by Hicks on the lack of scientific progress in economics Economics, also, is prone to revolutions; but they are mostly, I believe, of a different character … They are not clear advances in the scientific sense. This is not the fault of economists. It is a consequence of the nature of the facts which we study. Our facts are not permanent, or repeatable, like the facts of the natural sciences; they change incessantly, and change without repetition … Our practical concern is with the facts of the present world; but before we can study the present, it is already past … Our theories … are rays of light, which illuminate a part of the target, leaving the rest in darkness. As we use them, we avert our eyes from things which may be relevant, in order that we should
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Hicks on the lack of scientific progress in economics
Economics, also, is prone to revolutions; but they are mostly, I believe, of a different character … They are not clear advances in the scientific sense.
This is not the fault of economists. It is a consequence of the nature of the facts which we study. Our facts are not permanent, or repeatable, like the facts of the natural sciences; they change incessantly, and change without repetition … Our practical concern is with the facts of the present world; but before we can study the present, it is already past …
Our theories … are rays of light, which illuminate a part of the target, leaving the rest in darkness. As we use them, we avert our eyes from things which may be relevant, in order that we should see more clearly what we do see … It is obvious that a theory which is to perform this function satisfactorily must be well chosen; otherwise it will illumine the wrong things. Further, since it is a changing world that we are studying, a theory which illumines the right things at one time may illumine the wrong things at another. This may happen because of changes in the world (the things neglected may have gained in importance relatively to the things considered) or because of changes in ourselves (the things in which we are interested may have changed). There is, there can be, no economic theory which will do for us everything we want all the time …
So the ‘revolutions’ of economics are only sometimes similar to the ‘revolutions’ of science; most of them are of another character; they are changes of attention.