In a recent article that first appeared in the Financial Times on April 15th 2015, the British leading economist John Key, discusses the reform of the economics curriculum, stressing his “desire to reform [the discipline] from inside rather than join the gang who plan to attack the Winter Palace”. The core of his reasoning, re-launched by the Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET) in a widely debated Facebook post, concerns the fact that “no one would cross a bridge built by a heterodox engineer.”
This misleading argument is based on the tacit assumption that economics is in itself a scientific discipline, or at least that it is solidly grounded on scientific disciplines (just like physics and chemistry in the case of engineering). This is largely incorrect in the case of economics, and stems from the illusion that grounding a discipline in mathematics (as is the case with present-day economics) it is a sufficient condition to certify its scientific status.
Francesco Sylos Labini 