Right, we certainly would never have a global credit crisis, blowup, and ill-justified austerity based on rigorous quantitative financial economics.

On the topic of the article: The desire to focus on questioning whether a framework for economic analysis and planning is achieving outcomes for humans that we want isn't properly and morally substituted by 'rigor' papering over one's policy preferences if those human outcomes are at odds with the human outcomes we want. If that makes less sense than I intended, let me simplify: A key part of the scientific method is examination of whether what you are doing is even working.