I agree that economics is more relevant to the average person than astrophysics, but I don't see what that has to do with its being a hard science. Physics has testable hypotheses and experimental verification. The attempts at this in economics put it at the absolute low end of the soft sciences, as far as I can tell.
I don't see what that has to do with its being a hard science
I agree. I meant to make two separate claims.
The attempts at this in economics put it at the absolute low end of the soft sciences, as far as I can tell.
Economics has many subfields. The major division is between microeconomics and macroeconomics.
I think a lot of the "soft science" reputation the field has comes from the Macro side. This is a very tough field to study, since the study object (the world economy) is sentient, extremely intelligent, and adapts to any new findings. It can certainly be seen as a partially failed science as a result.
Macro gets the headlines, but the Micro side is what I'm impressed by. We have an enormous amount of knowledge accumulated over the last 200 years, and understand society and markets immensely more than before Adam Smith started thinking about this stuff.
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I agree that economics is more relevant to the average person than astrophysics, but I don't see what that has to do with its being a hard science. Physics has testable hypotheses and experimental verification. The attempts at this in economics put it at the absolute low end of the soft sciences, as far as I can tell.
I agree. I meant to make two separate claims.
Economics has many subfields. The major division is between microeconomics and macroeconomics.
I think a lot of the "soft science" reputation the field has comes from the Macro side. This is a very tough field to study, since the study object (the world economy) is sentient, extremely intelligent, and adapts to any new findings. It can certainly be seen as a partially failed science as a result.
Macro gets the headlines, but the Micro side is what I'm impressed by. We have an enormous amount of knowledge accumulated over the last 200 years, and understand society and markets immensely more than before Adam Smith started thinking about this stuff.