Yes, Economics IS a science
(Introduction to Economics, Lesson 5)
In studying resource problems, economists use rational and scientific methods. Economics is a science. We collect data. We consider variables. We form and test theories.
Economics, however, is very much a real world science. A physicist or chemist can often set up a carefully designed experiment in which most variables are kept constant, allowing them to see how changing one variable affects another. Economists, however, don’t often have the luxury of following such methods. For example, we can’t simply halve people’s incomes to see what effect this has on the demand for bread. People wouldn’t appreciate it!
Some economists do work in the field of Experimental Economics, in which research is indeed conducted in laboratory-type conditions, with volunteers being asked to respond to a variety of scenarios and incentives. It is difficult to be confident, however, that the reactions and decisions of volunteers in a laboratory experiment will reflect at all accurately how they would behave in the real world, when significant amounts of their own money and their own futures are at stake. Whilst the laws of physics are the same in the laboratory as they are in real-life scenarios, economic behaviour can’t be isolated so easily.
Economists work in a rather different, but no less scientific way than those who work in laboratory-based sciences. Economists make models of the world we live in. They may be graphical, diagrammatic models. They may be mathematical models. They may be complicated models contained in the bowels of a supercomputer — or they may just be straightforward models described in a sentence or two of plain English.
These models will all be simplified models of the real world. If they weren’t simplified, then we might just as well look at the real world and the real world is too complex for us to fully understand. We don’t, however, want them to be too simplified — otherwise they may fail to reflect the real world or teach us anything about how the real world works.
These models can then be used to predict behaviour. And if those predictions don’t prove accurate, we use that feedback to adjust our models so that our predictions can be more accurate in future. Many things are difficult to predict (and Economics has the added problem that predictions themselves affect the future), but just because economists can’t predict the future with absolute accuracy, this doesn’t mean we aren’t being rational and scientific. It doesn’t mean that those predictions aren’t much, much better than pure guesswork.
Furthermore, Economics is not a body of knowledge. Just like science, Economics is a rational way of looking at and understanding the world. It is not a list of things to remember. It is not about people telling you things and you being able to regurgitate that knowledge. There are no facts to learn — just tools and methods for working out the probable answers for yourself, in individual circumstances.
Economics is a set of skills, a way of thinking and a way of understanding the world. You can apply those skills to many different situations, but you won’t always get the same answers — so there are no ‘answers’ to learn!
As a student economist, you don’t, for example, learn that people will buy more of a particular good if you lower its price. There’s a very good reason why you aren’t taught this; because it isn’t always true! It’s the sort of thing a ‘Business’ student might be told — but an economist is supposed to have the intelligence and the skills to be able to analyse a market for themselves. They will then be able to predict whether a fall in price of a particular product in a particular place will or will not lead to more people buying that product.
Oh — and one final thing: Situations change and economic theories change — but the fundamental skills of an economist never go ‘out of date.’