Economists are all too often preoccupied with petty mathematical problems of interest only to themselves. This obsession with mathematics is an easy way of acquiring the appearance of scientificity without having to answer the far more complex questions posed by the world we live in.

One is led to conclude that economics as a scientific discipline is still somewhat hanging in the air.

Modern economics is “sick”. Economics has increasingly become an intellectual game played for its own sake and not for its practical consequences. Economists have gradually converted the subject into a sort of social mathematics in which analytical rigor as understood in math departments is everything and empirical relevance (as understood in physics departments) is nothing. If a topic cannot be tackled by formal modelling, it is simply consigned to the intellectual underworld. To pick up a copy of American Economic Review or Economic Journal, not to mention Econometrica or Review of Economic Studies these days is to wonder whether one has landed on a strange planet in which tedium is the deliberate objective of professional publication. Economics was condemned a century ago as “the dismal science”, but the dismal science of yesterday was a lot less dismal than the soporific scholasticism of today.

ECONOMICS IS HAUNTED by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine — the special pleading of selfish interests.

Economics is a young science, and there is still much to be learned. Economists sometimes disagree because they have different hunches about the validity of alternative theories or about the size of important parameters that measure how economic variables are related.

By any reasonable criteria, the discipline of economics as a whole, in its present state, is sadly lacking.

"Too large a proportion of recent "mathematical" economics are mere concoctions, as imprecise as the initial assumptions they rest on, which allow the author to lose sight of the complexities and interdependencies of the real world in a maze of pretentious and unhelpful symbols."

[E]conomics—despite the extensive use of mathematics—will not be a rigorous discipline until it is based... on verifiable empirical evidence.

Economics, even classical economics, is not a finished business. There are still issues relevant to the present debate that have not been definitively explored.

Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine - the special pleading of selfish interests.

Economics hasn't had an Einstein because it hasn't had a Galileo yet.

[M]ost economists were caught completely by surprise by the 2008 global financial crisis. ...[T]hey have not been able to come up with solutions to the ongoing aftermaths ...[E]conomics seems to suffer from a serious case of megalomania—how can a subject that cannot... explain its own area... claim to explain (almost) everything?

Economics is a fake discipline; attempts to improve it (s.a."behavioral","evo") made it worse! Finance moved to mathematics, accounting,etc.

Economics has been called the dismal science. Once you get to understand it, you may not find it so dismal, but you don't find it much of a science either.