macroeconomics (on the causes of recessions)

I think this is an extremely bad example. Macro-econ contains some models that are partially predictive and an extensive literature on when to use which hypothesis, and then a few crank theories that simply reject empiricism altogether. The fact that academically ancient or crankish theories are popular among the political class or among blog commentators simply does not mean that the academic study of macroeconomics, when done properly, has nothing accurate and applicable to say about recessions.

Just because I don't know the macroeconomic literature doesn't mean I can't be rational enough to distinguish between the actual literature and the popular misconceptions.