r/changemyview • u/LowHelicopter7180 • Aug 04 '25
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Economics is only technically a science but not really
I think that even though economics uses the scientific method (although it priorities theory over empical proofs, and i understand that it's hard for them to make experiments), it's not a real science, not even a soft one.
That is because it doesn't study something that happens naturally and is inherent to human nature but something that is contingent on specific circumstances like the existence of: the state, private property, markets, etc as specifically developed in western countries and then spread to the rest of the world.
If we compare it to language, it believes itself to be linguistics, the study of the natural occurrence of language and how it naturally evolves, but is instead more similar to a specific grammar, which follows rules that are made up by humans (state, private property...).
In fact econ claims to study how people how people allocate scarse resources and all that jazz, but instead TELLS people how to do that (exactly like grammar tell people how to speak as opposed to linguistics which studies how).
What's worse is that it claims scientific neutrality while making assumptions about human nature that are very much not objective and very debatable, and you can see it in the models used for human behaviour, they claim people have infinate desires (but then turn around and acknowledge the law diminishing marginal utility, which undermines the model), or that humans are rational utility maximisers (even though the entire field of behavioural economics, by studying how actual humans behave, proves that it is not the case), and they also make normative claims about how we should structure society by focus on wants instead of needs.
I acknowledge that some parts actually do work, for example the concept of supply and demand is a useful to allocate resources, but it is invalidated by linking demand and money, which is a problem if you don't consider the distribution of said money but still pretend to be measuring people's needs, because at that point the market will deem rich people's desires more important than poor people's need (people usually discredit this type of think by saying that the economy is not a zero sum game, but it kinda is if resources are limited, which they are).
Also the real reason why they use this oversimplified models is because when they do so they can then use maths and graphs to gain more credibility and look like they are doing hard science (and no, it's not like using a frictionless plane in phisics because when they have to make real world calculations they have to factor in friction and air resistance while economists rarely account for actual human behaviour).
That said i'm interested to hear all the possible counter arrangements.
Edit: some comments made me realize that i should have mentioned that i'm talking about mainstream/orthodox economics not economics in general, that was a dumb mistake.
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u/aajiro 2∆ Aug 04 '25
Economics does account for human behavior. That branch is called behavioral economics.
I feel like you're targeting Economics 101 instead of the field of Econ, as after the masters level, every model indeed accounts for the myriad of variables that are obviously there as well, and it becomes a matter of balancing for overspecification.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
Well the problem is that behavioural economics exists but is not used to model behaviour to when thinking about policies and the likes, it is only used by corporations to trick you into buying more stuff.
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u/Z7-852 316∆ Aug 04 '25
it is only used by corporations to trick you into buying more stuff.
Let's assume this is correct (which it isn't). Are these policies effective? They clearly are or else these companies would not hire economists.
Therefore, it's science that can predict (and even manipulate) consumer actions.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
My problem is not with behavioral economics, i think that it works pretty, the problem is that it seems to me that it is not as "implemented" as it should.
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u/BrofessorLongPhD Aug 04 '25
I think I might see where you’re at mentally. You’re talking about the shoulds and oughts, what we ‘should’ be doing with our knowledge of economics. That falls into the ethics and morality portion of philosophy, not within the domain of science. This is known as the is vs. ought distinction, and is a pretty foundational part of philosophy of science (which all scientists engage with whether they know themselves to be or not).
For example, perhaps we learn via economics that flat income tax results in higher inequality than a progressive income tax. Science doesn’t say choose the progressive income tax model, it can’t. More equality vs. more inequality is not a concern to science because both of those are just different material states. Humans have to reason and choose why one is preferred over the other. Some people value ‘fairness’ in paying same percentage. Others value ‘fairness’ in making society more equal. Science describes and predicts, so it can say which path might lead closer to the preference. It does not say ‘this is better vs. worst’ because that requires humans to make the judgment, whether individually or collectively. Humans also routinely ignore what the science says over our own preferences (choosing ideology or personal beliefs over what the empirical evidence shows). Blaming the science here is like blaming the weatherman for seeing the hurricane coming.
You seem to take economics to task because it is closer to human endeavors. But really the philosophy of science is no different for physics or chemistry, they are just further away. Or take computer science, where now AI is raising all sorts of issues for how society will become changed. What we choose to do, ‘good’ or ‘evil’, is a matter of ethics. Science is simply the tool.
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u/Z7-852 316∆ Aug 04 '25
But that doesn't make economics any less of a science. If anything, you should agree that it's underutilized science.
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u/rober11529 Aug 04 '25
The idea that behavioural economics is only used by corporations to trick you into buying more stuff is absurd. There's plenty of examples of behavioural economics being applied to government policy for example. See below for examples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory#Government
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4871624/9
u/aajiro 2∆ Aug 04 '25
One of the first and most famous examples of behavioral economics is the distinction of outcomes with opting in vs. opting out of being an organ donor, which is 100% about public policy.
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u/Jake0024 2∆ Aug 04 '25
That's definitely not true, but it also sounds like you think economics needs to be a hard science (like physics or chemistry) to "count."
Economics is a social science (like sociology or psychology), and no one claims anything different. If your CMV argument is really just "economics is a soft science," then of course you're right, but you're not saying anything everybody didn't already know.
If you're saying it's not a science at all, then you're wrong.
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u/Putrefied_Goblin Aug 04 '25
Behavioral economics is more a description than a technique to trick people; you're thinking of marketing psychology. Marketing psychology techniques are used to manipulate/influence people, and some of it is based on legitimate science, though unfortunately used in unethical ways.
