Molson Hart

They are teaching academic theories resulting from hundreds of years of research. I wouldn't attack them for not being practitioners in international trade. I would maybe attack the social science of economics for being too sure of itself and its models...

To counter your point, just because a high school biology teacher has never worked as a scientist, doesn't mean the theories they are teaching students are false. Your argument for why academic theories are false should rest on their merits, not the messengers.

First, if the models are wrong, why teach them? Second, because they're not practitioners, they cannot tell you if the models are right or wrong. Biology is (mostly) different, because it can be measured, tested, and, if wrong, falsified. I'm attacking the merits of the field.

By extension, if the field has no merits, its teachers (or messengers) must suck. And they do. In the above course description, what can an economist of international trade with even a 70% confidence level?

Something that has been tested by empirical research.

Give me 2 examples of such a thing?

In economics? Pretty much every worthwhile economics paper is empirical research. Here's 2 I remember: water access improves health outcomes and Walmart entering a grocery market lowers average grocery prices amongst all supermarkets in the area by almost 10%... 2 enough?

I agree with you about the empirical research but I think that, more often than not, the research is totally flawed. How many of these empirical papers are both correct and tell you something that your grandmother couldn't?