Although ethics teaches that virtue is its own reward, in economics we get taught that reward is its own virtue. When you get drunk, you can tell everyone that you are just researching the law of diminishing marginal utility. Econometricians do it if they can identify it. Applied econometricians do it even if they can't. Economists do it with Slutsky matrices.
Economists do it discretely AND continuously.
Economists do it on Leontief's table. Heard at the Bocconi university in Milan. He walks along most daintily, because his balls are crystal. MIT An economist is a trained professional paid to guess wrong about the economy. An econometrician is a trained professional paid to use computers to guess wrong about the economy.