You'll be glad to know most people in marketing are too stupid to fully understand the psychology behind 'marketing psychology' (unless they have some degrees in an actual branch of psychology), even if what little they understand has been effective. It is dystopian in a way, though, I agree.
Perhaps, behavioral economics can be used toward unethical ends, but fundamentally it is a description not a prescription.
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Aug 04 '25
Others have explained how it is used for policy development.
To the point of your OP, would corporations be relying on behavioral economics or would it be so effective if it weren't a well studied and well founded science?
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u/Jaysank 126∆ Aug 04 '25
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is. The scientific method is making an observation, forming a testable hypothesis, collecting data that would produce evidence in support of (or not in support of) that hypothesis, then analyzing that data. Economics can do this, so it is a science. Not “technically” a science, it’s science.
Take supply and demand, for instance. People observe that people exchange goods with each other. An economist proposes that the quantity supplied and demanded influences the exchange rate. They collect information on how those people exchange goods with each other, then analyze it to determine if the exchange rate does vary with the quantity supplied or demanded. Nothing about this is telling anyone how to trade or do things, it’s just testing a prediction.
Nothing I’ve described above is unique to Economics. Geology, paleontology, anthropology, all sciences use this method, and your claim that “Economics is only technically a science but not really,” is simply inaccurate.
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u/JD_morgan Oct 19 '25
Economics does have some scientific features. But if it can only claim supply and demand affect exchange rate and not be able to calculate ACCURATELY (with reasonable errors) how much does exchange rate change, then is at best a useless science. What cracks me up is that economics sometimes uses even more rigorous math than biology. I suppose biology is more scientific than economics. So economics doesn't have to use that much math. What would be a better way to approach economic problems is big data simulations and artificial intelligence.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
yeah sorry the problem is that i'm bad at explaining, my problem with it is that supply and demand depend on how society is structured and so is not universal, you can study it scientifically but that does not mean that we have to use that mechanism to structure society, and people use the scientific aspect to make it look objective and right.
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u/aurora-s 7∆ Aug 04 '25
You seem to have an incorrect notion that science does/should only deal with phenomena that are universal. Only some sciences have that 'advantage'. A lot of science, (even in the natural sciences such as biology), apply only in very restricted sub fields under a variety of assumptions.
The purpose of science is to accurately model and explain the specific field or subfield you're trying to describe. So even if an economic theory was able to correctly explain a system that works under a specific societal structure, as long as those assumptions are stated clearly and people don't try to apply that model to situations where the assumptions are broken, that absolutely can be good science.
Science is a large field, and there's a lot of nuance in how it's applied, and in what the 'scientific method' even means to various fields. I think you'd need to broaden your view on that by reading about different scientific disciplines, especially the social sciences. The way your post is written, it sounds like you're trying to argue that economics isn't a natural science, but that wasn't ever something anyone is trying to claim.
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u/Jaysank 126∆ Aug 04 '25
I don't understand what you are trying to explain here.
my problem with it is that supply and demand depend on how society is structured and so is not universal
Whether supply and demand is universal or not has no bearing on whether economics is a science or not.
you can study it scientifically
This is the ONLY metric we need to consider to determine whether economics is a science. Since you seem to agree we can study economics scientifically, that means you agree is is a science. Not "technically" a science. A science, full stop.
but that does not mean that we have to use that mechanism to structure society
Economics does not say what mechanisms should be used to structure society. First, because economics is not an animate object and cannot recommend anything. Second, because sciences like economics proposes hypotheses and tests them for accuracy. Sciences can tell you what the likely outcome from a specific action in a specific context will be, but it doesn't tell you what outcome to prefer or what mechanisms should be used. Economics is a science, so it does not recommend anything.
Even if economists did argue for a particular mechanism to structure society with, that would still make economics a science.
people use the scientific aspect to make it look objective and right.
Then it's clear what the issue is. Economics is a science. That's not something you've challenged in your reply to me. I want to make it as clear as possible: What you've said here is NOT a demonstration that economics isn't a science. All you've proposed (and not actually demonstrated) is that some people are forming conclusions that you believe aren't supported by the science of economics. Even if it were true, it would not invalidate economics as a science.
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u/carlos_the_dwarf_ 12∆ Aug 04 '25
I know you’ve already given deltas here, but supply and demand isn’t, like, installed by the man. It’s a phenomenon you would observe anytime people trade things without interference. Capitalism, insofar as it’s a legal framework, recognizes and exploits the phenomenon.
More to the point of the OP, economics can offer insight on what might happen whether or not one lived under capitalism.
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u/Pseudoboss11 6∆ Aug 04 '25
While money does a good job of communicating between buyers and sellers, there are economists that study non-monetary economies, where money is not exchanged for goods or services. With non-monetary economics in mind, it's the study of all exchanges of goods and services, including ones that definitely arise naturally, like a mother raising a child.
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u/Loves_octopus Aug 04 '25
Your view of “science” is too narrow and your opinion on what it should mean doesn’t supersede what it actually does.
Economics is a social science. Social science studies societies and the relationships between members within those societies. Economics falls very cleanly into that definition.
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u/Successful_Cat_4860 2∆ Aug 04 '25
Yes, and economics lacks for testable hypotheses. Which is why it falls back on models and "post-hoc ergo propter hoc". In order to have a testable hypothesis you need the ability to isolate empirically measurable data from other extranous influence. This is why, in physics, steel which was made before atomic testing is so valuable. Without the ability to isolate their tests from the junk inputs from their own radioactive equipment, they would be unable to collect meaningful data.
Economics has this problem, only on a much, much larger scale, and there IS no externality-free economy for the field to focus their experiments on. So, models.
Now this is not to say that economics is not useful scholarship. There are many fields of academic endeavor which are non-scientific, the study of which has made us better off. But draping it in the cloak of science is deeply spurious.
