Another misfire in the academic shootout on guns
S. Smith
Another misfire in the academic shootout on guns
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0302140058feb14,1,506716.story
By Ron Grossman
Tribune staff reporter
February 14, 2003
Only last fall, the National Rifle Association was beside itself with
joy as Michael Bellesiles, the professorial darling of the gun-control
crowd, went down in flames after being caught faking his research.
Now the proverbial shoe is on the other academic foot: John R. Lott
Jr., a point man for the pro-gun set whose resume has noted positions
on the faculties of the University of Chicago's law school, Stanford
University and Yale, stands accused of the same scholarly crime.
So ironically, both sides in a vexatious dispute over guns wind up in
the same position: Both their causes now are tarnished by tainted
data. Yet the pro-gun side is doubly cursed, its hero having been
caught in another deceit -- indeed, possibly a first in the history of
ivory-tower scandals: Lott engaged in a curious bit of intellectual
cross-dressing.
Lott's book, "More Guns, Less Crime," is virtually a bible to
proponents of a frontal attack on the problem of crime. It argues that
allowing ordinary citizens to arm themselves would be both an
efficient and safe way for law-abiding Americans to take back their
streets. The author said he had made a scientific study demonstrating
"98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely
have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack."
But when liberal critics asked to see the data, Lott said it had been
lost in a most unfortunate accident -- a bookcase fell on his
computer, wiping the data from his hard drive.
Oddly, the anti-gun Bellesiles offered a similar explanation when
questions were raised about his book, "Arming America," based on
research he said showed weapons were rare on the early American
frontier.
Papers destroyed
Liberals seized upon the book as an antidote to the NRA's
characterization of gun controls as treason to our pioneering
heritage. But Bellesiles couldn't produce the data. A mysterious flood
in his office at Emory University reduced his records to papier-mache,
he said.
Supporters and detractors of gun controls slugged it out on the
Internet during the two years it took for Bellesiles to go from
academic superstar to has-been -- his professorship gone, his book's
prestigious Bancroft Prize revoked. Gun aficionados barraged
journalists with tips about skeletons in his closet -- like his claim
of researching California court records that, in fact, were destroyed
in San Francisco's 1906 earthquake and fire. His supporters tried
explaining away those lapses.
Now a similar scenario is being played out against Lott, with Web site
postings attacking and defending the pro-gun guru. Gun-control
advocates have been dangling tantalizing bits of gossip about Lott in
front of reporters.
But this latest research scandal has a subplot all its own.
Lott was defended by an Internet champion who has vanished into
cyberspace -- taking with her, his critics would argue, her hero's
credibility.
Her name was Mary Rosh, and the more others attacked Lott, the more
she gushed his praises.
If detractors called him a right-wing ideologue, she offered eyeball
evidence of his fair-mindedness, meanwhile taking the opportunity to
bash Bellesiles' anti-gun biases.
She threw down a put-up-or-shut-up challenge to critics, daring them
to propose an alternative to the proposition that a disarmed citizenry
is a sitting duck for the bad guys.
"What do you recommend that I as a 115 pound woman do against a 180
pound man who might want to rape or kill me?" she asked.
Rosh and Lott seemed intellectual soul mates. But those seemingly
shared virtues led to Rosh's downfall after she trained her guns on
Julian Sanchez.
An avowed libertarian, Sanchez maintains a Web site devoted to
conservative causes close to his heart. He personally is as much
opposed to gun-control laws as Lott is.
Familiar terms
But he expressed some reservations about Lott's book, provoking Rosh
to counter his remarks in vigorous terms that seemed just a little too
familiar to Sanchez.
When Sanchez checked, he found that Lott had used strikingly similar
phrases in retorts of his own.
"It would be unusual for one person to offer such excoriating
criticism," Sanchez said. "It would be bizarre for two people to do
so."
The computer-literate Sanchez traced back e-mails from both Rosh and
Lott to the same Internet address, and announced what he had found.
