[lutusp]

> Of course it is a science, but most critics of it should remember that it is a social science, and comes with all of the difficulty of proof that all social sciences suffer from.

This argues that science is sort of an ice cream store with dozens of flavors. But in the science store, there's just one flavor. Its ingredients are evidence and falsifiability. Either you can test an idea against reality unambiguously, and potentially falsify it, or you cannot. Fields that cannot produce unambiguous falsifications, and that won't discard failed theories, are not sciences. On that basis, economics is not a science.

Proving a theory true is not in science's purview -- nothing is every proven true once and for all, and all ideas are perpetually open to falsification in the face of new evidence. But the ability to prove a theory false is a must. No falsifiability, no science.

"No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion." -- David Hume

http://xkcd.com/435/

[lclarkmichalek]

Well, it's not as if Positivism doesn't exist in Economics, so I wouldn't dismiss the entire field just like that. Antipositivism may seem to be the dominant view (and indeed, it may be). However, I cannot help but feel that this conversation is framed very much around macroeconomics, and if people had more exposure/knowledge of other branches of economics, we might have a little more interesting discussion than outright dismissal by the second sentance.

Also, do you have to link that ruddy xkcd comic on every comment? I think most people saw it the first 2 times you posted it.