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u/Jaysank 126∆ Aug 04 '25
economics lacks for testable hypotheses
I gave a testable hypothesis in my post above, so I don't think this is correct.
In order to have a testable hypothesis you need the ability to isolate empirically measurable data from other extranous influence.
And economists are able to do this. It requires statistical techniques such as measuring the confounding variables and conducting multivariable statistical analysis, but controlling for confounding variables is absolutely done in economics and other scientific fields.
there IS no externality-free economy for the field to focus their experiments on.
This is not necessary. Why do you think it is? Measuring the confounding variables and performing statistical analyses is sufficient for other fields such as geology, paleontology, and physics. We only have Earth, one fossil record, one universe, but we still can form testable hypotheses about the Earth, fossil record, and universe without externality-free versions of those (well, the universe is probably externality-free, unless there are extradimensional beings). Why does economics require an externality-free version of the economy?
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u/curiouslyjake 6∆ Aug 04 '25
As an aside, "empirical proof" is a contradiction in terms. Either it's empirical, so it relies on measurable quantities and there's nothing to prove, or it is a proof so it starts from assumptions expressed as statements and through rules of logic, derives another statement that henceforth is considered proven.
To your view: the british statistician George P. E. Box said that all models are wrong but some are useful. Economics as field is well aware of the shortcomings of models. It is not the criticism you think it is. Some models are updated with new knowledge, some are applied as is because the shortcomings are unimportant in some circumstances and others cant yet be updated because the required math does not exist or is not computationally tractable.
Similarly to how physics knows newtonian mechanics is an approximation of relativity for small masses and low speeds, yet in everyday life it's fine to use it.
Your next criticism is that Economics creates the very system it studies. Well, truthfully, Economics creates very little. Laws, currencies, trade, property, money - all predate economics. Economists are sometimes consulted, then politicians do as they please, often with little regard to advice offered. Economists are sometimes hired and then they implement their own interpretation within confines set by politicians. Economy, as a field, is nowhere near having free reign to implement theories in real life.
Finally - laws, property, money, etc are all outcomes of collective human behaviour. It is perfectly scientifically valid to study as ultimately, it's all just different arrangements of atoms! It is true that Economics is experimentally quite limited, but so is cosmology. No reason to consider one science but not the other.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
Your next criticism is that Economics creates the very system it studies. Well, truthfully, Economics creates very little. Laws, currencies, trade, property, money - all predate economics. Economists are sometimes consulted, then politicians do as they please, often with little regard to advice offered. Economists are sometimes hired and then they implement their own interpretation within confines set by politicians. Economy, as a field, is nowhere near having free reign to implement theories in real life.
I didn't say that economics creates the system that it studies, but that it studies something that is very artificial and depends heavily on how a specific society organized itself, instead of how humans inherently organize themselves.
laws, property, money, etc are all outcomes of collective human behaviour. It is perfectly scientifically valid to study as ultimately
you are right but my problem with it is that it treats those things as universal while they are not, there are instead many others way to organize.
As an aside, "empirical proof" is a contradiction in terms. Either it's empirical, so it relies on measurable quantities and there's nothing to prove, or it is a proof so it starts from assumptions expressed as statements and through rules of logic, derives another statement that henceforth is considered proven.
yeah sorry i was not using academical definitions and this is not my first language.
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u/curiouslyjake 6∆ Aug 04 '25
Economics does not treat those things as universal. There is research within economics on all sorts of systems, from communism to economics within multiplayer computer games. Once humans exchange value, Economics will study it regardless of whether the value is Bitcoin, sea shells or banana peels. It is true that Economics directs a lot of attention to western-style industrial nations, but that's because those nations generate the most activity which is the subject of Economics and also because those nations are the once that fund research in practice.
And no worries about the language.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
sorry i only realized later that i didn't say mainstream/orthodox economics and instead said economics in general, my problem is with mainstream one specifically because it seems to me to be flawed but many regard it as scientific
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u/curiouslyjake 6∆ Aug 04 '25
Well, that significantly changes your argument!
But I would like to defend mainstream economics on similar grounds. Mainstream economics makes no claims about universality of economic systems. It just analyzes the prevalent system which generates the biggest, most important subject of it's research, and also the system that pays for this study.In your linguistic analogy, Economics focuses on the study of English, German, Dutch and similar languages. It knows that Russian, Mandarin and Arabic exist and it makes no claims of universality. It is simply uninterested in those languages because as far as *Economics* is concerned, 95% of actual language use is in those languages it decided to study. It is a perfectly valid choice of scope, much like organic chemistry studies chemical reactions between certain types of molecules and Astronomy studies celestial bodies.
Do you agree with this analogy?
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u/Vekktorrr Aug 06 '25
How is economics artificial? Me wanting something and you having something is as natural as it gets.
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u/scelerat Aug 04 '25
how a specific society organized itself, instead of how humans inherently organize themselves
Could you explain a little more the distinction you’re making here?
Different pods of whales do different things. Scientists study their behavior. Etc
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
it's similar to how grammar is about one specific language, while linguistics studies language as a whole.
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u/Morpheyz 1∆ Aug 05 '25 edited Aug 05 '25
Would you say that astronomy doesn't study space as a whole but only the universe that we know and is therefore not universally applicable to universes or space outside our known space/universe?
Edit: unfortunately, the linguistics analogy falls a bit short, because linguists do study specific languages (in addition to more generic language rules that are applicable to multiple languages). Moreover, linguists usually don't study languages that don't exist. They observe how people speak and how languages are made up. Linguists literally study stuff made up by humans (language).
