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Here, economics is different, largely because economic ‘experiments’ are different to scientific ones, in that they are historical events, whereas scientific experiments are deliberate attempts to confirm a theory – some of which fail. The Michelson–Morley experiment attempted to measure the speed of the Earth relative to ‘the aether’, the medium that scientists then thought allowed light to travel through space. The experiment found that there was no discernible relative motion, which implied that the aether did not exist. This unexpected discovery led to the rejection of the aether theory, and ultimately the adoption of the Theory of Relativity. This experiment can be repeated at any time – and it has been repeated, with increasingly more sophisticated methods – and the result is always the same. There is no way of getting away from it and returning to a pre-Relativity science, and nor is there any desire to do so by post-Relativity physicists.

In economics, however, it is possible to get away from the failure of theory to play out as expected in reality. An event like the GFC occurs only once in history, and it cannot be reproduced to allow old and new theories to be tested against it. As time goes on, the event itself fades from memory. History can help sustain a memory, but economic history is taught at very few universities. Economists don’t learn from history because they’re not taught it in the first place.

The economy is also a moving target, whereas the physical world, relatively speaking, is a stationary one. When a clash between theoretical prediction and empirical results occurs in physics, the state of unease persists until a theoretical resolution is found. But in economics, though a crisis like the GFC can cause great soul searching when it occurs, the economy changes over time, and the focus of attention shifts.

Finally, unlike physicists, economists do want to return to pre-crisis economic theory. Events like the GFC upset the ‘totem’ that characterizes Neoclassical economics, the ‘supply and demand’ diagram (Leijonhufvud 1973),⁴ in which the intersecting lines determine both equilibrium price and equilibrium quantity, and in which any government intervention necessarily makes things worse, by moving the market away from this equilibrium point. This image of a self-regulating and self-stabilizing market system is a powerful intellectual, and even emotional, anchor for mainstream economists.