Physics: Noble Prize vs. Milner Prize?

It has always been contentious when no more than three people share a Noble prize for invention or discovery.  And the further requirement of the associated validation.  Enter Mr. Yuri Milner, successful entrepreneur.  Mr. Milner has created one or more annual prizes of $3 million for the most influential thinker in fundamental physics.

From The Economist:

"Crucially, recipients earn the prize for inspired contributions that have yet to be experimentally verified, a tactic the Nobel committee eschews. If these later prove beautiful but wrong, so be it. The principle, Mr Milner explains, is to afford the world’s best brains the financial freedom to pursue fundamental ideas wherever these take them. It may have the added benefit of keeping some imaginative physicists away from Wall Street."

Read details here.

Economics is not Science

Excerpt from a letter in the Financial Times written by P. A. Stahl of American Astronomical Society, here:

"Sir, I appreciate Katy Delay’s effort (Letters, April 21) to portray economics as a science, but let’s be clear it is not. Economics has never been a science, it only adopts some scientific window dressing, a few of the methods (mostly statistics) and some jargon. But no serious empiricist would regard it as “science”.

For example, economics has no true objects of inquiry, say like physics, nor does it offer any consistent, theoretical models that don’t rely on statistical artefacts. Nor does economics make quality predictions based on said models, like atomic physics. If it had such capabilities, it would have foreseen the 2008 meltdown well in advance and warned everyone!

Even the most rudimentary student of statistics understands that regression models (even multiple) don’t show causality. The quants’ correlation factor (“gamma”) in their Gaussian Copula formula, in fact, helped precipitate the 2008 financial meltdown because they had zero insight into what they were really quantifying! Meanwhile, the illustrious economists – in their naive and incomplete statistical “modelling” – are prepared to ignore an entire raft of variables associated with what they call “externalities”. How very convenient!"