The celebrated economist Robert Solow has died at the age of 99. I met him just once a few years ago when he visited our department to deliver a public lecture. His granddaughter Anna Solow-Collins—now an economist at the Department of Transportation—was one of our undergraduate students at the time.
The larger problem I see is the habit of economists describing other economists in heroic terms. I guess econ takes this from math and physics. I remember as a math and physics student how we were supposed to worship Archimedes, Newton, Euler, etc. I'm sure they all deserved this, but it seems to have transferred into academics in certain fields making idols of their predecessors and even of their colleagues.
In poli sci I don't see this ancestor-worship being so strong. Locke and Hobbes are heroes, sure, but modern political scientists don't seem to be idolizing the political scientists of the mid and late twentieth century.
As to statistics: as students, we were taught that Fisher or Neyman were heroes, and I do think that has caused some problems. We should be able to celebrate great work without idealizing the individuals involved. They're just people!
He could be critical of Romer (there was a representative agent in some versions of the model), but, yes, there was respect.
Thank you for your fascinating tribute to Solow. The family tree is very interesting. Did he not have a single female student? Curious.
I met Solow once and wasn't impressed; see here: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2015/10/04/flamebait-mathiness-in-economics-and-political-science/
But maybe he was having a bad day.
The larger problem I see is the habit of economists describing other economists in heroic terms. I guess econ takes this from math and physics. I remember as a math and physics student how we were supposed to worship Archimedes, Newton, Euler, etc. I'm sure they all deserved this, but it seems to have transferred into academics in certain fields making idols of their predecessors and even of their colleagues.
In poli sci I don't see this ancestor-worship being so strong. Locke and Hobbes are heroes, sure, but modern political scientists don't seem to be idolizing the political scientists of the mid and late twentieth century.
As to statistics: as students, we were taught that Fisher or Neyman were heroes, and I do think that has caused some problems. We should be able to celebrate great work without idealizing the individuals involved. They're just people!