It is well-known that mainstream economics, in an attempt to attain the status of a 'science', has become unduly obsessed with mathematical formalism. The obvious irony is that this obsession comes at the price of scientific accuracy, since the mathematical models to which it so slavishly adheres often (if not usually) bear little resemblance to reality.
This irony is multilayered; for not only has economics deviated from science, it has actually approached an art form. The models are primarily valued for their elegance and aesthetic appeal rather than for their ability to capture the real world, from which they abstract to the n-th degree. They usually contain a grain of truth - itself often highly stylised - around which they proceed to construct an elaborate system of self-referential relations. To my mind, this methodology is characteristic of art, not science.
This irony is multilayered; for not only has economics deviated from science, it has actually approached an art form. The models are primarily valued for their elegance and aesthetic appeal rather than for their ability to capture the real world, from which they abstract to the n-th degree. They usually contain a grain of truth - itself often highly stylised - around which they proceed to construct an elaborate system of self-referential relations. To my mind, this methodology is characteristic of art, not science.
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