[lint_roller]

Everyone's an armchair economist so I wouldn't count econ out.

I think that math/physics are more accessible to the layman. I know where to go if I want to get deeper into this subject.

I really don't know how to start becoming an amateur chemist or biologist. I've wanted to learn more about synthetic biology and gene therapy, but it's not as simple as cracking open a math book or going to a dev bootcamp. I wish these resources existed though! My best guess is because exploring chem and bio have bigger resource requirements like lab space.

[TheOtherHobbes]

I think math/physics are less accessible to the layperson, but more subject to Dunning-Kruger. There are so many popular accounts of quantum this and string that in the media that a lot of the population seems to feel qualified to hold an opinion on anything quantum-y. ("It's on TV" => "I'm encouraged to have an opinion about it.")

In reality it's literally impossible for most people to imagine how hard the math is - because an undergrad physics or engineering degree is barely even a warm-up for it.

I'd love to see a TV show that made it clear just how challenging the math is without reducing it to the usual storytelling.

Popularisation can be great, but maybe it would be good to get a realistic appreciation for the raw version into the public narrative.

[unchocked]

Biology, and I Assume chemistry as well, are in practice all about lore; the peculiarities of particular entities are where the action is & theory is a relatively small thing that falls out of that. So not only do you need a lab to do experiments, you need to be hanging around a lab to pick up all this disjointed lore.