One of the genuinely brilliant minds of the last century, Feynman contributed in numerous areas. Not the least of his contributions was to rigour in thinking. In this series of blog pieces I record some of his observations which I have found most insightful.

He noted that while in the physical sciences we have a number of confirmed theories which account for various phenomena, this is true only at certain levels or scales. Thus he cites the very well specified body of laws we have which describe and explain how and why water goes over a waterfall and descends to the pond or river below.

What we do not have he notes, is any body of law or theory which tells us how a specific body of water in a specific waterfall will unfold in the particular pattern it will while obeying the larger scale generic laws (gravity and so on). This strikes me as having important counterparts in economics.

We have a well elaborated law of demand for example. We do not have laws and theories which tell us in any meaningful fashion quite how a particular demand curve will unfold.

In this sense at least economics is no better but no worse than physics - a point often lost on journalists, politicians and the like.