There’s a question of probability here. What’s more likely, that non-economists don’t understand what’s essentially going on in economics, so their criticisms are mostly irrelevant and easy to dismiss, or that those criticisms uncover some unsettling truths about economics, and economists dismiss them because their discipline fosters a special kind of hubris, insulated as it’s traditionally been from the humanities and from the other social sciences (due to its physics envy)?

I agree, though, that there’s nothing wrong with aspiring to improve. We can set our sights high and try to reach some ideal. The question is whether we can fool ourselves into thinking we’ve achieved something when we haven’t done so. Is economics close enough to physics in certain respects, or is that mimicry superficial? Indeed, is the goal itself in this case counterproductive because the greater truth about economies lies in politics, sociology, psychology, and history, and less in abstract math?