At that point, Lott owned up: Mary Rosh was a product of his
imagination, a persona for criticizing his critics.
"I got an e-mail from Lott," Sanchez said. "He said: `You are correct.
It was stupid and I shouldn't have done it.'"
Lott himself didn't respond to numerous requests for an interview left
on his answering machine at the American Enterprise Institute, the
Washington think tank where he is a resident fellow.
Otis Dudley Duncan is furious that it has taken so long to unmask
Lott, a man he asserts has gotten a pass from fellow academics and
journalists reluctant to probe his claims.
Duncan is a retired sociology professor at the University of
California at Santa Barbara, whose specialty is crime and criminology.
Three years ago, he was suspicious of Lott's research, which didn't
match his own findings, and tried alerting the press to his doubts.
Duncan said he sent op-ed pieces to various newspapers (including the
Chicago Tribune) which didn't get published, even as conservative
editorial columnists were commenting favorably on "More Guns, Less
Crime."
"If the media had picked up on what I was saying," Duncan said, "this
whole affair wouldn't have happened."
But eventually, some academics did come to share Duncan's doubts. When
they pressed Lott, he responded with answers that only seemed to
deepen the mystery.
Calling all helpers
Critics and supporters suggested that, since the vanished data for
"More Guns, Less Crime" was based on more than 2,000 telephone
interviews, Lott must have had helpers who could vouch for the survey.
Lott responded that University of Chicago students assisted him, but
he couldn't recall their names.
According to the editor of the University of Chicago's alumni
magazine, the issue about to go into the mail contains an ad asking
for anyone who worked on Lott's study to please step forward. It lists
a phone number to Lott's office.
Meanwhile, Lott's supporters say he has recently redone the study with
the help of a couple of research assistants.
Daniel Polsby, a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia,
said in an interview this week that he has seen the new study and it
is on the same scale as the first.
But Gary Kleck, a criminologist at Florida State University, wonders
if Lott has had time to completely re-create his work.
"You might get, say, two phone interviews per evening," said Kleck,
himself a well-respected researcher. "So even if you had two people
working on it, it would still take 500 evenings to do 2,000
interviews."
Jeffrey C. Dege
>
>Another misfire in the academic shootout on guns
>
>http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0302140058feb14,1,506716.story
>
>By Ron Grossman
>Tribune staff reporter
>
>February 14, 2003
>
>proponents of a frontal attack on the problem of crime. It argues that
>allowing ordinary citizens to arm themselves would be both an
>efficient and safe way for law-abiding Americans to take back their
>streets. The author said he had made a scientific study demonstrating
>"98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely
>have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack."
>
>But when liberal critics asked to see the data, Lott said it had been
>lost in a most unfortunate accident -- a bookcase fell on his
>computer, wiping the data from his hard drive.
Notice how this is phrased to make it sound as if the lost data was the
foundation of the book, which it wasn't.
The primary findings of the book, the decline of violent crime in states
that have adopted shall-issue carry permit systems, was not lost, has
been provided to anyone who has asked for it, and Lott's results based
on that data have been replicated by everyone who has examined them.
As for the "98%" survey data that was lost, participants in the survey
have come forward to state that the survey did, in fact, take place,
and new surveys asking the same question have repeated its results.
--
Recedite, plebes! Gero rem imperialem!
Joel Rosenberg
> On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 16:50:47 -0600, S. Smith <scott...@visi.com> wrote:
> >
> >Another misfire in the academic shootout on guns
> >
> >http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0302140058feb14,1,506716.story
> >
> >By Ron Grossman
> >Tribune staff reporter
> >
> >February 14, 2003
> >
> >Lott's book, "More Guns, Less Crime," is virtually a bible to
> >proponents of a frontal attack on the problem of crime. It argues that
> >allowing ordinary citizens to arm themselves would be both an
> >efficient and safe way for law-abiding Americans to take back their
> >streets. The author said he had made a scientific study demonstrating
> >"98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely
> >have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack."
