Why Economics Should Be a Modest and Reasonable Science

Unlike the methodological sciences, such as mathematics and decision theory, which use the hypothetical-deductive method and may be fully expressed in complex mathematical models because their only truth criterion is logical consistency; the substantive sciences that have as their truth criterion the correspondence to reality, adopt an empirical-deductive method, and are supposed to generalize from often unreliable regularities and tendencies. Given this assumption, it is very difficult for economists to predict economic behavior, particularly major financial crises.