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Business Economics Is Not A Science

Now and then, when I meet my previous teachers and classmates from high school, in order to avoid an embarrassing silence, a typical question asked is “So, what are you doing now after high school?”. I answer that I am studying International Business at the University of Maastricht and when they want a more detailed description and I explain that it is basically economics, the most of them say “ Oh, how nice.” and either roll their eyes or smile shortly and after a second actually make an impression as if they have pity on me. Experiences show that this reaction is due to a widespread view that people have: one merely starts studying economics when you lack a clear objective for a profession. This means many people regard economics as a temporary solution for a serious occupation. This fact suggests that economics is not taken seriously or more specifically economics is not regarded as a serious and adequate science. But why do so many people have such an impression of economics?

Views of science
One important aspect to this question is the conception most people have of the term science. Science is supposed to be able to establish hypotheses, develop theories and then apply these theories to reality in order to make helpful predictions of the future for mankind. However, it is necessary to state that different kinds of sciences exist and that science is not solidly grounded. On the hand there are natural sciences, such as biology chemistry and physics and formal sciences like mathematics and statistics. These are called hard sciences, since they refer more to empirical data and try to stay more objective than soft sciences on the other hand, such as law, psychology and of course economics, can. However, people often only associate hard sciences with the general term science which leads to wrong expectations. People then expect that for instance economists should be able to predict accurate prospective economic turns, such as the change in GDP and interest...