> >
> >But when liberal critics asked to see the data, Lott said it had been
> >lost in a most unfortunate accident -- a bookcase fell on his
> >computer, wiping the data from his hard drive.
>
> Notice how this is phrased to make it sound as if the lost data was the
> foundation of the book, which it wasn't.
There's also a huge difference between the relatively peripheral stuff
in the survey -- which clearly happened, although quite possibly
had some methodological problems; we'll not know, although people can
repeat the survey questions, if they'd like -- and Bellesiles'
repeated and demonstrated fudging of both data and quotations that
were central to his thesis.
As to Lott's sock puppet, I'm sure that folks like "Gilly" and
"Plutarch", who post from behind nyms, won't have any criticism of
that, and neither will either SS, who hasn't criticized them for it.
Me, I think the temptation was understandable, but to give into it was
foolish.
>
> The primary findings of the book, the decline of violent crime in states
> that have adopted shall-issue carry permit systems, was not lost, has
> been provided to anyone who has asked for it, and Lott's results based
> on that data have been replicated by everyone who has examined them.
And since the data for the central thesis comes from public sources,
and is easily available, rechecking Lott's figures -- or, for that
matter, retesting his hypothesis as new county-level data becomes
available, every year.
>
> As for the "98%" survey data that was lost, participants in the survey
> have come forward to state that the survey did, in fact, take place,
> and new surveys asking the same question have repeated its results.
There's been a fairly wide range of responses to similar questions,
and that whole matter is probably still ripe for further research.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Jeffrey C. Dege
>If you introduce a gun into a violent encounter, it increases
>the chance that Jeffrey C. Dege will write:
>
>> As for the "98%" survey data that was lost, participants in
>> the survey have come forward to state that the survey did,
>> in fact, take place, and new surveys asking the same
>> question have repeated its results.
>
>amateurish. Compare what Lott did to what Kleck did and
>Lott's survey looks like something a 8th grade student's
>class project.
>
>The "results" are also meaningless gibberish. The "2%" claim
>is based on a sample so small that the margin of error could
>place it anywhere between just over 1% to as high as 30%.
>
>Real scientists don't report statistically insignificant and
>statistically meaningless results.
Lott didn't report it, he mentioned it in passing, in a report on
something else.
--
"Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity
is the mother of futile dodges" is much nearer the truth.
-- Alfred North Whitehead
S. Smith
>On 15 Feb 2003 15:20:45 GMT, Catl Nisarel <hostl...@postmaster.co.uk> wrote:
>>If you introduce a gun into a violent encounter, it increases
>>the chance that Jeffrey C. Dege will write:
>>
>>> As for the "98%" survey data that was lost, participants in
>>> the survey have come forward to state that the survey did,
>>> in fact, take place, and new surveys asking the same
>>> question have repeated its results.
>>
>>The methodology for the original and the 'new' survey is
>>amateurish. Compare what Lott did to what Kleck did and
>>Lott's survey looks like something a 8th grade student's
>>class project.
>>
>>The "results" are also meaningless gibberish. The "2%" claim
>>is based on a sample so small that the margin of error could
>>place it anywhere between just over 1% to as high as 30%.
>>
>>Real scientists don't report statistically insignificant and
>>statistically meaningless results.
>
>Lott didn't report it, he mentioned it in passing, in a report on
>something else.
Did Lott make up identities to give himself positive book reviews
on Amazon.com and elsewhere?
The guy is a very dubious gun researcher, at best.
Jeffrey C. Dege
>If you introduce a gun into a violent encounter, it increases
>the chance that Jeffrey C. Dege will write:
>
>>>Real scientists don't report statistically insignificant
>>>and statistically meaningless results.
>>
>> Lott didn't report it, he mentioned it in passing, in a
>> report on something else.
>
>ignorant.
