How come physics is so neat and everything else, let's say economics, is so messy...

I like your sense of humor.

And mathematicians think they are Satan.

really? how bad does it get? how come professional physicists still can make pretty good predictions but economists suck at predicting anything?

im guessing because humans are weird and sometimes unpredictable

>implying money is conserved in economics

Engineers think they're physicists.

Eww. No I don't.
I study the real world

Physics models something.
Economics (et al.) model highly abstracted systems which are composed of information which, at the creation of the system, were already highly abstracted.

So physics inherently has less room for error.

>physics
>exact

o i am laffin

Economic models are trying to solve far more complex problems of determining the evolution of a given system and their predictive power is not as good, to say the least

>physics is so neat
Literally what the fuck are you smoking?
I quit my physics MA after two years because it was so messy and handwavey.

Study pure mathematics if you want neatness.

What did you find messy?

>he thinks pure math isn't handwavey
go Google "axioms" for me sunshine.

>how come physics is so neat and everything else, let's say economics, is so messy?
Because the chemists get involved. Chemistry is where things start getting messy.

We know we are Satan.

human behavior is involved in economics, and isn't in physics.

axioms come from within.

>physics is exact
What are you talking about mate? Have you never heard of statistical physics?

the more assumptions you have to make in order to simplify or develop a theory the easier it breaks since it's nigh impossible to account for a giant amount of variables

overmathematizing/sciencing things is a huge problem and natural for man to do since we fear uncertainty, so we try and co-opt empirical and mathematical methods that when used correctly can rigorously eliminate doubt, but when used incorrectly merely lead us to make spurious correlations and specious conclusions.

Once you start applying things physics gets extremely messy. You basically only study the simplest models as an undergrad in order to understand the underlying theory.

>why are rigorous academics rigorous and other stuff not rigorous?
That's the whole point?

OP you retard.

>really? how bad does it get?
Really, really bad. Quantum physics is a lot about questioning reality (was it the observation that collapsed the wave function or is there, perhaps, an underlying reality?) and gets close to philosophy (who would rather prefer to maintain uncertainty and ambiguity, cite Vroomfondle et. al).

The important thing thou is that in Physics you are aware of the limits of knowledge and even acknowledge that there might be things nature prevents us from ever knowing.

>how come professional physicists still can make pretty good predictions but economists suck at predicting anything?

Good use of error bars go a long way. Those who are never in doubt but frequently wrong are no real physicists.

Take your pedophile cartoons back to .

Economics is a social science

Err... Physicists love to brush concepts and phenomena that they can't explain under the carpet.

But that's the problem with research... You need to publish or you will perish.

Economics has been tied to politics for a long time, neutering the field's ability to come to rational discussion.

Same can be said for every other social """science""".

Also, the most basic of economic interactions can be modeled fairly simply, it's only the large scale implications that are difficult, as degrees of freedom increase (same with physics).

Physical behavior is predictable if you make experiments involving the entities that obey (to whatever margin of error) some physical laws. For example, an electron in a constant magnetic field behaves always the same. In a larger system, uncontrolled effects might still average out and the total thing behaves in a predictable way.

Tied to this, in engineering, e.g. producing circuits and computer chips, you try to design a system in a way that all inferences that make the system behave differently are removed by construction (as best as possible, at least, e.g. temperature variations, impurities).

Now if you take five grown ups who know math, game theory and economics, put them in a room and make them play a game of finance, you might be able to predict stuff too. At least if you think they will realize best strategies - always figuring out what's to do, based on their own interest, makes it less random and is thus analog to following physical laws.

But in economics in practice, you have a large system and can't fix a subsystem very well. Physicists can't take into account either, when exactly North Korea starts a war, when a storm kills of Kenyan farm lands or who decides to lobby for this and that resource on the market.

Besides, we're lucky that elecromagnetism linearizes at large scales (Maxwell equations and the possibility for superposition of electromagnetic fields). Otherwise, humans wouldn't have been capable of controlling such systems either.

>physics is so neat

physics is a clusterfuck.

I'm moving towards mathematics because physics is a mess of real-world empiricism and stamp collecting mixed up in whatever mathematics kind of models some of it maybe some of the time.

Biologists think they are biochemists.
Biochemists think they are chemists.
Chemists think they are physical chemists.
Physical chemists think they are physicists.
Physicists think they are mathematicians.
Mathematicians think they are philosophers.
Philosophers think their thoughts transcend our mere mortal plane, access the raw fabric of the universe, and touch the mind of God himself.
Engineers think they are "all of the above" plus "real world experience mang you dumb lab monkeys wouldn't understand :^)" "we're basically scientists but better".
Programmers think they are engineers.

That's how it really goes.

what is the role of empirical data in economics?

Does it establish a theory or merely lend support to a theory already established on other grounds?

Engineers are too busy working to think they're something else.

Economics is the quantization of sociology, using money as a unit.
>There seems to be a relationship between input x and output y, i.e. f (x) = y
>Maybe there's linear relationship.
>Maybe there's a linear relationship in a closed system, but in the real world there's a pseudo equilibrium-seeking knock-on effect whereby markets observe that y = ax and correct with a term -bx, such that the equation becomes y = ax - bx
>Maybe b > a in some circumstances, negating the relationship between x and y.
>Or maybe that's all bullshit and x and y are primarily dependent on a third variable z.

Until you introduce actual historical data or limited experimentation, and check the models against them, it's all wankery.

You haven't studied graduate level economics, have you? Empirical papers are ubiquitous in economics, and most of them are aimed at uncovering relationships that you have decribed.

>Physics is exact.
Freshman detected.

That was my point. Most people are only going to experience econ as an undergrad, and they can rightfully walk away thinking that classical economics has far too many qualifiers to be particularly useful.

DISREGARD ANIMU POSTERS

They have an easy bullshit way to get around this with the magic phrase

>all things being equil

Stop.

Dumb fucking weeaboo