Briefly, I considered heading this post 'Economic Methodology', but it would have drawn fewer readers. The titans in question, slugging it out over the methodological validity of economics are Tim Harford and Gideon Rachman, two eminent Financial Times columnists.

Gideon Rachman started the battle with a diatribe titled “Swipe Economists Off Their Thrones”. (The FT has a paywall but I believe you can still access a small number of articles by registering.) He argued that economists have physics envy, that the failure of macro forecasts means the entire subject is flawed, that it can't possibly make any claims to the scientific method, and all in all, it's better to study history. We can learn everything we need to know from study of the Tudors. OK, I exaggerate mildly, but here's his conclusion:

Rather than seeking to ape physicists, however, perhaps it is time
for economists to learn a few lessons from history, or more precisely
from historians. …. This way of
looking at the world is less obviously useful to practical men, seeking
to make decisions. But maybe it is time for an alternative to the brash
certainties, peddled by those pseudo-scientists, otherwise known as
economists.

The reply came a few days later from Tim Harford in “Models tell us more than hindsight.” Not very catchy, but it captures the essential point about social sciences, that they try to reduce the amount of detail to focus on some essential elements of human society for analysis, whereas history is all about the detail. Tim pointed out that many sciences use models and methods similar to those used in economics, and dissimilar to the formal experiments of classical physics – geology, for example, is an historical science, or evolution for that matter.

He wrote:

No doubt economists can learn from historians, but the search for
economic regularities should not be abandoned. It is not limited to
traditional economic approaches. We know much more about economics
thanks to the work of Robert Axtell (computer scientist), Cesar Hidalgo
(physicist), Duncan Watts (sociologist), Esther Duflo (an economist who
runs the kind of controlled experiments which, according to Gideon,
don’t happen in economics) and Daniel Kahneman (psychologist). All of
them use those pesky “models and equations”. Are mainstream economists
receptive enough to such invaders? The best ones are. The majority are
not, but that is a fact about academia, not economics.

No prizes for guessing which side of the argument I support, for all my love of history – and of course, the two subjects are complements, not substitutes. But it set me pondering the absence of many good books about economic methodology.

My own The Soulful Science is the best (ahem). It describes a lot of recent work in economics to try to dent the stereotype of macro forecasters to which Gideon Rachman clearly subscribes. There's one chapter about economics as a subject. But not much else in support of economists, although Partha Dasgupta has written some good papers.

There are lots of generally terrible books which are anti-economics. The most thoughtful critiques come from excellent economists. I'd single out anything by the marvellous Deirdre McCloskey, such as How To Be An Economist Although Human. There's also The Dismal Science by Steve Marglin, though it made me a bit cross. They shine out, however, in the midst of a sea of books and articles by non-economists and 'heterodox' economists who clearly don't know what 'orthodox' economists really do.

So Tim, I think here is your next challenge!