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Re "What Is Economics Good For?" (Sunday Review, Aug. 25):
I disagree with Alex Rosenberg and Tyler Curtain's characterization of science in general and economics in particular. They claim that a scientific discipline is to be judged primarily on its predictions, and on that basis, they suggest, economics doesn't qualify as a science.
Prediction is certainly a valuable goal in science, but not the only one. Explanation is also important, and there are plenty of sciences that do a lot of explaining and not much predicting. Seismology, for example, has taught us why earthquakes occur, but doesn't tell Californians when they'll be hit by "the big one."
And through meteorology we know essentially how hurricanes form, even though we can't say where the next storm will arise.
In the same way, economic theory provides a good understanding of how financial derivatives are priced (notwithstanding Mr. Rosenberg and Mr. Curtain's snarky reference to the Black-Scholes model). But that doesn't mean that we know whether the derivatives market will crash this year.
Perhaps one day earthquakes, hurricanes and financial crashes will all be predictable. But we don't have to wait until then for seismology, meteorology and economics to become sciences; they already are.
ERIC S. MASKIN
Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 26, 2013
The writer, a university professor at Harvard, is a 2007 Nobel laureate in economics.
Editors' Note: We invite readers to respond briefly for the Sunday Dialogue. We plan to publish responses and a rejoinder in the Sunday Review. E-mail: letters@nytimes.com
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