I'm sort of baffled by all this talk that economists are poorly treated by the public at large. Robin Hanson wants the credulity he imagines physicists have. On the other hand, Robin Hanson also wants to restructure health care and economic policy, while physicists tend to just tell me the universe is cool, so the increased skepticism Hanson is sensing may just be the natural tension engaged when he tries to screw with people's lives.
Physicists aside, economists strike me as the best treated of all the sciences engaging with the public realm. When's the last time you saw a major paper quote a sociologist's views on a serious matter of public policy? That some scientists are treated with a credulous curiosity as they theorize about alternative universes is not the same thing. If physicists ever deploy string theory to try and eliminate the minimum wage, you'll see a rather more hostile reaction.
Meanwhile, the fact that this stuff is coming from Hanson proves why economists don't get to simply pronounce on matters of public policy. Hanson is a sort of self-styled, contrarian genius whose website pronounces that "I have a passion, a sacred quest, to understand everything, and to save the world. I am addicted to "viewquakes", insights which dramatically change my world view." All of which is well and good, but it means his career has been based on arguing that everyone else -- economists included -- are going about things all wrong. In other words, economists disagree with each other and routinely turn out to be wrong. That their disputes are empirical and their mistakes rigorously implemented isn't much comfort.
More: self-described "recovering economist" Echidne has more on the silliness of all this and Megan (rapidly becoming one of my favorite, self-critical economists) has more on the "white-collar welfare" that is modeling.
