What is Economics?
No brief description can offer clear guidance to the content and character of economics –but numerous writers have attempted just that. An especially useless, though once popular, example is: “Economics is what economists do.”
Similarly, a notable economist of the last century Alfred Marshall called economics “a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life”. Another notable Lionel Robbins, in the 1930s, described economics as “the science of choice among scarce means to accomplish unlimited ends." (This “definitions” has considerable currency still, though no one seems to know just what choices, if any, it might exclude from consideration.)
During much of modern history, especially in the nineteenth century, economics was called simply “the science of wealth”. Less seriously, George Bernard Shaw was credited in the early 1900s with the witticism that "“economics is the science whose practitioners, even if all were laid end to end, would not reach agreement.”
We may make better progress by comparing economics with other subjects. Like every other discipline that attempts to explain observed facts (e.g., physics, astronomy, meteorology), economics comprises a vast collection of descriptive material organized around a central core of theoretical principles. The manner in which theoretical principles are formulated and used in applications varies greatly from one science to another. Like psychology, economics draws much of its theoretical core from intuition, casual observation, and “common knowledge about human nature”. Like astronomy, economics is largely nonexperimental. Like meteorology (also largely nonexperimental), economics relatively inexact, as is weather forecasting. Like particle physics and molecular biology, economics deals with an extraordinary array of closely interrelated phenomena (as do sociology and social psychology). Like such disciplines as art, fantasy writing, mathematics, metaphysics, cosmology, and the like, economics attracts different people for different reasons: “One person’s meat is another person’s poison.” Though all disciplines differ, all are similar in one respect: all are meant to convey an interesting, persuative and intellectually satisfying story about selected aspects of experience. As Einstein once put it: “Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our senseexperience corresponded to a logically uniform system of thought.”
Вариант №2
I. Спишите, подчеркните сказуемое. Определите видовременную форму и залог глагола. Переведите предложения на русский язык:
1. The news will be of great interest.
2. The train leaves at 12.30.
3. I'm working now.
4. Charles Babbage, a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, invented the first calculating machine at 1812.
5. Do you work at this lab?
6. That machine did complicated calculation faster than any mathematician.
7. The toys are made in Japan.
8. I won’t tell you anybody about it.
9. Have you ever been to Liberia? –Yes, I was there in May.
10. The conference will be held in May.
II. Поставьте предложения в вопросительную и отрицательную форму. К выделенным словам задайте специальные вопросы.
1. They are leaving for Moscow tomorrow.
2. I have already examined the market.
3. They discussed possible pricing yesterday.
4. The train arrives in Moscow at about 19.00.
5. He will enter the Management faculty.
III. Поставьте вместо точек модальные глаголы или их эквиваленты.
1. The buses were full, I … take a taxi.
2. What were your instructions about phoning, Bill? –I … phone him at 6.00.
3. Tom was often late and his boss told him that he … come earlier.
4. The policeman told the driver that he … drive more carefully.
5. The woman is looking ill. She … see a doctor.
