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Dude, it's not a matter of an "Economics vs Science cage deathmatch, only one can survive". Any criticism you want to level at ivory-tower researchers for not accepting the value and utility of economic theories, is just as applicable to an economist who blinkers himself to the value of other disciplines. Alls I'm saying is economics isn't the answer to everything, and neither is any particular branch of science. If you have a complex problem like water supply, you're not going to get to the right answer by relying soley on concepts of personal property, or by hugging trees for that matter. Personally I think the distinction is pretty stupid, since economics is essentially just another branch of scientific study, albeit one that one that doesn't lend itself well to laboratory tests. Stuck up physics professors might not like the impreciseness of the whole thing, but no-one can deny that theroies of supply and demand seem to hold up pretty well to real world experience. Science is a process, not a profession: you observe, you make a theory to explain your observations, you test your theory through experiment, and modify it or discard it if it doesn't hold up to the test. Economists do that every day, except that we're the guinea pigs.
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