There are those who try to ascribe to economics an exactitude that is only found in the exact or physical sciences. Such an effort is doomed to failure since it is based on human action which is so fickle and unpredictable.
Economic scholar Harry Veryser notes that, “Aristotle pointed out the fatal flaw in trying to force economics into the realm of the speculative sciences. Although in mathematical sciences we can operate with a great deal of precision, in matters of human action, he wrote, ‘we must be satisfied to indicate the truth with a rough and general sketch: when the subject and the basis of a discussion consist of matters that hold good only as a general rule, but not always, the conclusions reached must be of the same order.’” (Harry C. Veryster, It Didn’t Have to Be This Way: Why Boom and Bust is Unnecessary—and How the Austrian School of Economics Breaks the Cycle, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Wilmington, Del., 2013, p. 16.)