this question is not to attempt to define science (which is really really hard) and then show that economics fits that definition, but to attempt to construct a definition of science that excludes only economics while keeping other sciences as ‘science’. I think any such attempt will fail.
No category:
Time Magazine, quoted by Jared Bernstein: Is Economics a Science? | HuffPost Impact
“The trouble with economics is that it lacks the most important of science’s characteristics — a record of improvement in predictive range and accuracy.”
I think there's been some progress on the minimum wage issue. Also, recessions have tended to on average fall further apart, largely due to better central bank handling of the conventional business cycle (though financial crises are another category).
Harvard Crimson: Macroeconomics is not a science, microeconomics is another matter
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“But what is the building block of economics? People. Economics does not study any unit smaller than a collection of people. And human behavior can never be absolutely predicted or explained—not if we wish to believe in free will, at any rate.”
Me: Ok, so medicine is not a science either, as the building block is people. Also any study involving random processes isn’t science, because they can’t be predicted (though they can be forecasted, just as human behavior can and is forecasted). -
Economists can’t experiment
Me: Actually there is a small part of the field that is experimental. But the critique is inane regardless: astronomy and meterology are observational sciences as well.
As I’ve indicated (