>
>Lott reports in it his book, both editions.
>
>"If national surveys are correct, 98 percent of the time that
>(University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 3.
A short aside, in the introduction to the book, before he begins to
address the research that the book is about.
--
Any deity worthy of a graven image can cobble up a working universe
complete with fake fossils in under a week - hey, if you're not
omnipotent, there's no real point in being a god. But to start with a
big ball of elementary particles and end up with the duckbill platypus
without constant twiddling requires a degree of subtlety and the ability
to Think Things Through: exactly the qualities I'm looking for when I'm
shopping for a Supreme Being.
- Lee DeRaud
Joel Rosenberg
I dunno. Possibly.
But since you're into the "dead agenting" of Lott, let's assume that
he did that, and that he did a whole bunch of other bad things. Let's
assume that he lies about his personal history, goes drinking and
driving with his secretary (a la Teddy Kennedy), has sex with interns
(like Bill Clinton), has funny eyebrows (he does, actually), praises
Osama Bin Laden (like Patty Murray), boasts of personal
accomplishments that aren't quite there (Al Gore), etc. etc.
All of that, perhaps, ought to properly -- if not legally --
disqualify him from holding public office, but none of it has any
relevance at all to the question of whether the publicly available
public data supports his central thesis, which -- understandably --
you prefer to dismiss with a wave of the hand, and focus instead on
one or two polls.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
S. Smith
No, I like to focus on the fact that Lott is a lying and deceitful man
who is a shill for the gun industry and pro-gun lobbyists. I think his
studies have about as much credibility as the man, which is very
little.
Joel Rosenberg
Ah. So you think that ad hominem is a good form of argument. Very
revealing.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
S. Smith
wrote:
What part of what I said isn't true?
Jeffrey C. Dege
The problem with that is that even deceitful people can state the truth.
The data is widely available, the conclusions are known. If the
conclusions are not supported by the data, explain to us how.
--
When...[government] gets into difficulties it can raise money by seizing
it, in the form of taxes, from those who have earned it. So long as
such persons confine their resistance to academic protests, it will
continue well-heeled, and ready for ever new and worse extravagances.
Even when it finds, on trying to shake them down, that their pockets
are quite empty, it can still borrow on the security of their future
earning power. Legally speaking they are its slaves. It can dip into
their bank account whenever it pleases, and if those bank accounts turn
out to be too scanty for its needs, it can mortgage whatever money they
seem likely to accumulate tomorrow, or next month, or next year...It is
a millstone around their necks that grows heavier every time they try
to throw it off...The Bill of Rights gives a long list of things that
the government may not do to the citizen in his person...There is only
one provision dealing with his property: the government is forbidden to
take it without paying for it. It seems me that there is a hint here.
Why not a new Bill of Rights, definitely limiting the taxing powers of
the government? Why not...[an] Amendment restoring it to its simple
and proper functions, and forbidding it forever to collect or spend a
cent for any purpose lying outside them?
- H. L. Mencken
S. Smith
wrote:
>On Sat, 15 Feb 2003 11:20:22 -0600, S. Smith <scott...@visi.com> wrote:
>>On Sat, 15 Feb 2003 16:37:27 GMT, Joel Rosenberg <jo...@ellegon.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>But since you're into the "dead agenting" of Lott, let's assume that
>>>he did that, and that he did a whole bunch of other bad things. Let's
>>>assume that he lies about his personal history, goes drinking and
>>>driving with his secretary (a la Teddy Kennedy), has sex with interns
>>>(like Bill Clinton), has funny eyebrows (he does, actually), praises
>>>Osama Bin Laden (like Patty Murray), boasts of personal
>>>accomplishments that aren't quite there (Al Gore), etc. etc.
>>>
>>>All of that, perhaps, ought to properly -- if not legally --
>>>disqualify him from holding public office, but none of it has any
>>>relevance at all to the question of whether the publicly available
>>>public data supports his central thesis, which -- understandably --
>>>you prefer to dismiss with a wave of the hand, and focus instead on
>>>one or two polls.
