All this discussion has been (to me) highly interesting. But S. Shah's   
comments seem (to me) to go right to the intellectual point. The economists   
of whom I wrote (not all but probably most of them) would argue, "If I   
teach physics, why should I take the time to teach about phlogiston, just   
to explain it's wrong? Or if medicine, why waste time teaching about the   
humors, just to explain that's wrong?" You guys--most of you apparently in   
Economics departments--have more experience debating with such types than I   
do. And you know that showing them conceptual problems in Smith or Marshall   
(or anything else pre-2000), or appealing to them to be more cultured, or   
trying to shame them is all useless effort. How do you beat them   
intellectually?  
  
John Womack