Stigler answered the question affirmatively by adopting something akin to the commonsense view of science as rational and reflecting nature (or, in this case, society), and expressing it in the language of commodity exchange: “A rational society must accept tested scientific findings because they reveal a portion of the inescapable external world. Scientific knowledge must be accepted by men of all parties.” Science was a very special kind of commodity, differing from other information-commodities in its effects. Science is rational, and so is society (albeit in a different way), and therefore a rational society must make use of science. Society did need Friedman’s work—not his popularizations, but his economic science. It needed his Monetary History of the United States, but not his Free to Choose. It needed his scientific work, but it did not need to agree with it, much less comprehend it.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 147