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comment by blackbootz

I would definitely agree with you.

There's a foundational difference between any social science and hard science because economics, for example, has no "basic laws and properties" that are truly predictive in the sense that a physical law is. That's not to say that the observations borne out again and again through observation in the realm of economics aren't useful.

But there's an inherent difference of opinion that can influence an economist into one set of seemingly-valid conclusions over another that can't occur the same way in, say, physics. People can legitimately disagree over whether or not and to what extent we should subsidize economic behavior we want to see more of. You can't disagree that my airfoil design is shit if my plane doesn't lift off the ground.

Your belief as to what maximizes human flourishing influences how you even frame the social universe, what sorts of assumptions you make, etc. It is self-evidently clear to some people that drugs are bad, that homosexuality is unnatural and thus intolerable, or that micropayments are the superior system for incentivizing the creation of content on the internet. It's harder to prove anyone's view of what's good for humans wrong because it's easy to find proof of that view in action, because human beings are so adaptable.