Economics, and similar

I left the following two comments on this post my Mario Rizzo, which was commenting on this post by Brad DeLong:

Brad DeLong is ot making an epistemological point, he is simply saying that there are two kinds of people who call themselves economists:

1) Hacks
2) People who study the economy

He does not claim that economists in sense 2) do not create theories to explain economic behaviour, he is simply claiming that there are are a large number of economists in sense 1) who create models containing assumptions that lead to those models leading to conclusions that are conducive to the desires of powerful individuals.

and

“ot” should be “not”, of course.

And can I confirm, Mario Rienzo, that you think that people who sincerely try to understand things about the world are “pathetic” and of the same order of moral depravity as people who deliberately try to undermine the free and fair discussion of ideas by pushing ideas that favour their own interests whilst knowing these ideas to be wrong?

Go read both posts and tell me what you think.