Levitt replies to Lott

Posted by Tim Lambert on July 25, 2006
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William Ford has Levitt’s reply to Lott. I think this part sums it up:


Plaintiff’s construction is so strained and based on faulty assumptions that it is inconceivable that his construction is the exclusive, reasonable interpretation of the Excerpt. The Excerpt is not about Plaintiff’s methodology, as he alleges, but his “results.” Not only is the Excerpt silent about Plaintiff’s protocols and methodology, but Defendants know of no natural and obvious meaning of the word “results” that is tantamount to “methodology”. Instead, the term “results” means just that — a finding or conclusion. Thus, the natural and obvious meaning of the Excerpt is simply that for whatever reason, other scholars arrived at a dissimilar conclusion than Lott did. The Book does not offer an explanation as to why other scholars could not come up with the same conclusion as Lott: they could have used different data, employed a different statistical analysis, or surveyed a different population group under very different socio-economic circumstances at a different point in time, or there could have been merely a computer malfunction. None of these reasonable, alternative constructions accuse Lott of academic dishonesty or otherwise impugn his professional integrity.

I don’t understand this legal stuff, but I think the next step is that the court throws out Lott’s case.

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Comments

  1. #1 Terry
    July 28, 2006

    More guns in the hands of law abiding citizens less crime.
    That is a fact.
    Only a racist thinks otherwise. Think, not knows, because the racist can not present any proof that when a government makes it more difficult for law abiding citizens to defend themselves crime goes down.

  2. #2 Kristjan Wager
    July 28, 2006

    Terry, do you perhaps have any data to back up your claims? It seems that the crime rates in countries with gun control compared to countries without gun control, would indicate that at best, it’s not as simple as you say.

  3. #3 Ian Gould
    July 29, 2006

    Terry doesn’t need facts, he KNOWS.

  4. #4 huxley
    July 29, 2006

    > More guns in the hands of law abiding citizens less crime. That is a fact. Only a racist thinks otherwise.

    Really? I heard that only zoophilic frotteurs think that more guns in the hands of law abiding citizens means less crime. I’m pretty sure that’s a fact.

  5. #5 Mark Shapiro
    July 31, 2006

    BTW, one of the main things that McIntyre has been asking for all along at climateaudit is the archiving of all research data and methods so that research can be replicated easily. And it is hard to argue against that, although I’m sure that there are some qualifications, exceptions, or other considerations.

    Has Lott archived his data?

    My sense is no.

  6. #6 Eli Rabett
    August 11, 2006

    There was a long article in chicago.mag with background on the Lott-Levitt relationship.