That debate concerned the question of whether regulatory policy should remain an important part of university economic teaching or whether priority ought not to be given to modern quantitively-oriented research. I personally was and I am unable to get much out of this debate. Both are important; each complements the other.
We need a normatively founded economic policy framework; in other words, a general compass based on tried and trusted principles. In the same way, we need modern economics, that is an economic science which analyses economic relationships using quantitative methods. Problems arise, however, if the measurability of economic relationships fosters the illusion that they can also be policy-managed accordingly.