How quickly does the guard change? (was: Economics, Shmeconomics)

[Clay Shirky]

> So Kuhn claimed. Do we have any studies that verify this
> empirically? It should be possible, in chosen fields, to take now
> accepted ideas, look back at when they were first introduced, and
> see how quickly those then in the field acquired and then started
> teaching the new idea. There's bound to be some time lag -- the real
> issue is whether this is from resistance or inertia. I think I
> remember reading of someone who tried to evaluate this in physics,
> who claimed that Kuhn got it all wrong.

I seem to remember that one of Kuhn's case studies was the spread of
plate tectonics, so I just took down my copy of TSoSR and found to my
horror that there is no index.

PK Feyerabend did similar case study work on the adoption of the
telescope, and of the Copernican theory, and Ernst Mayr has devoted
much of his work to chronicling the slooooow rise of Darwin's theories
of natural selection.

However, I don't know if anyone has done what you are proposing --
quantitiative as opposed to qualitative studies -- and thanks to
the non-indexalaciousness of TSoSR, it'll take some time to dig up an
answer. 

-clay