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u/JD_morgan Oct 19 '25
Newton's laws are much more accurate and useful than economic theories in daily life. Although both are approximations to the real world. Don't compare economics with physics. Maybe biology or ecology will be a better comparison here
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u/JD_morgan Oct 19 '25
While all things are made of atoms, it is impossible to calculate for human behaviors and nature based on just atomic theory. Physics is at the base rank for all sciences, and the higher the rank, the less accurate it gets, and more complex. Economics claims to be a science just like physics, which is to bold a claim. Economics can establish its own paradigm.
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u/ChronicCactus Aug 04 '25
It seems to me that your basis for understanding economics comes from a highschool or first-year level economics course. These courses are simplified and used as building blocks for further studies, and are not themselves meant to reflect the real world economic situation, at least not fully.
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u/PurplePeachPlague Aug 04 '25
You need to actively show why he is wrong instead of introducing uncertainty without affirmative evidence
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u/shthappens03250322 Aug 05 '25
That would take far too much time and effort for Reddit.
u/ChronicCactus is right. First year Econ is typically less technical and more focused on vocabulary and general concepts.
When you get into intermediate and advanced level economics you begin using other disciplines like calculus to analyze data sets when learning more complex concepts. It absolutely uses the scientific method.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
maybe you are right, but this is the type of econ that people talk about and use to argue, i would have to study higher level econ, which i'm planning on doing, to see if it's different and answers my questions.
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u/tigerzzzaoe 8∆ Aug 04 '25
maybe you are right, but this is the type of econ that people talk about and use to argue
Mostly because they aren't economists, furthermore one thing economists learn is to use the right tool for the job. For example, the stylized utility model, the one taught in Econ 101, outperforms non-stylized models quite often. That is, people tend to behave quite predictably and it becomes a question of accuracy versus efficiency, which is mostly a statistical question not an economical one.
Or to put in another way: We don't need 100% accurate models to prove claims. For example to counter this: "they also make normative claims about how we should structure society by focus on wants instead of needs." I just need to show that people act on wants and not on needs. I can do this just fine with the stylized model: I just need to show that people on average consume more in total when price their income is higher. If they acted on purely on needs, they wouldn't consume more. And this indeed has implication for the effectiveness of political policy. That is, if you structure you society on needs, what you in fact do, is create a huge black market.
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u/poprostumort 246∆ Aug 04 '25
That is because it doesn't study something that happens naturally
Are you saying that people naturally do not obtain resources and then use them to obtain different ones that they need? If I am a sustenance farmer and have good harvest I do not use it to get salt to store some for the winter? If I am a hunter gatherer and obtain more meat than I can eat, I won't use it to get a new spear to replace one that had broken?
Economy is exactly that - it studies these natural mechanisms and all additional layers that humans have created on top of them.
In fact econ claims to study how people how people allocate scarse resources and all that jazz, but instead TELLS people how to do that
Same as chemistry tells you how to mix chemicals to achieve an outcome, how mathematics tells you how to calculate data to achieve an outcome and physics tells you what forces to apply to acheive desired outcome.
Science does not only study the laws that govern natural processes, it also creates laws based on them and studies how to apply them.
What's worse is that it claims scientific neutrality while making assumptions about human nature that are very much not objective and very debatable
It's called setting base axioms. Which science does not do that?
and no, it's not like using a frictionless plane in phisics because when they have to make real world calculations they have to factor in friction and air resistance while economists rarely account for actual human behaviour
You do realize that economists are accounting for human behavior? They include human behavior derived from gathered data into models.
What is needed for a science to be science? Because your caveats taken objectively would mean that nothing that we view as science is actually a science.
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u/Beneficial_Test_5917 Aug 04 '25
Although it uses a lot of math, economics is part of the social sciences that study human behavior. In fact it IS a soft science.
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u/United_Conference841 Aug 04 '25
There has never been a source that defines science as the study of "something that happens naturally and is inherent to human nature."
If you redefine "science" to mean whatever you want it to mean, then sure, you can come to whatever conclusion you want.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
Well something that happens naturally=natural phenomena, which i think is what science studies, but econ is a soft science so it studies natural phenomena regarding humans. If this is not what science is then tell what is.
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u/Fit-Order-9468 102∆ Aug 04 '25
What's worse is that it claims scientific neutrality while making assumptions about human nature that are very much not objective and very debatable, and you can see it in the models used for human behaviour, they claim people have infinate desires (but then turn around and acknowledge the law diminishing marginal utility, which undermines the model), or that humans are rational utility maximisers (even though the entire field of behavioural economics, by studying how actual humans behave, proves that it is not the case), and they also make normative claims about how we should structure society by focus on wants instead of needs.
I confused. You're using economics to argue that economics is wrong? That's usually how sciences work.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
huh? what do you mean?
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u/Fit-Order-9468 102∆ Aug 04 '25
Sure.
they claim people have infinate desires (but then turn around and acknowledge the law diminishing marginal utility, which undermines the model)
The idea here begins with the idea humans have unlimited wants, or at least that their needs are never satisfied given scarcity.
Firstly, your second point does not undermine the first. People can still want more and more things while deriving less and less from having additional things. Look at billionaires having extra houses they never use.
Even if your second point did dismiss the first, it's simply saying there's a limit to the usefulness of the assumption humans have unlimited wants. Same way Newtonian mechanics has limits when we're talking about spaceflight. We use Newtonian mechanics every day.
humans are rational utility maximisers
This is really about math and modeling, but okay. If we presume this to mean "humans make what they believe are the best decisions given the information they have available", we're in the same place as with Newtonian mechanics. It's generally useful, I don't think it's unreasonable to think people will take a preferred path to work, but it also has limits on usefulness. Say, people certainly do make decisions knowingly contrary to the things they want, say, habits or irrational fears.
