History (or its academic study) is a lot like Economics, and historians will be the first to admit it!

Historians recognize that there are no "historical laws" comparable to the infamous "Law of Supply and Demand". Like Economics, there is no way to set up controlled experiments to test hypotheses, and the collection and interpretation of data, or the prediction of outcomes, is extremely difficult (if not impossible) and can vary enormously amongst historians.

There are "schools" and "theories" and "fashions" that vary substantially over time and are constantly changing, not because new data is available, but because the discipline itself is constantly re-examining its assumptions and analyses. These guys are always arguing with each other, and there is no organizing theory behind the discipline, like Atomic Theory in Chemistry or Classical, Relativity and Quantum Theory in Physics. Geology has Plate Tectonics, Biology has Evolution/DNA, Economics has two theories, Capitalism and Socialism, and there is no reconciling the two.

Come to think of it, academic Geography is also constantly re-evaluating its theories and abstractions. I know, I have an MA in Geography and I was constantly arguing with my professors and fellow students about such unprovable concepts as "Regional" analysis and
"Central Place Theory", "Land Use", "Geopolitics" and "The Propagation of Innovation Waves".

Geography is like history, except its about space instead of time. These concepts are helpful, but they are not based on the usual scientific paradigm of observation, hypothesis and testing found in the hard sciences. Keep in mind, when I studied Geography the modern age of computers and satellites and mathematical models had not yet taken hold. It was all a lot of hand-waving and navel-gazing to this astronomer--vague patterns were visible but it was impossible to fit them into a conceptual schema that was open to systematic, critical analysis.

This is not to say that Geography, like History and Economics (and Philosophy) IS NOT a science. But it is more akin to cultural anthropology or behavioral psychology. or sociology. It is certainly worth studying and sometimes rigorous methods, like statistics, can be employed, but IT IS NOT A HARD SCIENCE. New concepts and ideas are usually introduced as the revelation or insight of its practitioners, not because new data has turned up. Remote sensing, data processing and Geographic Information Systems have made Geography a branch of engineering, I doubt if PhD candidates in the field even study "Central Place Theory" anymore. They're all into spatial database design now.

Thanks for pointing that out. I should have brought it up earlier myself, I survived three years of academic arguments as a Geographer. I should have picked up on it myself.

Again, I'm not implying soft disciplines are somehow less important or easier than fields like Chemistry. Just that they are different.

Economists, OTOH, don't just want to be consulted, they are determined to be given the power to set policy and organize agencies. They want a major role in formulating economic policy because, after all, they are Scientists! In spite of this desire for legitimacy, they still can't give me a cogent explanation for why ice cream isn't cheaper in the winter. They don't want a seat at the table, they think they're entitled to run the whole shebang. So they tend to have lots of footnotes, equations and obscure diagrams in their monographs. It makes it look like they really know what they are talking about.