Economics

I once started a correspondence course to study English, History and Economics for A levels. I never finished the course, got bored I think; I was doing reasonably well in the first two subjects but Economics was virtually a closed book to me. I don't think I ever achieved more than 5 out of 10 for any of my exercises.
It still is a closed book. Possibly because I was educated to be a mathematics person that the subject is so difficult for me. It isn't the exact science that, well, science is - or tries its best to be. I think it would like to be a science because in many texts there are big calculations of this and that and they look mathematical. But it isn't an exact science.
And there are so many factors working against its being able to fortell what might happen to the economy: things change in the world's markets, oil prices go up and then fall for no apparent reason. Indeed, reason doesn't appear to account for much in the world of economics.
Professor Evans who used to take an extra mural class I attended for a few years, said he was completely dim where the subject of economics was concerned. This was probably because his subject was philosophy where reason, of course, plays a large part. "Economics is mainly guess work," he used to say. "One economist will say this, another will say the opposite."
He also told us that he had once had his IQ tested and he scored 80!