The economist has no clothes

In the Scientific American article ”The economist has no clothes”, Robert Nadeau despises the science of Economics because of its flawed foundations, namely the initial artificial borrowing of the methods and tools of physics with the purpose of using them in studying social phenomena, which have an entirely different nature. Needless to say, the modern researcher in Economics has broadly expanded his tools range and the complexity of these tools is sometimes higher than the current practice in natural sciences. However, Mr. Nadeau might have a point in arguing that certain limitations of the internal logic of the paradigm could lead to failure in tackling problems that, at least recently, have been proved to have a capital importance for the humanity.
However, a lengthier discussion might be required here. The point I would like to make is the following: studying natural sciences implies studying a set a laws and rules that have a certain consistency and a fundamental pattern that encompasses the motion of all known (or yet unknown) naturally occurring phenomena. The burden of the natural scientist is to correctly identify and provide a consistent and, if possible, unitary explanation for these phenomena. In contrast, I would argue, there is no such fundamental pattern that could be identified when studying the laws of social phenomena. The reason is that the underlying fabric of the social phenomena evolves at the same time with the evolution of humankind and in close connection with the technological evolution. The answers that the modern economist has to provide are not to age-old phenomena but to brand new challenges brought about by rapid development and by rapid technical progress. The modern economist has to provide real time answers (or models providing those answers) to real time phenomena, phenomena that never occurred in the past and do not have an immutable nature. Today the hot topic is climate change or the depletion of natural resources. Of course, the depletion or scarcity of natural resources has a somewhat permanent nature, and it has already found its place on the desktop of eminent economists, but it really might not be the hot topic or the priority for tomorrow’s society, when people would have learned to produce the necessities of life from a scant of the resources required today (think of Startrek-the SF movie, when you push a button, and the matter generating device will instantly provide you with the steaming hot and spicy favorite food).
In conclusion, the failure of the modern economist to provide useful answers to modern day problems might not reside in the limitations or the “wrong assumptions” of the paradigm but rather in the lack of preparation in recognizing and adequately modeling the newly emerging phenomena. In it also understandable why outstanding economists failed to provide answers, or worst, provided answers that were proven to be wrong for the problems we are confronting today: the reason is that certain phenomena simply did not exist at the time they used their prodigious minds to provide adequate and brilliant answers to the problems of their contemporaneous society.In the light of the arguments presented above, the recipe for the successful modern economist would be: work harder (i.e. read the classics), think faster (i.e. read the latest issues of the economic journals), and be prepared for the unknown (i.e. be prepared to change your mind and give up your dearest ideas)…but hey, THIS IS an age-old recipe:).