Greg Ransom wrote:
> Mainsteam
> economic "science" is hostile to contextual thinking of most any
> kind because it is professionally invested in a scientistic
> use of formal models and statistics.  History of economic thought
> is contextual thinking at its core

 
Yes, indeed. Where did this scientism come from? You can find it most 
prominently in the history of macroeconomics. It traces back to the 
merger of fledgling econometrics with Keynesian macro in the late 1940s 
and 1950s, along with a complementary merger with national income 
accounting based on Keynesian thinking.

Later, Keynesianism was rejected by many, but the scientistic 
indoctrination had made its mark, even in microeconomics. Economics had 
become applied econometrics and the number of stripes on the shoulder of 
an economics soldier were determined by her ability to build models and 
test statistical hypotheses.

One can readily understand why mainstream economists would feel 
threatened by a solid HES. Rather than be offended by being rejected by 
a club of such people, HESers should be pleased to divorce themselves. 
And if some feel bitter about the divorce, the thing to do would be to 
counterattack the non-contextual thinking of modern economics, to use 
Greg's terminology.

Of course, I have never been concerned about tenure or about promoting 
the demand for economists of my type.

Pat Gunning