>>
>>No, I like to focus on the fact that Lott is a lying and deceitful man
>>who is a shill for the gun industry and pro-gun lobbyists. I think his
>>studies have about as much credibility as the man, which is very
>>little.
>
>The problem with that is that even deceitful people can state the truth.
Possibly, but it also almost certainly means that his opinions and
judgements are tainted and should be considered as such.
>The data is widely available, the conclusions are known. If the
>conclusions are not supported by the data, explain to us how.
The Claims that Right-to-Carry Laws Reduce Violent Crime
are Unsubstantiated:
http://www.pcvp.org/pcvp/firearms/pubs/mustard3.shtml
Critical Commentary on a Paper by Lott and Mustard:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zj5j-gttl/teret.htm
The Effect of Concealed Handgun laws on Crime -
Beyond the Dummy Variables:
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~cozden/dezhbakhsh_99_03_paper.pdf
Do more guns cause less crime?:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/lott/lott.html
Joel Rosenberg
What part of what you said is relevant to his demonstrable proof?
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Joel Rosenberg
> If you introduce a gun into a violent encounter, it increases
> the chance that Joel Rosenberg will write:
>
> > Ah. So you think that ad hominem is a good form of argument.
>
> How many fallacies will you drag out?
>
So, you're signing on to ad hominem, too? Interesting.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Joel Rosenberg
Then feel free to examine the data, and show how different conclusions
are reasonable.
Rotsa ruck.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Joel Rosenberg
> If you introduce a gun into a violent encounter, it increases
> the chance that Joel Rosenberg will write:
>
> > Catl Nisarel <hostl...@postmaster.co.uk> writes:
> >
> >> increases the chance that Joel Rosenberg will write:
> >>
> >> > Ah. So you think that ad hominem is a good form of
> >> > argument.
> >>
> >> How many fallacies will you drag out?
> >>
> >
> > So, you're signing on to ad hominem, too? Interesting.
>
> Still beating your wife? Interesting.
Ah. So you think that adding in another fallacy helps your case. Cool.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Joel Rosenberg
> If you introduce a gun into a violent encounter, it increases
> the chance that Joel Rosenberg will write:
>
> > Then feel free to examine the data, and show how different
> > conclusions are reasonable.
>
> The way Lott used log normalization appears to have screwed up
> his conclusions.
That, for once, is perhaps a move toward a legitimate criticism of his
work. If somebody claims that n+m=5, it's legitimate criticism to
claim that he's miscalculated n and/or m; your "dead agenting" --
'he's a bad person, so it can't equal five' -- isn't.
I've read a few criticisms of Lott's study based on his methods --
most of it seems to center around how counties with zero incidents of
a given category of violent crime both before and after reform out to
be counted -- and it's obviously a legitimate area of inquiry. That
said, it won't be terribly satisfactory to the antis, as -- as long as
all the data is used, one way or another, and not cherry-picked
('let's not count Florida or Oregon', for example) -- the only
question is the magnitude of the effects, not the direction of them.
Hope this helps.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Joel Rosenberg
> If you introduce a gun into a violent encounter, it increases
> the chance that Joel Rosenberg will write:
>
> > Then feel free to examine the data, and show how different
> > conclusions are reasonable.
>
> The way Lott used log normalization appears to have screwed up
> his conclusions.
That, for once, is perhaps a move toward a legitimate criticism of his
work. If somebody claims that n+m=5, it's legitimate criticism to
claim that he's miscalculated n and/or m; your "dead agenting" --
'he's a bad person, so it can't equal five' -- isn't.
