And critics argue not only against the technique itself, but also against its practitioners, whom they characterize as "imperialists" and, they say, whose interest in undergraduates is often as low as student interest in their highly quantitative subject matter.

"It's dispassionate, and many students enjoy politics for its passion," Shepsle concedes. "You have to be capable of suspending your passion. That may make it more boring, but that's life."

Divide and Conquer

A scientific approach to political science is certainly nothing new. In the 1950s, for example, 'behaviorism,' which used quantitative methods to look at voting patterns, swept through political science departments across America.

But critics of rational choice say that the movement's forerunners had a very different modus operandi.

Whereas the behavioralists managed to blend into the rest of the department fairly well, rational choicers are accused of a cultishness in which they have come to exert undue control over Harvard's--among others'--Government Department.

"They do tend to evaluate all other political scholars on whether or not they are rational choice theorists," says former Harvard government professor James Q. Wilson. "They have not learned to be humble."

Recent tenure controversies, in the government department in particular, have underscored the difficulty scholars encounter in trying to navigate Harvard's tenure system, facing ad hoc committees that many on the Faculty characterize as whimsical.