Some interesting thoughts from Robert J. Shiller On Whether He is a Scientist (Project Syndicate).
Although I can agree that there should be a Nobel Prize (or Prizes) for engineering, I disagree on several counts with this statement.
Nobody really cares much about economic data except as a guide to policy: economic phenomena do not have the same intrinsic fascination for us as the internal resonances of the atom or the functioning of the vesicles and other organelles of a living cell. We judge economics by what it can produce. As such, economics is rather more like engineering than physics, more practical than spiritual.
Much, though not all, of what motivates natural science is its practical application. Likewise, there are many economics questions that are interesting simply because of a social scientist’s intellectual curiosity. Thus, Shiller has created a false dichotomy; the study of economics is spiritual for many academics!
He does go on to make arguments not too different from this point. The full piece is a useful introduction to some of the ideas in the evolution of the various “sciences”.