More generally, physics has a small number of moving parts and therefore tends to have more precise and unanimous answers on a broad array of topics. Economics is much more difficult and doesn't have the same precision. What's worse, economics deals with questions that often have important non-economic dimensions, which means that even when economists do agree on a "correct" answer, people may legitimately disagree with them for reasons of social justice, practicality, personal preference, or a hundred other things.
While I tend towards the left, one thing that bothers me about people on the left is that they fail to understand just this, that economics tends to work and that liberalism shouldn't tend to seek answers outside of the economics mainstream, but should seek to explain why these other reasons that Drum mentions should trump the economist's goal of economic efficiency. Things like this are why I can't claim that Democrats are smarter, on average, than Republicans. (4:39 AM)
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