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A second reason why science cannot replace judgement is the behavior of financial markets.

Just as Wall Street needs to break the hold of the bonus culture, which drives risk-taking that is rational for individuals but damaging to the financial system, so science must break the tyranny of the luxury journals. The result will be better research that better serves science and society.

I have arrived at the conviction that the neglect by economists to discuss seriously what is really the crucial problem of our time is due to a certain timidity about soiling their hands by going from purely scientific questions into value questions.

That subject has lost its one time appeal to economists as our science has become more abstract, but my interest has even grown more intense as the questions raised by the sociology of science became more prominent.

Unfortunately, a lot of economists wanted to make their subject a science. So the more what you do resembles physics or chemistry, the more credible you become.

Many of us like to think of financial economics as a science, but complex events like the financial crisis suggest that this conceit may be more wishful thinking than reality.

Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago.

The worst state of affairs is when science begins to concern itself with art.

The public impression is that the government, industry or the highest bidder can buy a scientist to add credibility to any message. That crucial quality of impartiality is being lost.

Economics is a strange science. Our subject deals with some of the most important as well as mundane issues that impinge on the human condition.