Part and parcel of studying or having studied economics, whether at A-Level or in university, is being involved in an ongoing debate of whether economics is more art or science. But unlike many decades back, modern day detractors of orthodox economic principles (i.e. “standard economic theory”) no longer simply say that economics is too abstract and inconcrete, and harp on the fact that there are no set-in-stone rules in economics like there are for the natural sciences such as physics (e.g. Newton Laws).

Instead, the latest trend is automatically assuming that economics is insufficiently unscientific (a.k.a. insufficiently correct), and arguing that economics needs to be made more “scientific” - even if just by an inch - in the light of newly discovered scientific rules from other disciplines, whether psychology, neuroscience or engineering.

But there really isn’t anything to worry about since any well-read A-Level Economics students can effectively rebutt the sheer uhmm… crap these sort of arguments depend on. In fact, a recent article by Robert Murphy does just that.

Let’s look at one example relevant to A-Level Economics. A specialist in psychology at Carnegie Mellon University has “discovered” that, “the mere information that you’re about to feel pain seems to be a source of misery,” or more simply, expected future pleasures and pains has effects on currently experienced pleasures and pains. But don’t we all (through “standard economic principles”) know this already?

We see this very principle in one of the most common examples in A-Level Economics textbooks: investment. We know very well that the expected pleasure (i.e. greater production or spending capacity) from investing provides us sufficient pleasure now to encourage us to actually defer our purchases today (which is generally a Bad Thing).

Of course, no one is saying that the various scientific disciplines cannot and will not yield improvements to economic theory. It’s just that there is great need to actually take a deep look at all the noise abundant in so-called intellectual circles today, and derive some sort of clear signal from it. Students especially cannot be allowed to absorb “pollution” of this kind, especially students in high school or a pre-university course. Imagine if every student thought economics was “not enough”. Who would read economics in university then?