All sciences engage in mythmaking when it comes to their own history--this has been well known since Kuhn and since amply documented.--ES BOF Research Professor, Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, Ghent, B-9000, Belgium. Phone: (31)-(0)6-15005958 Fall 2011: Visiting Associate Professor, UC, Santa Barbara http://www.newappsblog.com/ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=649484 http://philpapers.org/s/Eric%20Schliesser ________________________________ From: Rob Tye <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 6:13 AM Subject: Re: [SHOE] "Inside Job" and code of ethics for economists Dear Eric It seems as though you might agree that, as the territory economics occupies rest hard up against politics, applied economics morphs seamlessly into political matters, and the murky waters such activities occupy. As a citizen I deplore political misuse of economic theories, and I wish good speed to the judiciary and legislature in tackling the very difficult issues this raises, but I do not think my own little knowledge concerning economic history has much to offer in assistance. What I do have to say regarding ethics is to do with the narratives concerning historical money use, offered by both bullionists and cartalists, which quite often seem to depart from the facts as we know them. Have you by any chance ever looked into a book by the anthropologist Donald E Brown, “Hierarchy, History and Human Nature”? He outlines seemingly profound distinctions between those “open” human societies who strove to create objective history, and those “closed” human societies who perpetuated only myths. It seems to me an interesting thesis, and perhaps relevant to the issue I pointed to. The bending of fact to make a pleasing narrative seems to me akin to myth making, a tribalistic and quasi religious activity, which is anti-scientific, and regrettably so. regards Rob Tye York, UK personal web site: http://www.earlyworldcoins.com