Explanations are useless if they can't make predictions.

Non-falsifiable explanation aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

While it's a nice quote above, I suspect many economists would disagree with that reduction of their field to being only backwards looking.

> Explanations are useless if they can't make predictions.

Nonsense. Most sciences aren't about making predictions. Another example is linguistics. Linguists have reconstructed languages long extinct and figured out how they evolved into modern languages. Yet, they can't predict how these languages will evolve in the future. Does this mean these explanations useless? No. Why should they be useless? They may not be of interest to you, but that doesn't mean they're useless.

I disagree with you, strongly, but I'll just note this -- you appear to espouse the view (in you last sentence) that utility is the only value something can have. There are many things to know that lack utility but still hold value somehow. Useless does not mean worthless; but science really is about prediction.

I don't know what you're on about. It's been over a century, since economists adopted a subjective theory of value, according to which value is that—subjective. As such, we don't try to explain it, because it doesn't matter. You may think something is valuable because it's useful, or because some other reason. It makes no difference, and we don't care. All we care about is how much you are willing to pay for it. This tells us everything we need to know.

That's pretty arguable. There are many things that I find useful that I wouldn't pay for.