SEARCH BLOG: ECONOMIST or PHYSICIST
Recently there was angst among economists (see Econophysicists and High Powered Economics as well as Hanson, Caplan, & Knight) that they were not as understood or accepted as physicists.
Well... the pronouncements of physicists are not necessarily that well understood or accepted. Sure everyone talks with great familiarity about the speed of light or the theory of relativity or black holes... but, come on, who really understands that stuff? It boils down to "really fast" or "really big" or "stuff disappears"... some such thing. Oh sure, physicists will toss pages of Sanskrit or some other squiggles at us and tell us this is all the proof we need... and we bow down before them in awe of their intellectual presence.
For example, my 27-year-old son (who is brilliant in his own right) has rather wide-ranging interests and loves to ask, "Dad, have you heard about... (fill in the esoteric nouns)." Recently, he offered up this one... Going for a blast into the real past ....
Sure, that's why physicists get more respect than economists. Nobody understands quantum physics and everybody understands economics, so who can argue with a physicist? Anyone can argue with an economist.
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