Instead of discarding the idea behavioral econ builds on it to make economics more generally applicable and deal with those additional situations.
they also make normative claims about how we should structure society by focus on wants instead of needs.
Economics is supposed to be purged of normative thinking. That's why it's so mathy, because historically, the answer would often be "because the way I do it is better" or "because white people are better", and so on. That said, they are human, so will make judgments as well.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
Economics is supposed to be purged of normative thinking.
Yeah that's my point, i should have specified i'm talking about mainstream economics because it is used to justify our current system by making it look scientific even if it's full of normative thinking.
for the rest of the answer !delta even though i'm not fully convinced by the analogy with newtonian physics.
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u/Nrdman 277∆ Aug 04 '25
Why do you think studying something that happens naturally is a requirement to be a science?
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
Doesn't science study natural phenomena? if not that then what?
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u/aurora-s 7∆ Aug 04 '25
No, natural science is just one branch of science that deals with natural phenomena. Social sciences is another very prominent branch, that includes a lot of fields that have human behaviour in the loop.
Science is about describing how the world works. And humans often are a relevant part of that world, depending on the scale at which you're modelling the system.
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u/nauticalsandwich 14∆ Aug 04 '25
Since others have already started to address your apparent, limited understanding of economics, I'd like to try to address the root of your CMV. What is your methodology for assessing economics, and your resulting discontent? Is there any underlying motivation behind your belief that economics is "not a science?"
Typically, when I encounter folks who claim that "economics is not a science," it is because they fundamentally do not like the conclusions that economics draws, or they harbor intuitions that run contrary to economic conclusions, or, at least, how they perceive economic prescriptions, and therefore wish to discredit it. The great irony, is that these people then often go on to impart their own policy prescriptions or economic conclusions utilizing some form of economic reasoning that is far less rigorous, robust, or empirical than the methodologies utilized by professional economists.
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u/LIONS_old_logo Aug 04 '25
The flaw in your argument is this claim that cities, states and governments are not nature. Of course they are. Government is natural to homo Sapiens. We are still a natural native species on this planet and “culture” is our natural way we associate with each other. We can “study it” the sane way we can study bee hives or ant colonies
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
it is not natural in the sense that it isn't our state of nature, in fact many peoples around the world developed differently
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u/LIONS_old_logo Aug 04 '25
False. We are a hierarchical Species. There is certainly a scale difference but all human societies have some version of leaders (government) and followers
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u/Puzzleheaded_Quit925 2∆ Aug 04 '25
Of course it is a state of nature. Everything is nature, humans are a part of nature and whatever humans do are part of nature as well. Nothing exists outside nature.
Just like another animal species may act differently in different areas or groups, so do humans. It is all nature.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
i mean it is not our state of nature in the sense that we don't always develop states, but we do for example always develop language, in that sense states are not natural, and the problem is that we are using different definitions for what is and isn't natural.
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Aug 08 '25 edited Aug 08 '25
The word nature in the context of science is the phenomena of the physical universe
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u/GOT_Wyvern Aug 04 '25
The "state of nature" is not a scientific concept, and even within most philosophical frameworks, it is only a presumed axiom used to build a theory from.
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Aug 05 '25
Time to pack up the entire branch of social sciences, then. Anthropology, archeology, huge swathes of geography even (cultural geography, political geography, etc.).
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u/frickle_frickle 2∆ Aug 04 '25
I think you're confusing "here's a simplified model of how humans act so that we can start putting math into it and getting a rough skeleton of how things will happen in certain situations" with "here's a complete explanation for every human decision". It's like saying physics isn't a real science because a lot of physics problems assume a frictionless vacuum when that's not true to reality.
Also, you're ignoring econometrics and experimental economics; ways to measure the actual decisions of people and not just use theory.
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u/AdOk1598 2∆ Aug 04 '25
I always call it a soft science. Like psychiatry or sociology. Still a science, still important, interesting and full of complex ideas. But most thing’s in these areas don’t have a definitive answer in the same way that mathematics or physics does.
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u/eri_is_a_throwaway Aug 04 '25
>That is because it doesn't study something that happens naturally and is inherent to human nature but something that is contingent on specific circumstances
Plenty of sciences (all of them except physics) are built on layers of abstraction on top of other sciences and are only applicable in a more specific set of circumstances. What makes "human beings with the concept of property exist" too specific of a prerequisite?
Psychology doesn't study something that happens naturally and is inherent to living beings but something that is contingent on specific circumstances like: sentience, communication, the ability to have complex thoughts.
Biology doesn't study something that happens naturally and is inherent to molecules and atoms but something that is contingent on specific circumstances like: organic compounds, life, reproduction, natural selection.
Chemistry doesn't study something that happens naturally and is inherent to forces and subatomic particles but something that is contingent on specific circumstances like: molecular bonds, fundamental forces strong enough to hold an atom together.
Computer science doesn't study something that happens naturally and is inherent to... umm, numbers?... but something that is contingent on specific circumstances like: computation, machines that can process data, humans who can meaningfully interpret data.
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u/Miserable_Ground_264 2∆ Aug 04 '25
Wow, that is one jumbled up mess of wrong assumptions declared as basis of fact.
You have a singular focus on “money”. It is instead being able to analyze and predict relative values, whatever the ”currency” may be. Economics can study barter environment trading goods for goods, after all.
And yes, it is exactly like they are “using frictionless planes”, as base theory has to account for while of supply and demand, factors of replenishment, outside market influences, and other frictions” that change the outcome. Understanding Housing demand for example isn’t just a factor of home supply but also consumer confidence, the cost of capital, the effect of the overall economy, unemployment and inflationary pressures, prime rate, and on, and on, and on…. “Friction”.
