Is economics a science? Do we need to ask? :)

Economics aspires to be a science. But in this it does not succeed. Neither does finance. This despite the fact that there is an annual, optimistically named Nobel Prize in “Economic Sciences.”
Financial crises keep happening—the list is long. Could they be avoided if economics and finance were science?

Thus begins Alex Pollock's essay, which, I hope, will trigger responses from academic economists so that people like me can have fun watching the fireworks :)

Ever since the onset of the Great Recession, the "scientific" nature of economics has been seriously doubted, and for all the good reasons, as even noted in this ill-informed blog.  So, more the discussions on this, the better for our own understanding.

Pollock writes:

To forecast and, moreover, control the financial future correctly is literally impossible. This is because of the exceptionally complex and very rapid recursiveness of financial markets and the resultant Uncertainty. This “Uncertainty,” with a capital “U,” means, remembering the classic definition of economist Frank Knight, that you not only do not know the odds of events, but you cannot know the odds.

In case you thought it was some left-wing publication where this essay appeared, NOT!  Pollock is with the American Enterprise Institute.