Tyler Cowen is fundamentally wrong about throwing out books. There is no objective scale of the meritoriousness of books. Different readers have different needs for books. I have a few creationist books on my shelves, not because I’m a creationist or think that creationism is valid, but because I like to know my enemies. Therefore, if you were to take Cowen’s suggestion (inspired no doubt by the fact that he is writing for a book publisher), you would think “Oh, that Tom character has got too much to read already, so I won’t give him this book about creationism”. You’d be mistaken. I would like to have the book, for reference. Book readers are odd people, and about the least likely to strictly follow the model of homo economicus.