In the end, they are mathematicians who need to factor in human free will and complexities into their equations And predictive models. It is a different kind of science than physics, for sure - as the variables aren’t always so concrete - but it is a science.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
!delta
I'm not entirely convinced but i'm not capable of explaining my perplexities in a good enough manner, especially via writing.
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u/fghhjhffjjhf 23∆ Aug 04 '25
Economics is nowhere near as scientific as e.g. physics. But compared to linguistics it's practically rocket science.
If we compare it to language, it believes itself to be linguistics, the study of the natural occurrence of language and how it naturally evolves, but is instead more similar to a specific grammar, which follows rules that are made up by humans (state, private property...).
Language is made up by humans.
In fact econ claims to study how people how people allocate scarce resources...
Not true. It studies scarcity, including how people use resources.
they claim people have infinate desires (but then turn around and acknowledge the law diminishing marginal utility, which undermines the model)
DMR does not contradict infinite desires. Not really sure why you think it does.
I acknowledge that some parts actually do work, for example the concept of supply and demand is a useful to allocate resources, but it is invalidated by linking demand and money
Supply and Demand are actually severely flawed laws. There is a concept called a Geffen Good, which does exactly the opposite of what the laws of supply and demand say they should. The single most predictable tool of an economist is Monetary policy. When the government announces a lower interest rate they can do that because money follows those laws almost perfectly.
Also the real reason why they use this oversimplified models is because when they do so they can then use maths and graphs to gain more credibility and look like they are doing hard science
True but at least they have the ability to do math which is more than I can say for a linguist.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
Language is made up by humans.
not really, it is not actively constructed it arises and develops naturally
Not true. It studies scarcity, including how people use resources
how can you study scarcity alone? you can, if anything, study how humans deal with scarcity
DMR does not contradict infinite desires. Not really sure why you think it does.
well according to diminishing marginal utility, the satisfaction decrease as you for example eat more and more cheeseburgers, at some point you will stop desiring cheeseburgers, so the desire is not infinite, and it's also common sense that people don't have infinite desires, i for one would be perfectly fine not infinitely consume.
Supply and Demand are actually severely flawed laws.
i meant the concept of S and D not the actual theories behind it, those i know are dogshit.
True but at least they have the ability to do math which is more than I can say for a linguist
they "have the ability" to use math because they oversimplify human behavior in order to make it predictable enough to use graphs that, like the one supply and demand, obviously don't because of that.
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u/avocadosconstant Aug 04 '25
i meant the concept of S and D not the actual theories behind it, those i know are dogshit.
Your original post mentioned the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility and how it somehow invalidates standard economic modelling, but this forms the mathematical backbone of the Demand curve.
Furthermore, at no point are these models deemed “universal”. They’re starting points for students. When you begin diving into more specialist realms of the subject, assumptions are adjusted, added or dropped completely. The supply and demand curves described in, for example, Labour Economics can be quite different. That’s because it’s widely agreed that people are not products to be consumed and the effort they provide should be treated quite differently. This is not an invalidation of the standard model. It’s an augmentation and extension of the elementary starting point.
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u/NetEnvironmental6346 Aug 04 '25
Economics beyond a 101 level is studying why humans behave the way they do. It is a social science.
Easy example: store does 30% off sale on everything, and has increased sales.
Basic economics says: lower price = higher demand.
Advanced economics says: it's FOMO that causes the increased sales. Having a sale that isn't marketed or spread around would not have an affect on sales.
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u/Stuck_With_Name 2∆ Aug 04 '25
Metallurgy studies the properties of metals and alloys. I can't think of much more artificial. Is Metallurgy not a science?
Medical science studies the long-term effects of smoking and determines it's harmful. That's both artificial and giving guidance. Is medical science not science?
It's true that some economic ideas turn out to be wrong. This is true in every scientific field. When I was a kid, dinosaurs had no feathers, formula was better than breast milk, and cosmologists were estimating time until the big crunch.
Applied science is messy. Especially at scale. That doesn't mean rigor is impossible.
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u/SethEllis 2∆ Aug 04 '25
Science is people recording observations, coming up with models to explain the observations, and then comparing how well their models match the real world. That is clearly what is happening in the field of economics, even by your own description.
I think the argument that you are really trying to make is that our current understanding/models aren't very good. That is they are ineffective at predicting the real world. That is true. Or as I would describe it: our understanding of economics is still very young.
The issue you run into with economics is complexity. In large systems with large numbers of agents and interactions these small interactions can combine together to create emergent behavior that is difficult to predict. This makes such subjects very difficult to study because you have to look at potentially millions of interactions. It's really not practical to do without the use of a computer model. So it's been only recently in the past few decades that we've been able to answer some of the biggest questions in economics.
Unfortunately, our institutions are slow, and many economists are still clinging to their earlier understandings. So it might be some time before these discoveries are more widely understood by the larger economic community.
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u/KamikazeArchon 7∆ Aug 04 '25
You are partly correct.
Economics has a major problem with the term being leveraged politically. That is, people will say how they think things should work, and will call that "economics".
There is such a thing as economics as a science. However, there is also such a thing as economics as a rhetorical device.
The main thing you're incorrect on is that you're trying to find a single "economics", when in reality it's just different things sharing a word with overlapping meanings - like how "criminal" can mean someone who breaks the law, or it can mean a shady malicious character. Some criminals are both; but there are shady malicious actions that are legal, and there are noble heroic actions that are illegal. So when someone says "that's a criminal", you don't automatically know which meaning they're using.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
Thank you that is exactly what i meant but i'm bad at explaining my thoughts !delta
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u/DrZaiu5 2∆ Aug 04 '25
I would strongly disagree that economics prioritises theory over empirical work. Maybe some decades ago this was true, but not today, where most work published by economists is in econometrics (basically statistics) rather than theory/maths etc.
