A delight to read the comments of Patrick Spread and Mason Gaffney on the
‘Use and Belief’ thread.  

Patrick Spread writes > You cannot get to the moon on analytical fantasies.

But perhaps you can rule the earth with them?

Egregious distortions I have come across in Economics have their roots in
mathematics – but in the rest of the contemporary social sciences, egregious
distortions seem to me more rooted in 'profound rhetorical games' deriving
from the philosophy of science.  And whilst the mathematical frauds,
apparently pointed up by Mason Gaffney in economics, span decades, 'profound
rhetorical games', via philosophy and theology, straddle millennia.

I share the opinion of Marwick and Sokal that modern 'profound rhetorical
games' – most of them lumped together under the name ‘postmodernism' - are
greatly damaging the social sciences.  Only perhaps economics, due to its
semi-detached professional nature, is largely spared that problem.  And in
the English speaking world I would name two primary roots to what I see as
this postmodern scourge – Wittgenstein, (understood as criticised by
Gellner), and Popper, (understood as criticised by Stove).

Which gets me to my very strange fact. (Facts of course will only trouble
the empirically minded)

Wittgenstein’s patron was Keynes, and Popper’s patron was Hayek.  

Rob Tye