The other Lott controversy: Michelle Malkin whacks pro-2nd Amendment author for self-aggrandizing

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Wednesday, February 5, 2003 | Michelle Malkin

[JohnHuang2]

Wednesday, February 5, 2003

Quote of the Day by EternalVigilance

[Godel]

Nice to see that we hold ourselves to a higher standard than liberals, and that honesty, integrity, and facts still count, not blind adherence to idealogy.

[gubamyster]

PING

[.45MAN]

Keep up the good work on the posts. The truth is out there...

[chasio649]

For some..

[Carry_Okie]

Far be if from me to defend Dr. Lott, whose success in broaching the obvious about individual gun ownership needs no plaudit, but I do wish to offer this:

I wrote a book. It was the work of a lifetime. It cost me $400,000 in cash outlay and lost income and virtually ended my professional career. It has been a financial bomb, in large part because I have no money left to promote it. I did everything I knew to get others to review my data and my findings. I have NO IDEA how thorough those individuals were but I have my suspicions that they were blown away by the sheer volume of the data. I live in constant anguish that somewhere I might have made a "too-hopeful" conclusion or stupid error.

I don't have Dr. Lott's credentials. Lacking fame or money means that anyone you would want to review your book, won't. I have had to acquire reviews by sheer force of determination and the whole thing grows stale while they take six months to maybe read it, or tell you they don't have time (after you sent them a free copy). Given that it is an interdisciplinary work, it is almost impossible to get even the most supportive academic to put anything in writing.

I can thus easily understand the massive temptations that operated on John Lott. If he truly blew it, I feel for the guy.

[Bonaparte]

That book of Lott's is probably the most exhaustively investigated ever -- and the gun-grabbers only found one error. If there were more, they would surely have found them by now and he'd be pilloried just like Bellesiles. But he hasn't been.

I call that good news.

[Adder]

Faking data, if true, is not ok. While I support the position Lott takes concerning the role of guns in our culture, there should be enough data available without making it up. In this he is no better than Bellesailes and it casts doubt on his entire thesis. This is not a good thing for those who must fight the sea of misinformation and faulty assumptions of the gun control crowd.
He should never have done such a thing.
In a larger view, what does it say about the integrity of academia that they are constantly being "caught" faking data, misrepresenting findings and flat out lying? What has happened to integrity? This is the kind of future we can expect? All research will be meaningless and unreliable if it can't be trusted. I don't have any answers but it certainly bodes ill when research is used to make policy and that research is tainted by intellectual dishonesty.

[dansangel]

And I thought this was going to be a good Wednesday....

Silly Me! {{{{{{{JH2}}}}}}

[dansangel]

ping

[Wonder Warthog]

"In a larger view, what does it say about the integrity of academia that they are constantly being "caught" faking data, misrepresenting findings and flat out lying? What has happened to integrity? This is the kind of future we can expect? All research will be meaningless and unreliable if it can't be trusted."

The increase in "loss of integrity" is a symptom of the "socialist/liberal" disease in which any lie is OK as long as the perpetrator of the falsehood feels he is doing it "for a good cause". That this propensity spills over from the left into other spheres of philosophy is an unfortunate consequence of the above.

However--in the long run, it doesn't matter, as THE TRUTH "WILL"!!!! COME OUT. The fact that the falsifiers are being investigated and identified on a regular basis actually says that the overall process is working as it should--it just takes a bit longer and a bit more effort than it used to in the "old days" when research integrity was held in higher esteem.

[WL-law]

there should be enough data available without making it up. In this he is no better than Bellesailes and it casts doubt on his entire thesis.

That will be tue only if a 'real' survey shows a very different / contradictory result form the phantom survey, which I expect is NOT the case.

[rdb3]

Nice to see that we hold ourselves to a higher standard than liberals, and that honesty, integrity, and facts still count, not blind adherence to idealogy.

I wish I could totally agree with your statement, but I can't do it.

We have more than our fair share of ideologues on the Right who place ideology above all else.

T-minus 38 days until the birth of Tha SYNDICATE, the philosophical heir to William Lloyd Garrison.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.

[choosetheright]

That will be tue only if a 'real' survey shows a very different / contradictory result form the phantom survey, which I expect is NOT the case.

Actually, there have been many other surveys on this point, and they all reached results that contradict Lott. (Those other surveys include some done by Gary Kleck, the preeminent and very pro-gun criminologist at Florida State University.) The discrepancy between those surveys and Lott's survey are the very reason that people started wondering about the legitimacy of Lott's survey in the first place.