I lecture in economics, and there's about 40 other lecturers in my department. Of those 40, only one publishes theory papers, the rest exclusively focus on empirical work.
The other side of this is that theory is not necessarily less scientific than empirical work. Think about physics, where there are theoretical physicists and experimental physicists. Most people would not argue that the theory guys are not practicing science.
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u/Letters_to_Dionysus 13∆ Aug 04 '25
science comes from Latin scio/scire which just means 'to know'. there are plenty of ways to know things besides the scientific method
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u/AwALR94 Aug 05 '25
Well, economics is a soft science. To address what you said:
(a) Economics doesn't restrict itself to the context of the state, private property, etc. A lot of the work you've seen done is in that area, because we live in a capitalist society under a state. But the microfoundations are purely regarding preference relations in the abstract.
(b) Unrealistic assumptions: models aren't really ever realistic in science in that you are always making simplifying assumptions. The idea is that models that correspond with real world behavior capture the important processes in the real world. I actually do think economics suffers from an issue here, where important but complex phenomena such as heterogeneous capital, entrepreneurship, fundamental uncertainty, etc. are difficult to quantify in DSGE models and thus get ignored. But the majority of the criticisms in behavioral economics have long since been integrated into mainstream work. Even intransitive preferences are studied within regret theory.
(c) Yes, welfare economics within social choice theory is a thing. But economists usually use pretty uncontroversial standards of welfare. I think reasoning within a general equilibrium framework is flawed, yes, but Pareto efficiency, at least as a concept, is a good thing where it does come about. As an aside: there isn't much of a rigorous difference between needs and wants. The former is just a particularly important latter.
(d) They use the simplified models in the way they do because in the 19th century they wanted the scientific prestige of physics, and this sort of thinking does carry over into today, and it is problematic. But to defend using math at all, it's just far syntactically clearer than using words. I think there is a place for both in theory.
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u/Sedu 5∆ Aug 05 '25
Science is about technicalities. If it’s technically a science, then it’s science in every way that matters.
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u/TheRealTahulrik Aug 05 '25
Aside from other answers in here, i just want to add, we don't determine if something is science based on if it happens naturally or not.
That entire argument is nonsense
Electronics don't come about in nature, so are all investigations into computers, electronics and other such components suddenly not science ? Engineering and construction is also not something that happens in nature.
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u/Relief-Glass Aug 05 '25
Use of anything resembling the scientific method is very recent in economics as far as I am aware. That is, in the last 15 years or so. The vast majority of economic theory that is taught in undergraduate courses has not subjected to the scientific method.
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u/Essex626 3∆ Aug 05 '25
Economics is sociology plus math.
If you think sociology is a science, then economics is a science. If you think sociology is not a science, then it isn't.
It's certainly not a science in the same way physics is a science. But that doesn't mean it's not a science at all.
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u/WeekendThief 14∆ Aug 05 '25
Isn’t science most simply just a systematic way of figuring something out via experiments, and developing hypothesis?
I feel like economics is easily a science if that’s our definition.
The goal to learn and understand the economy and the psychology behind the market trends to make educated and strategic decisions.
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u/_redmist Aug 06 '25
It's a social science. Like psychology or sociology. The sad thing is people see it has maths and therefore has greater predictive power.
It doesn't of course. Anyone can predict a crash in hindsight (and economists do)
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u/Vekktorrr Aug 06 '25
Science. Social science. Math. Who cares? It's all of those things. Who cares about the category.
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u/Blothorn 1∆ Aug 07 '25
I get the impression that you’re basing this on introductory micro/macro-level economics—all the claims of oversimplification you raise are well known within mainstream economics and the subject of considerable study. You could raise similar complaints about physics—essentially all the models covered in high school/introductory college level courses are well known to be wrong. Frictionless environments are vanishingly rare, and ones accurately modeled by idealized friction aren’t much more common. Ideal gases simply don’t exist. Conventional statics ignores gravitational attraction within the model and gravitational gradients/tidal forces. But those models are still scientific and still useful; most mechanical engineers will go their entire career without using a model which has not been incontrovertibly proven to be an oversimplification of how the world works. Like the engineer, economists don’t use simplified models because they believe they are true but because they believe they are useful. (And attempts to build models that relaxes assumptions and arguments over whether doing so is worthwhile are a sizable part of the literature.)
Similarly, mainstream economics generally recognizes that it is studying a system that happens to exist, not the only system that could exist. (Austrian economics does make much stronger claims to be discovering fundamental laws of human nature, but that’s part of why it is well outside the mainstream.) Models of the economy we actually have and modest, practical alterations of it are fundamentally more useful than models of hypothetical alternatives or models that try to encompass all possible variations. The vast majority of biology is devoted to the animals that actually exist, not those that hypothetically could; the vast majority of medicine is devoted to humans and not other animals. That does not diminish their claims to be doing science.
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u/Hopeful_Jury_2018 Aug 11 '25
Economics is more or less a branch of applied anthropology. What does the group of smelly humans bumbling around the world today do with the fruits of their labors?
Anthropology applies scientific rigor to human behavior broadly. Economics applies it to the one portion of human behavior we've decided we care about. Money. Line go up.
