The term "physics envy" was first coined by biologist **Joel E. Cohen** in a 1971 issue of _Science_. Cohen used it to critique attempts by disciplines like the social sciences to emulate the mathematical rigor and precision of physics, often at the expense of accurately capturing the complexities of their own fields In 2003 Charlie Munger lectured on the topic at UCSB where he criticized economists for aspiring to the precision of physics, a tendency he labeled ["physics envy."](https://www.safalniveshak.com/latticework-mental-models-physics-envy/) He argued that this craving for exactness led to flawed models, such as the efficient market theory, which failed to account for the complexity and unpredictability of human behavior and markets. John Mauldin began to champion this idea in his weekly letter: Thoughts from the Frontline on April 6th, 2013: >Physicists and chemists deal with observable, measurable events occurring in controllable conditions. Economics has physics envy. Economists want to be scientists playing with observable data and precise mathematical models. However, economic experiments are frequently not observable, often not measurable, and almost never controllable. They are typically conducted inside of computers, using models based on assumptions that make the models possible – and often assuming away the real world. Yet we keep conducting our little experiments. It’s enough to drive even a normally cheerful person like me to despair. >[*The Theology of Inflation*](https://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/the-theology-of-inflation) Over the coming years Mauldin would come back to this idea over and over again: >**The passion for finding the system in experience, replacing surprise with order,** **is a persistent part of human nature**. In the late eighteenth century, when Smith wrote _The Wealth of Nations,_ the passion for order found its fulfillment in the most astonishing intellectual achievement of the seventeenth century: the invention of the calculus. Powered by the calculus, the new physics of Isaac Newton and his followers wrought mathematical order from what was previously a muddle of alchemy and astronomy, projection and prayer. The new physics depicted a universe governed by tersely stated rules that could yield exquisitely accurate predictions. > >Science came to mean the elimination of surprise. It outlawed miracles, because miracles are above all unexpected. The elimination of surprise in some fields is the condition for creativity in others. If the compass fails to track North, no one can discover America. The world shrinks to a mystery of weather and waves. The breakthroughs of determinism in physics provided a reliable compass for three centuries of human progress. Inspired by Newton's vision of the universe as "a great machine," Smith sought to find similarly mechanical predictability in economics. In this case, the "invisible hand" of market incentives plays the role of gravity in classical physics. Codified over the subsequent 150 years and capped with Alfred Marshall's _Principles of Economics,_ the classical model remains a triumph of the human mind, an arrestingly clear and useful description of economic systems and the core principles that allow them to thrive. Ignored in all this luminous achievement, however, was the one unbridgeable gap between physics and any such science of human behavior: **the surprises that arise from free will and human creativity.** The miracles forbidden in deterministic physics are not only routine in economics; **they constitute the most important economic events**. For a miracle is simply an innovation, a sudden and bountiful addition of information to the system. Newtonian physics does not admit of new information of this kind – describe a system and you are done. **Describe an economic system and you have described only the circumstances – favorable or unfavorable – for future innovation**…. > >Flawed from its foundation, economics as a whole has failed to improve much with time. **As it both ossified into an academic establishment and mutated into mathematics, the Newtonian scheme became an illusion of determinism in a tempestuous world of human actions. Economists became preoccupied with mechanical models of markets and uninterested in the willful people who inhabit them**. >[Excerpted from *Knowledge and Power* by George Gilder](https://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/forecast-2014-the-human-transformation-revolution) **Case Studies** - [[CHG Issue 179 The False Prophets of Economic Forecasting]] - [[CHG Issue 130 Discerning Expertise]] Explore Further: [Philsophical Economics](https://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/) | [[Risk]] Tags: Your support for Cedars Hill Group is greatly appreciated <form action="https://www.paypal.com/donate" method="post" target="_top"> <input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="74PGN8ZXHQVHS" /> <input type="image" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donate_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" title="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!" alt="Donate with PayPal button" /> <img alt="" border="0" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1" /> </form>