1. High Priests and Lowly Philosophers: The Battle for the Soul of Economics
Peter J. Boettke, Christopher J. Coyne and Peter T. Leeson
Department of Economics
George Mason University

2. Do not pry into things too hard for you
Or investigate what is beyond your reach.
Many have been led astray by their theorizing,
And evil imaginings have impaired their judgments.
Stubbornness will come to a bad end,
And he who flirts with danger will lose his life.
When calamity befalls the arrogant, there is no cure;
Wickedness is too deeply rooted in them.
-- Ecclesiasticus 3: 21, 24-26, 28

3. Basic Argument in the paper
Economics is a science that has defined limits
Public Policy often asks the science of economics to move beyond those limits
Changes in economic methodology in the 20th century seemed to suggest that the limits of economic science were transcended
These changes in methodology were false
When a discipline transforms itself to meet the demands of politics, but this transformation distorts the discipline the discipline loses its “soul”

4. The Disciplinary Struggle in Economics
Worldly Philosophy
Social Engineering

5. A Snap-shot of the Current Intellectual Landscape in Economics

6. How Did Economics Loose Its Soul?
Keynesian Demand Management
Cost Benefit Analysis
Debate Over Market Socialism
Paul Samuelson as the central figure in the hubris of scientific economics.

7. Humility, Economics and Social Control
Hayek’s research program
Cognitive/epistemic direction of economics
Institutional environment
Rule of law and generality
Buchanan’s research program
Economics as a Public Science
Constitutional imperative
Smith’s Nobel Prize Address
Constructivist versus Ecological Rationality