I've read a few criticisms of Lott's study based on his methods --
most of it seems to center around how counties with zero incidents of
a given category of violent crime both before and after reform ought to
be counted -- and it's obviously a legitimate area of inquiry. That
said, it won't be terribly satisfactory to the antis, as -- as long as
all the data is used, one way or another, and not cherry-picked
('let's not count Florida or Oregon', for example) -- the only
question is the magnitude of the effects, not the direction of them,
and some folks who have made such criticism have found that the effect
is greater than Lott claims.
Joel Rosenberg
> It was a bunch of rambling baloney.
>
Ah. I see we have another "scholar" here. *snicker*
Well, I give up on you.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
S Sheldon
"S. Smith" <scott...@visi.com> wrote in message
news:dcsq4vgttfdmtk6p4...@4ax.com...
>
>
> Now the proverbial shoe is on the other academic foot: John R. Lott
> Jr., a point man for the pro-gun set whose resume has noted positions
> on the faculties of the University of Chicago's law school, Stanford
> University and Yale, stands accused of the same scholarly crime.
Fortunately Jeffrey Dege and his cronies will be equally as incensed with
this dishonesty as they were with the Bellesiles thing, so there won't be
any argument about defrocking Lott.
It's nice to see that we can all come together on things and agree, it's far
less divisive that way.
S Sheldon
"Jeffrey C. Dege" <jd...@jdege.visi.com> wrote in message
news:slrnb4rfou...@jdege.visi.com...
>
> Notice how this is phrased to make it sound as if the lost data was the
> foundation of the book, which it wasn't.
Ooops... I was wrong.
Jeffrey Dege is a hypocrite. :(
S Sheldon
"Joel Rosenberg" <jo...@ellegon.com> wrote in message
news:m2n0kyi...@joelr.ellegon.com...
> jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege) writes:
>
>
> There's also a huge difference between the relatively peripheral stuff
> in the survey -- which clearly happened, although quite possibly
> had some methodological problems; we'll not know, although people can
> repeat the survey questions, if they'd like -- and Bellesiles'
> repeated and demonstrated fudging of both data and quotations that
> were central to his thesis.
Say it ain't so!
Even Joel Rosenberg is a hypocrite.
Joel Rosenberg
> "S. Smith" <scott...@visi.com> wrote in message
> news:dcsq4vgttfdmtk6p4...@4ax.com...
> >
> >
> > Now the proverbial shoe is on the other academic foot: John R. Lott
> > Jr., a point man for the pro-gun set whose resume has noted positions
> > on the faculties of the University of Chicago's law school, Stanford
> > University and Yale, stands accused of the same scholarly crime.
>
> Fortunately Jeffrey Dege and his cronies will be equally as incensed with
> this dishonesty as they were with the Bellesiles thing, so there won't be
> any argument about defrocking Lott.
I certainly would be if the most serious of the alleged wrongs were of
the same order -- which they aren't -- and were proven, which they
haven't been, and probably won't be.
The SS notion of "well, you proved our guy was a liar, so let's string
your guy up without looking into what happened," well, there's nothing
to respect in that.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
S Sheldon
> "S Sheldon" <use...@sodablue.org> writes:
>
> > "S. Smith" <scott...@visi.com> wrote in message
> > news:dcsq4vgttfdmtk6p4...@4ax.com...
> > >
> > >
> > > Now the proverbial shoe is on the other academic foot: John R. Lott
> > > Jr., a point man for the pro-gun set whose resume has noted positions
> > > on the faculties of the University of Chicago's law school, Stanford
> > > University and Yale, stands accused of the same scholarly crime.
> >
> > Fortunately Jeffrey Dege and his cronies will be equally as incensed
with
> > this dishonesty as they were with the Bellesiles thing, so there won't
be
> > any argument about defrocking Lott.
>
> I certainly would be if the most serious of the alleged wrongs were of
> the same order -- which they aren't -- and were proven, which they
> haven't been, and probably won't be.
Hypocrite.
I knew this would happen. You'll swallow any crap, lies, whatever people
throw out as long as it conforms to your preconceived notion of what is the
right answer.