en you have to question it, and its proponents. LTCM is the
example that springs to mind.

~~~
juvenn
Yeh, you make the point. So there are economists who claims that future is
unpredictable, like Xiaokai Yang[1]. [1]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaokai_Yang>

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andreyf
What is "Natural Science"? A study of a "natural system"? What's a "natural
system"?

I think what the author means to say, and should have said in one paragraph,
is that economics has not yet developed an appropriate language for their
models. Economists are still trying to use calculus, which was thought of by
physicists do describe physical phenomena, which, when used in economics, is
leading to wildly inaccurate models.

~~~
christofd
Well put! The basic models of Econ were built on physics envy. They built
models on a fairly artificial set of assumptions that use calculus. Poppycock.

~~~
rwolf
Every last one of the economics courses I've taken was smothered in caveats
about the underlying assumptions--you could make a drinking game out of it.
Fields like behavioral economics address specific criticisms with new theory,
making BE even more likely to clearly and consistently note problems with the
foundation.

I'm okay with econ being a social science (it sure wasn't taught in the
Natural Science building at my school!), and I'm okay with being critical of
the way its framework extends into my life. I don't understand how anyone can
get through the gauntlet of econ warnings with hubris intact.

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jrockway
Why is every word in the title all-caps except for "Not"?

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CulturalNgineer
From Edge: Comment from George Dyson on “Economics Is Not a Natural Science”
By Douglas Rushkoff

“How to best transcend the current economic mess? Put Jeff Bezos, Pierre
Omidyar, Elon Musk, Tim O’Reilly, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Nathan Myhrvold,
and Danny Hillis in a room somewhere and don’t let them out until they have
framed a new, massively-distributed financial system, founded on sound, open,
peer-to-peer principles, from the start. An