I think Roy has his causation backwards here. 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 -- and so economists have effectively eliminated it from their curriculum. To the extent that genuine science is dependent for its improvement and advance on a growing contextual understanding of its problems, "mainstream" economics was not interested in doing actual science. So I think you have to begin with the fact that in the first instance economists are not interested in genuine scientific work, or real science progress. (If you must, you might argue that mainstream economists are interested in a sort of fake science, a cargo cult science which tries its best to imitate some parts of real science -- but this activity should not be confused with genuine science.) For the "mainstreamers", the hostility to the contextual thinking embodied in the history of economic thought came first -- and what followed was a contempt for any sort of contextual research the mainstream associated with this field, e.g. all of the various "heterodox" brands of economics. Stuff the mainstreamers view as just waste-of-time "history of economic thought". Greg Ransom