Physics envy

{{Languagenav}}
{{cquote|In the humanities — literary criticism, anthropology and so on — there's a field called {{wpl|Critical theory|Theory|;}}<br><br>"We're just like the physicists. ''They'' talk incomprehensively? ''We'' can talk incomprehensively! ''They'' have big words? ''We'll'' have big words! ''They'' draw far-reaching conclusions? ''We'll'' draw far-reaching conclusions! We're ''just as prestigious'' as they are."<br><br>Now if [the physicists] say, "Well, look — ''we're'' doing [[Scientific_method|real science]] and ''you guys'' [[Pseudoscience|aren't]]", then that's [[white]] [[male]]/[[Sexism|sexist]]/[[bourgeois]]/[[Time_cube|whatever]] the answer is.|||[[Noam Chomsky]], a linguist.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzrHwDOlTt8&feature=youtu.be&t=401</ref>}}
'''Physics envy''' (cf. "[[Sigmund Freud|penis envy]]") is a phrase used to criticize procrustean attempts to make a discipline more "[[science|scientific]]" (or perhaps just [[technobabble|more]] "[[sciencey]]") by aping the form of the [[physics|physical sciences]], usually through what is claimed to be excessive use of [[formal logic]] or [[mathematics|mathematicization]].

The term was coined by [[biology|biologist]] Joel E. Cohen in a 1971 issue of ''[[Science]]''.<ref>[http://www.datadeluge.com/2012/01/physics-envy-is-curse-of-biology.html Physics Envy is the Curse of Biology], Data Deluge</ref>

According to scholars such as Philip Mirowski, and Innes Abby, an example of physics envy was the {{wpl|marginal revolution||,}} that gave birth to neoclassical [[economics]]. The original neoclassical economists such as Léon Walras and Willian Jevons, they argue, relied on mathematical physics for its theoretical framework - even when they didn't have the required mathematical knowledge to make their analogies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Innes |first=Abby |title=Late Soviet Britain: why materialist utopias fail |date=2023 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-009-37362-3 |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom New York, NY}}</ref>{{rp|25}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mirowski |first=Philip |title=More heat than light: economics as social physics: physics as nature's economics |date=1999 |publisher=Cambridge Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-521-35042-6 |edition=1. paperback ed., reprinted |series=Historical perspectives on modern economics |location=Cambridge}}</ref> The physics envy, according to Mirowski, would culminate in the 20th century in the works of the [[John_Maynard_Keynes#Neo-Keynesianism|neo-Keynesian]] economist Paul Samuelson, perhaps the most influential [[America]]n economist of all time. This may not mean, however, as much as some people seem to think. While reviewing Mirowski's book, the [[Nobel Prize|Nobel]] Memorial Prize laureate economic historian Joel Mokyr claimed that economics has already moved beyond the idea that it can be as precise as physics decades ago.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mokyr |first=Joel |date=1991-09 |title=More Heat Than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature's Economics. By Philip Mirowski. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp. xii, 450. $59.50. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050700040031/type/journal_article |journal=The Journal of Economic History |language=en |volume=51 |issue=3 |pages=762–764 |doi=10.1017/S0022050700040031 |issn=0022-0507}}</ref> Economist D. Wade Hands had a similar opinion, arguing that the fact that early neoclassical economics had inconsistencies means that the entire field is inconsistent is a [[non sequitur]], as many, many other thigs influenced modern mainstream economics.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hands |first=D. Wade |date=1992-03 |title=More Light and Less Heat Mirowski on Economics and the Energy Metaphor |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/004839319202200106 |journal=Philosophy of the Social Sciences |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=97–111 |doi=10.1177/004839319202200106 |issn=0048-3931}}</ref>
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==See also==
*[[Jacques Lacan]] — the conflation of physics envy with penis envy
*[[Power plus prejudice]]
*[[Scientism]]
*[[Sokal affair]]

==Further reading==
*Julio Segura and Carlos Rodríguez Braun (eds.), ''An Eponymous Dictionary of Economics — A Guide to Laws and Theorems Named after Economists'' (2004), Edward Elgar Publishing

==External links==
*Lo, Andrew W. and Mueller, Mark T., [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1563882 Warning: Physics Envy May be Hazardous to Your Wealth!] (March 12, 2010).
*[http://specgram.com/CLIII.2/08.phlogiston.cartoon.zeta.html Physics vs. Physics Envy]

==References==
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{{stub|science}}

[[Category:Neologisms]]
[[Category:Philosophy of science]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Categories: Neologisms, Philosophy of science, Physics