Falsification, Deductivism, Physics and Time Reversibility and Irreversibility in Economic Systems: A Review

Considers two main strands of literature. The first deals with the tension between the falsificationist view of how economic know‐ledge could or should be acquired, and the view that economics is a separate,deductive science. The second concerns the metaphors used in economic analysis, the main contrast being between metaphors which involve homeostasis and time reversibility, and those that involve hysteresis and time irreversibility.