> So what I'm trying to say in a convoluted way is that economics should return to basics, ditch most of the mathematics with which it has become enamored and try to be a little more on the "social science"-side of things: more observation of humans and their acts, less abstract computations.

An interesting article (that was posted to HN a while back) that discusses this is "How economists rode maths to become our era’s astrologers": https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-o...

Though it's been posted a few times, there hasn't been that much discussion on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2Faeon.co%2Fessays%2...