The issue here is one of vocabulary, but it's an important issue nonetheless. Perhaps if we stop treating calling non-sciences "sciences," the credibility of real science will be improved, and the formerly unassailable opinions of economists will come under more scrutiny. I think that would be a good thing.
On the other hand, the Chicago school is certainly empirical, and to this extent, theories can (frequently) be investigated for proof or disproof.
That said, I tend to subscribe to the Austrian school, which I believe we can agree does not qualify as a science.
It's simply not possible for Chicagoans (is that the word?) to test all their ideas. There are plenty of theories for which no real-world data exists, so they must remain as speculation for now.
And I'm extremely sympathetic to the Austrian ideas. I love Mises' Human Action (at least the parts of it I've been able to get through so far). At the same time, I must acknowledge that the deeper one goes into such reasoning, the greater the chance for failing to notice that you made an assumption, one that may be wrong. So there's a necessity to get back to a touchstone of the real world occasionally.
It may not seem so, but it's easy for pure logic to go astray. Mathematicians pride themselves on logical rigor, but the fact is that many modern-day mathematical proofs are so complex that no one is really sure that they're correct.
And I'm dismayed that the Keynesians have been crowing about multipliers of late, when all of our experience during the 70s has shown us fundamental flaws in the Keynesian philosophy (yes, you can easily have high inflation and high employment at the same time!).
That's about the size of it. I usually see it raised in a political context, where someone doesn't like the implication that some desired program isn't budgetary feasible or has any conceivable economic drawbacks. It's a sort of foot-stamping rejection of problems that reminds me a lot of global-warming denialism.
As for the global warming example, everyone, especially those interested in OB or LW, should read The Deniers (http://www.amazon.com/Deniers-Renowned-Scientists-Political-...). The author still believes in agw even after assembling all the evidence in the book. Every one of the experts still accepts global warming, they apparently believe that only the information they are personally and professionally acquainted with was misused by the zealots and everything else was accurately reported by the media.
I don't think the "stupidity" here is mine, and I am gratified to avoid your up-vote.
The notion that the market isn't reflecting our values is silly it seems to be the only reflection of our values. The title of this article is correct in that economics is not a science on the level of physics or chemistry but it's not exactly something you can just disregard entirely either.