Lecturing Birds on Flying

Too large a proportion of mathematical economics are a mere concoction, as imprecise
as the initial assumptions they rest on, which allow the author to lose sight of the
complexities and interdependencies of the real world in a maze of pretentious and
unhelpful symbols.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1936
Because of the success of science there is a kind of pseudo-science, social science is
an example, which is not a science. They follow the forms, they gather data and
so forth, but they don’t get any laws, they haven’t found anything, they haven’t
got anywhere (yet). . .Maybe I am wrong, maybe they do know but I don’t think
so, I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to really get to know
something, how careful you have to be about checking the experiments, how easy
it is to make mistakes. I know what it means to know something and therefore
I see how they get their information and I can’t believe that they have done the
works necessary, and the checks necessary, and the care necessary. I have a great
suspicion, that they don’t know and that they are intimidating people. I don’t
know the world very well, but that’s what I think.
—Richard Feynman, 1981
Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
—Warren Buffett, 2008