E.B. Verney’s Speech: a Physiologist’s View of Economics

In reading about something or somebody, the serendipitous finding of a little gem is sometimes the reward. Ernest Basil Verney’s (1894-1967) biographical memoir for the Royal Society contains such a gem:

There was quality in his irreverent comments on the passing scene (scientific or otherwise) as in everything else. This was true also of his after-dinner speeches…when he would cover a wide field of current events. On one such occasion he pretended to be perturbed at the prodigious expansion of the University curriculum, and when Economics gained Tripos standard he remarked: ‘Economics, for example—admittedly an important subject, as I feel sure the Bursar will agree—has in recent years gained Tripos status; and here, as I see from The Times, the examiners are alone in the happy position of being able to set the same questions year after year. The subject is, apparently, changing so rapidly that a particular question can be trusted to demand each year an entirely different and often contrary answer.’

I think we can safely assume that the scientists at the dinner applauded with considerable enthusiasm. Seventy or so years later I still would.

E.B. Verney

Daly, I deB, Pickford ML. 1970. Ernest Basil Verney 1894-1967. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 16, 523–542. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1970.0022