I think you are right, Anthony. It is possible to trace scientism back 
to an earlier era. However, it was not a major factor during those early 
years. In the US, scientism in economics got a huge boost from the great 
depression and the widespread post-war belief that the government could 
solve the unemployment problem. The fledgling econometrics society and 
the primitive data gathering on business cycles both mushroomed, as 
their proponents formed an alliance of convenience with the Keynesian 
revolutionaries, who claimed to have the most important answers to the 
most popular economic question of the era. Scientism may not have been 
born at this time but it surely reached puberty during this era. 
Samuelson was one of the important American intellectual leaders of this 
"merger."

Writers interested in HOT who didn't have mathematical or econometrics 
skills and who did not learn them at their graduate schools became more 
and more isolated as this scientistic wave crowded the major and minor 
journals from the 1050s onward. Moreover, these HOT writers were joined 
by others whose skills had not prepared them for the new scientist 
publishing competition or who found the game unappealing. This helps 
explain the current, partly "heterodox" character of HOT.

Regarding your second post, I think I agree with the first part of it. I 
should perhaps clarify, however. My use of the term "contextual" was not 
related to intellectual history but to the notion that the historian of 
economic thought looks for historical antecedants of current economic 
ideas. For example, one asks: do the new growth theorists adequately 
appreciate the contributions of Carl Menger, Allyn Young, and Frank 
Knight to the theory of economic growth? Do the new equilibrium business 
cycle theorists adequately appreciate Hayek's coordination problem? 
Fred, I believe, used the term "contextual" in the same way, although it 
is possible that Greg was using the term differently and that I confused 
matters by using a more specific definition.

I find your comments about Samuelson's history of thought highly 
contentious. No one could dispute that he referred to particular dead 
economists. However, a good historian of thought can do two things. She 
can trace the same idea through a number of writers and she can 
recognize and account for contrary ideas as they are seen from the 
perspective of those who promote them. Simply put, she can think outside 
the box. I don't see Samuelson as someone who traced ideas very deeply 
or as someone who thought outside the box. I see Samuelson's technical 
economics like I see the work of a great chess master. To me, it is 
questionable whether he contributed to the solution of real economic 
problems. I admit, however, that I do not know all of Samuelson's works 
and you may be able to persuade me otherwise.

I am aware of one sad fact about Samuelson. He apparently knew early on 
that the "good" econometric results of what became known as neoclassical 
growth theory using the Cobb-Douglas production function were an 
artifact. Yet he did not advertise this idea and a generation of lesser 
minds ended up wasting their time and a generation of textbook writers 
promoted a false belief he could have easily corrected.

Fisher, Franklin M. (2005) ?Aggregate Production Functions - a 
Pervasive, but Unpersuasive, Fairytale.? Eastern Economic Journal. 3 
(3): 489-491.

The same is partly true of a decade of fiscal policy advocates. 
Samuelson admits that he went overboard on fiscal policy. One wonders: 
To what degree did success in the textbook market corrupt his unbiased 
scientism.

Samuelson, Paul A. (1999) ?Samuelson?s Economics at Fifty: Remarks on 
the Occasion of the Anniversary of Publication.? Journal of Economic 
Education. 30 (4): 352-355.


Pat Gunning