I see this claim about how people have “a wrong idea of what economics truly is” all the time when someone criticizes economics, but it's a No True Scotsman fallacy. Economics really is like that, and no it's not being “data driven” it's publication-driven with tons of p-hacking in order to either:

1. fit the author's worldview (these people tend to become the famous ones),

2. or simply get one more paper published to survive the publish-or-perish rat race (the average Joe).