That's quite a shift from just a couple of years ago:

"Twenty three percent of motorists said that safety features would be the issue which most influenced their purchase, and 18% said fuel economy was their priority."

http://www.racfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=341&Itemid=0

Economics is the queen of the sciences. As the price rise of fuel doubles and the doubles again, what will be the reaction to compensate? Now, the

theft

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Economics is the queen of the sciences. As the price rise of fuel doubles and the doubles again, what will be the reaction to compensate? Now, the theft of used cooking oil is beginning. Can our capacity to adapt keep pace? This world will turn over in unexpected and interesting ways. It will be exciting to watch it occur.

I wonder how many gas guzzlers would be taken off the roads with gas at $10+/gal and how many new one would be sold a year latter?

Somebody posted a few days ago that 2x to 3x food prices was the best thing that happened (to farmers) in the last 100 years.

Wouldn't $10+/gal gas be the best thing for humanity for the twenty first century, specially if $5 to $6/gal are taxes to be used to accellerate transition to electrified vehicles?

Berserker: "Economics is the queen of the sciences."

I'd say that physics is the king -- testable and essentially proven theories abound, applications are numerous, and the whole area is at the base of all improvements in the quality of life over the last 100+ years.

Economics, even if it could be called a "science", is more a whore to power and influence. Glorified high-end mathematics apologizing for ideology. Does it have any reproducible result, reliable prediction, or falsifiable theory at all? Do we really need an economist to tell us that when things get expensive, people will seek a substitute, or do without?

At best it is a branch of psychology.

Yes, Physics had its time in the lime light at the beginning of the 20th century. It is now old and tired. None of our young scholars enter the field. In fact, established physicists are now leaving in large numbers for the field of biology and the stock market. Physics has degenerated into an esoteric exercise in pseudoscience; akin to astrology, quackery, the occult, and superstition … nonsense … superstrings, and cold fusion. It took 50 years to develop fusion to the point it is at now … sad. Can physics get us out of our current predicament? I don’t think so. But Economics will do it. It always has and it always will. Truly, it is the queen.

Berserker...Because billions have starved, despite trillions of dollars of profit & a few retirees' $400 million pensions, our present 'science of economics' isn't queen.

Maybe the ultimate computer will determine the final economic equation worthy of being called Queen to be, 'Love your neighbor, as yourself'. Starving peoples might have a glimmer of hope then.

Like Physics, Economics is just a human tool, to be used for good or evil. It is the heart of man that is the question. Our leaders use them to advance humanity or betray it. I will try to do my part as small as it may be, do yours … vote.

"Physics has degenerated into an esoteric exercise in pseudoscience; akin to astrology, quackery, the occult, and superstition … nonsense … superstrings, and cold fusion."

superstring theory does actually produce some falsifiable predictions, despite many claims to the contrary in popular science publications. and cold fusion has always been the odd man out, mostly discredited but flaring up every 10 years or so (see Arata's recent results at Osaka U). to use these two very narrow fields of study to characterise the whole discipline of physical research is absurd in the extreme.

as for the comments about economics, it is very germane to this forum. if India and China (and Indonesia and all the others) had stopped subsidizing fuel earlier (as economists told them to), we might not be in this mess.

Economics is barely a science, more a philosophy dressed up as science, and certainly not "the queen of sciences" whatever that would be.

It's not economics that'll get us out of the situation we find ourselves in - it'll be engineering. Economics will provide some sort of financial framework to allow those engineers to do the actual work itself but I sincerely doubt we'll be celebrating the economists in a hundred years time.

@eric

Justify the following

Garrett:” All fields of the standard model and gravity are unified as an E8 principal bundle connection” - nonsence

Parallel universes --- nonsence

Alternative realities--- nonsense

Bubble universes--- nonsense

11 dimensions---nonsence

When you are done, I give you another dozen

This garbage isn’t going to put gas in my tank!

@Scatter

Remember that it is the bean counters that make or break engineering and
it’s the politicians that make or break the bean counters.

That is why the future may be bleak.

Well then we may as well thank the Big Bang for sorting out climate change given that without that, we wouldn't have economists.

In 50 years time, I hope and expect to be raising a toast to the engineers, not the economists.

Beserker, ironically Lisi's E8 theory was developed as a reaction against superstring theory, which you also railed against, because he said superstring theory did not reflect the reality we live in. These are hardly mainstream science concepts you are picking and choosing here; you are taking unconfirmed theories and trying to use them to discredit the field as a whole, which is a fallacious argument. I'm not going to get into some kind of pretentious metaphysical debate here, only to say that advancement in the theory of the fundamental sciences has led to all other scientific discoveries; that is a basic fact.

Eric:

The key point here is testability. A “scientist” will set up an experiment to either confirm or disprove a given hypothesis. If he can’t, he should start over. That is why Lisi's work was mentioned along with string theory. If you can’t test it, either to prove or disprove, then it’s not science. There is too much of that kind of thinking these days in this field. I think a reason for the fields decline.

The point I was trying to convey was lose of scientific discipline in many corners of this field. Even Lisi thinks string theory is garbage. You mentioned that in your reply; did you not?

You said…

…I'm not going to get into some kind of pretentious metaphysical debate…

I wish you would so I can get you to right thinking.

To paraphrase Scatter

Physics is barely a science, more a philosophy dressed up as science, and certainly not "the king of sciences" whatever that would be….