Speaking at a debate hosted by the LSE Student Union, Lord Robert Skidelsky critiqued the state of economics today, characterising the field’s current focus as ‘too much maths and too little history’.

This characterisation will not come as a surprise to undergraduate economics students who struggle with the plethora of equations they encounter.

Comparing university economics curricula today with those of the 1970s and 1980s reveals a shift toward a more quantitative approach. The rationale behind this shift is that the subject has become ‘more rigorous’. By this logic, Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek had merely been throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

John Geanakoplos of Yale University suggests the Cowles Foundation ushered the transformation of Economics ‘from a verbal subject, political economy, into a mathematical subject’ that was ‘amenable to mathematical analysis just like chemistry is’. Yet Western economies in the 1980s, driven more by the social philosophies of Friedman and Hayek than by mathematical models, were wealthier then compared to how they are today. What purpose do elaborate mathematical models serve if the economy is worse today than it was before this shift in economics, which has morphed purely into econometrics?

Moreover, do mathematical models accurately capture human behaviour, not only in economics but in all social sciences?

With the social sciences becoming more mathematical under the preteens of adding ‘rigour’ to the more ‘subjective’ fields, they have, in many ways, become less rigorous. Psychology, ‘arguably’ another social science, has practically become psychiatry with fewer required credentials. Similar to economics, where Friedman and Hayek are barely mentioned in introductory undergraduate classes, psychology courses make only passing references to Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Psychology, particularly with the rise of psychometrics, has shifted toward a more methodological approach and, like economics, has diminished its social and philosophical elements. Even the subject of philosophy has become mathematical, as surprising as that may sound. At universities, philosophy classes often focus more on the ‘logical’ or ‘methodological’ analytic school of philosophy, in contrast to the more ‘literary’ continental school. In analytic philosophy, it is not uncommon to find students working with Bayes’ theorem.

However, simply incorporating mathematics into fields where it has no place does not make them more rigorous. If anything, this departure from clear expression and the art of rhetoric has undermined rigour in the social sciences. With the emergence of niche modern disciplines like gender studies or East Asian studies, it is important not to attribute their shortcomings to a lack of mathematics or natural sciences being injected into social sciences. The decline in discourse and critical thinking reflects the failure of social sciences to cultivate the skills that were once valuable to the field, falling into a state of self-rejection. Instead of turning economics into a mere extension of applied mathematics, psychology into a cheap substitute for psychiatry, or other social sciences into natural sciences, how can rigour be effectively established?

Rhetoric classes played a significant role at the turn of the 20th Century in the United States and other Western countries. These classes, once taught from secondary school through university, have nearly disappeared from 21st Century secondary education, along with classroom debate. Classical studies have also largely ceased to be taught in secondary schools and are now found almost exclusively in tertiary education. Few people know the roots of Western Civilisation or the literature and philosophies that shaped it, yet many are quick to point out its flaws. Sprinkling some mathematics into social science courses does little to provoke insight or critical thinking; it will not make students more open to dialogue or prevent them from becoming intensely enraged with those who slightly diverge from their mostly unchallenged social or political views. In other words, mathematics will not restore the rigour that once characterised the social sciences.

Whether to provide a pretence for more government intervention or to dismantle sound social theories by introducing complex formulas, there has been a drive to make the social sciences less social. Economics now shows a total disregard for the fact that people are irrational actors whose interactions cannot be measured like those of industrial robots. Academia seems to have forgotten the ‘social’ aspect of the term ‘social science’ and has given the impression that it wants nothing to do with it. Perhaps this is due to the belief that it can be done by anyone. While many can mathematically put 2 + 2 together, it is less common to find those who understand 2 + 2 in relation to social theories or what is best for society.

Along with fields like philosophy and psychology, there has been a tendency to offset their social elements with a greater emphasis on mathematics or neurochemistry. We can only hope this trend will end and that we will return to more qualitative ways of understanding ourselves and our interactions.