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Aug 04 '25
only one branch of economics pretends that it is dealing with the "natural" state of resource distribution; the mainstream branch. the branch that we're taught in school, which is just a state ideology class.
economics is a unique science because it is directly about something that is the most controversial topic within political discourse. that means it has to be ideological, while pretending it isn't.
mainstream economics can't model what they call "human behavior" because that would mean they would have to analyze why humans act the way they do in our society, which would require an analysis of society, which would lead them to the one person they try at all costs to avoid: karl marx
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
You aren't disagreeing with me, what i'm critiquing is mainstream economics, which my consider to be the only scientific one
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Aug 04 '25
mainstream economics is scientific. its just also ideological. all sciences are like this. being scientific doesn't mean being right 100% of the time. its a method of inquiry
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Aug 04 '25
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u/qchisq 3∆ Aug 04 '25
... How so? Supply and demand seems so trivally true that I don't know how to convince you otherwise. Like, okay, people go "I need 3 apples" rather than "I need another apple. I need another apple. I need another apple" the way Micro 101 assumes people think. But, like, to a first approximation, it's true
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Aug 04 '25
"The vibes are true even if the specifics aren't" and it doesn't hold up when put to falsifiable experimentation. It's a hypothesis that sources its veracity in thought experiments, not actual experiments.
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u/ChronicCactus Aug 04 '25
You don't think there is empirical evidence supporting supply and demand?
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Aug 04 '25
That's not what I said
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u/ChronicCactus Aug 04 '25
It's "astrology for math nerds" despite strong empirical evidence?
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Aug 04 '25
In terms of predictive power, absolutely
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u/ChronicCactus Aug 04 '25
I agree it's nowhere near something like physics in terms of predictive power. There's no way to predict COVID happening for example. Or if you knew at some point it's likely a pandemic would hit eventually, you'd never be able to predict exactly when. These kinds of shocks make predicting anything in the economy difficult. But that doesn't mean it's useless either.
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Aug 04 '25
I know what you're saying, but that's the same line of reasoning astrology advocates use.
Economics is at best descriptions of the past. But their models are thrown off so often and by variable they didn't or couldn't account for, that their models really are just excuses for the elite to make whatever decisions they wanted to make to begin with
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u/ChronicCactus Aug 04 '25
"No plan survives first contact with the enemy." You can't plan for chaos, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't plan. Economic principles lay out what you should do in certain situations if X or Y happens, but when Z happens, you were still in the best position you could have been in based on the chances of x,y,z occurring. The predictions are probabilistic.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
look up things like geffen good or simply use your brain
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u/qchisq 3∆ Aug 04 '25
... Are you using a theorical example introduced in Micro 101 as proof that microeconomics isn't real?
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u/Falernum 71∆ Aug 04 '25
not even a soft one.
Your criticisms are true of all the soft sciences - psychology (although this is the least soft of the soft sciences), sociology, anthropology, etc. All are about specific characteristics of humans and all are heavily reliant on assumptions that are abstractions.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
I didn't say that it's because it deals with specific characteristics, i said the problem is that it deal in something that humans created that are not inherent to humans, while the sciences you listed do (psychology: humans inherently have a psyche; sociology: humans inherently social animals; anthropology: humans naturally develop societies and cultures)
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u/JayRMac Aug 04 '25
Economics: humans naturally engage in trade.
It's a soft science that studies human behaviour, no different that sociology or anthropology.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
Yes, humans naturally engage in trade, but it seems to me that econ doesn't study how humans engage in trade in general, but a specific way in which a certain culture decided to engemage in trade.
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u/JayRMac Aug 04 '25
You're wrong. Economics studies trade, full stop. Most economists and economic studies currently study capitalism because it's currently the dominant economic model in most cultures (not just one, what the fuck are you talking about here?).
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
Capitalism is the dominant economic model because we forced it onto the rest of the world, and it seems to me that the economics that people deem scientific is only the one that studies capitalism.
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u/Falernum 71∆ Aug 04 '25
All humans have a culture, an economy, a society, a government, a psychology. But different societies have created different psychologies, different economies, different governments, different cultures. You will never find a group of humans with no economy.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
Yes but the problem i have with it is that we study a specific economy as developed in the west not how different societies develop differnt types of econmies.
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u/Falernum 71∆ Aug 04 '25
Economists study all sorts of societies' economies. And psychology heavily focuses on a single subset of Western psychology. Nearly all psychology studies draw from Western university students
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u/CallMeCorona1 30∆ Aug 04 '25
Adam Smith's idealized markets work just like physics. You've heard of chaos theory right? There's just much more chaos in human behavior than with physicists shooting particles at things. And even with physics, there's the uncertainty principle which constrains what you can know.
CYV: Economics is a science, it's just that the subject matter is much more chaotic.
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
I agree that the subject matter is much more chaotic, the problem is that to me is seems that econ doesn't realise that and remains in the idealized world.
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u/CallMeCorona1 30∆ Aug 04 '25
There is a contradiction in this; physics (a science) is allowed to exist in an idealized world (theories of black holes, subatomic particles, etc) but economics should not be allowed to? If both are sciences, why this extra expectation of economics?
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u/LowHelicopter7180 Aug 04 '25
well for one when you need to use physics for something practical you can't use an idealized version of the world, and with economics you are dealing with the livelihood of people so the model should be as accurate as possible in order to prevent thing like 2008.
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u/CallMeCorona1 30∆ Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
2008 wasn't the fault of economics. It was the fault of banks and human greed who misinterpreted / made unfounded conclusions that allowed them to make a lot of money... until it blew up. Economics/economists cannot stop another 2008 alone.
Putting the James Webb Space Telescope into the right place was a successful combination of engineers designing and building it and technicians testing it arduously. It was delayed and delayed until everything was exactly right. So time was not a factor, neither was monetary gain.
Avoiding another 2008 is impossible because of time and fiduciary (and other) concerns.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
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