[Adder]

"The increase in "loss of integrity" is a symptom of the "socialist/liberal" disease in which any lie is OK as long as the perpetrator of the falsehood feels he is doing it "for a good cause"."
___________________________________________________________
I agree with that! Yet, even though much of it is being caught, how much is not? How many "scientific studies" are being used to make laws and policies that are simply flawed and outright lies[such as the second hand smoke study from 1993 later discredited but still cited everytime a smoking ban is proposed or the "biologist" caught planting jaguar[?] hair to claim its territory had spread to that section of forest, et al.], One can be vigilant but not perfect. The trust invested in the amphorous "scientific community" is disappearing with each new revelation of misconduct.

[WL-law]

Actually, there have been many other surveys on this point, and they all reached results that contradict Lott. (Those other surveys include some done by Gary Kleck, the preeminent and very pro-gun criminologist at Florida State University.) The discrepancy between those surveys and Lott's survey are the very reason that people started wondering about the legitimacy of Lott's survey in the first place.

Well then I stand corrected.

I had heard that Lott claimed to have re-tested the hypothesis (with evidence this time)and essentially replicated his results -- so (if that's true) something has to be wrong between Kleck's findings and Lott's -- do you think they are testing the same question?

[Carry_Okie]

However--in the long run, it doesn't matter, as THE TRUTH "WILL"!!!! COME OUT. The fact that the falsifiers are being investigated and identified on a regular basis actually says that the overall process is working as it should--it just takes a bit longer and a bit more effort than it used to in the "old days" when research integrity was held in higher esteem.

You know, I wish I shared your optimism. In my current field of environmental politics, I have seen a MASSIVE increase in bogus "science" and no sign that it is abating, indeed there is a building culture around self-justified scientific distortion:

"Gaian perception connects us with the seamless nature of existence, and opens up a new approach to scientific research based on scientific institutions arising from scientists' personal, deeply subjective ecological experience. When the young scientist in training has sat on a mountain top, and has completed her first major assignment to 'think like a mountain', that is, to dwell and deeply identify with a mountain, mechanistic thinking will never take root in her mind. When she eventually goes out to practise her science in the world, she will be fully aware that every interconnected aspect of it has its own intrinsic value, irrespective of its usefulness to the economic activities of human beings."

- STEPHAN HARDING

These monsters are taking over the universities, as you know. They are turning subjectivity into a religion. It is deliberate. Such people are easy to use and wealth can thus be redirected by democratic means. Note how we seem to be moving in the direction of regulating carbon dioxide, notwithstanding the growing scientific indication that anthropogenic warming is miniscule or that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are niether unpredented nor destructive. It's mere political force intended to enrich the politically dominant.

No, I am not so optimistic.

[lewislynn]

Mr. Vande Pol (AKA Carry_Okie) was a leading contributor to the Santa Cruz County Local Agenda 21 Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management Roundtable. His purpose was to see rigorous science respected in policy.

6 posted on 02/05/2003 1:04 AM PST by Carry_Okie (The environment is too complex and too important to be managed by politics.)

Naive?...Hypocrite? Or both?

[WL-law]

"Gaian perception connects us with the seamless nature of existence, and opens up a new approach to scientific research based on scientific institutions arising from scientists' personal, deeply subjective ecological experience. When the young scientist in training has sat on a mountain top, and has completed her first major assignment to 'think like a mountain', that is, to dwell and deeply identify with a mountain, mechanistic thinking will never take root in her mind. When she eventually goes out to practise her science in the world, she will be fully aware that every interconnected aspect of it has its own intrinsic value, irrespective of its usefulness to the economic activities of human beings."

Another element of this phenomena is gender-based -- namely, that the thinking process championed above is feminine, subjective, intuitive.

Reminded me of my thoughts a few days ago, on hearing a NASA press conference and hearing a high NASA official weeping and talking about his feelings.

I remarked to my wife that if, twenty years ago, a man in a highly responsible mgmt position acted this way in public, we would all judge him mentally ill. Now to blubber in public is a badge of honor, showing you're in touch with your feminine side.

All of that 'emotional justification" over rational thought has begun its inevitable pollution of the sciences -- and that's when we'll really see that all bad ideas have (bad) consequences.

[Free the USA]

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