[mynameishere]

In late nineteenth century, the term "political economy" was generally replaced by the term economics,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy

Economics isn't a science. Physicists can agree on 99.99 percent of what they talk about, and the other .01 percent is agreed to be unknown or arguable. Economists can barely, just barely, hold a tenuous consensus on things like comparative advantage. The reason economists "get it wrong", is:

1. They want to direct the money into XYZ set of pockets instead of ABC set of pockets, thus they're always "wrong" as for as ABC is concerned, and

2. They don't have the predictive consistency typical of scientists because...they aren't scientists.

[yummyfajitas]

Physicists working on something close to relativity, mechanics, E&M or QM (not including foundations of QM) can agree on 99% of what they talk about.

Systems biologists can't, nor can climate scientists, oceanographers, ecologists, geophysicists or astronomers.

A few fields (namely the ones taught to physics majors) have a simple unified theory that every sane person can agree to. The rest are messy, much like economics.

[roundsquare]

> Systems biologists can't, nor can climate scientists, oceanographers, ecologists, geophysicists or astronomers.

Notably, all fields where you can't do controlled experiments.

[christofd]

Hmm... they have the capability of scientists: take current financial theory, e.g. Journal of Finance... these guys are high caliber mathematicians and physicists...

Also, the work done in Econometrics and Statistics in the field is totally solid. So, I wouldn't say they're not scientists. Or take Game Theory etc. - a lot of fields in Econ could just as well be in AI.

Anyway, macro's set of classical assumptions of modeling aggregate decisions based on rationality/ price-taking is too simple. Eventually we'll have to embrace more ideas out of complex systems analysis... but then all those neat macro formulas might not work out so well.

My two cents.

[ojbyrne]

Having done some actual studying in the social sciences, I agree with "isn't a science." There's a lot of smart people working to make those quasi-sciences into actual sciences, but they repeatedly run up against the basic obstacle that you can't ethically do scientific experiments on humans, except in rare circumstances.

That does not mean that the social sciences are unimportant. In fact the amount of money (which you alluded to) means they are actually perceived as important. Once upon a time physics wasn't a science either.