Physics envy

Physics envy (cf. "penis envy") is a phrase used to criticize procrustean attempts to make a discipline more "scientific" (or perhaps just more "sciencey") by aping the form of the physical sciences, usually through what is claimed to be excessive use of formal logic or mathematicization.

We control what
you think with
Language
Said and done
Jargon, buzzwords, slogans
v - t - e
“”In the humanities — literary criticism, anthropology and so on — there's a field called TheoryFile:Wikipedia's W.svg;

"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."

Now if [the physicists] say, "Well, look — we're doing real science and you guys aren't", then that's white male/sexist/bourgeois/whatever the answer is.
—Noam Chomsky, a linguist.[1]

The term was coined by biologist Joel E. Cohen in a 1971 issue of Science.[2]

A rather literal example of this is the borrowing of equations from contemporary physics by the "marginalist school" of economists during the 19th century.[3]

See also

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

References
  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzrHwDOlTt8&feature=youtu.be&t=401
  2. Physics Envy is the Curse of Biology, Data Deluge
  3. Philip Morowski. Physics and the "Marginalist Revolution". Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1984, 8, 361-379.
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