Nancy Folbre is an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She recently edited and contributed to “For Love and Money: Care Provision in the United States.“

Some say economics is not a science at all, because it doesn’t successfully predict the future. Others point accusingly at a lack of unanimity. Many construe fierce political convictions as a sign of bias.

Today’s Economist

Perspectives from expert contributors.

Wrong on all three counts. Both science in general and economics in particular are much more interesting than these formulas imply. The meetings of the American Economic Association and the larger umbrella of organizations in the Allied Social Science Association in San Diego in early January offered plenty of examples.

Seldom can any science accurately predict the future. In a region particularly susceptible to earthquakes, it’s impossible to say when and how cities like San Diego will be shaken. Sea levels are rising as a result of global climate change; no one knows exactly when they will flood the first floor of the luxury hotels.

Many economists, themselves, long for unanimity. One paper, “Views Among Economists: Professional Consensus or Point-Counterpoint?” by Roger Gordon and Gordon B. Dahl of the University of California, San Diego, presented at a session on “What Do Economists Think About Public Policy Issues?” used data from a regular survey of economic experts to assert that opinions differed little as long as extensive research was available.

In another paper at the same session, “Comparing Beliefs of Economists and the Public,” Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago, asserted that public opinion is least swayed by economists when economists are largely in agreement.

Two discussants – both with strong claims to economic expertise – begged to differ with the first of these presentations.

Paul Krugman of Princeton forcefully asserted that disagreements regarding macroeconomic policy are momentous. Justin Wolfers, currently at the University of Michigan, offered a sharp and funny analysis of policy differences between “Team Blue” and Team Red” among surveyed experts, acknowledging that, in some cases, he used Facebook pictures to infer political affiliation. His analysis got even more laughs from the audience than the official humor session on Friday night.

A voice from the audience complained that the expert panel survey, assembled by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, was limited to about six faculty members from each of the seven “most elite research universities in the U.S.” The session organizer seemed taken aback by the very possibility that any respectable economist might feel unrepresented by such eminences.

Differences among economists teaching at elite research universities and others are probably quite significant and deserve attention in survey research.

These differences of opinion don’t signal immaturity or inadequacy in scientific endeavors; they are a driving force of scientific progress. As the well-known philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn explained, dominant paradigms typically become encrusted and resistant to change, making it difficult for their adherents to even perceive anomalies that are inconsistent with existing theory.

Burgeoning research in behavioral economics speaks to this issue, pointing to many examples of putatively rational consumers behaving in distinctly irrational ways. So-called framing effects influence the way everyone, including scientists, interpret information. Sometimes the only way to see how one is implicitly framing a problem is to face a direct challenge from someone who frames it completely differently.

The late Professor Kuhn contended, even more assertively, that older scientists almost never relinquish a theoretical frame, but are, thankfully, eventually replaced by a younger generation that has smaller intellectual investments in the status quo.

Some economists are probably convinced that their own views, however imperfect, are more accurate than those of the public at large and that more unanimity (even if slightly forced) would increase the profession’s policy impact. They should, instead, consider how fully discredited the profession would be if all its members (rather than just a few leading lights) agreed on a policy measure that turned out, in retrospect, to be completely incorrect.

In other words, there are benefits to a diverse portfolio.

As Professor Zingales pointed out, the carbon tax, which most surveyed economists favor (as do I), is so disliked by voters that politicians of both parties are loath to raise it.

Political allegiances are clearly linked to theoretical frames. Knowing whether someone leans left or right is often makes it possible to predict where they stand in economic debates. But it does not follow that those who clearly or even vehemently state their allegiances are somehow more biased than those who don’t.

Trying to evenly split the difference between left and right defines a path that is about as predictable as either of the extremes – and heavily influenced by both.

Better to have differing views debated openly and to identify all sources of financial support for research. To its credit, the American Economics Association just officially adopted conflict-of-interest rules, as Ben Casselman wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “in response to criticism that the profession not only failed to predict the 2007-8 financial crisis but may actually have helped create it.”

Economists can’t vow impartiality. But they should always reach, with humility, for the truth.

The Marxist historian E.P. Thompson put it this way: “The evidence is there, not to disclose its own meaning, but to be interrogated by minds trained in a discipline of attentive disbelief.”

Article source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/the-science-of-prophets-and-profits/?partner=rss&emc=rss