1. deltoid
  2. Marvin Wolfgang on Kleck's DGU survey

Marvin Wolfgang on Kleck's DGU survey

By tlambert on December 16, 1996.

J. Neil Schulman writes:

So this data has been peer-reviewed by a top criminologist in this
country who was prejudiced in advance against its results, and even
HE found the scientific evidence overwhelmingly convincing.

This is untrue. Wolfgang writes:

"The usual criticisms of survey research, such as that done by Kleck
and Gertz, also apply to their research. The problems of small
numbers and extrapolating from relatively small samples to the
universe are common criticisms of all survey research, including
theirs. I did not mention this specifically in my printed comments
because I thought that this was obvious; within the specific
limitations of their research is what I meant by a lack of criticism
methodologically."
(J of Criminal Law and Criminology 86:2 p617-8)

One of the limitations of survey research that Wolfgang considered too
obvious to be necessary to point out is there is no guarantee that all
respondents told the truth. Mr Schulman is perhaps unaware of this
fact.

Tags
dgu

More like this

Sandefur and Brayton on Fire
Time for another installment of, “How bad have things gotten for the ID folks?” It is now almost a year since the big ruling in the Dover case. As I'm sure you recall, that's the one where the ID folks put their most formidable legal and scientific talent in front of a Court, and the Court…
Baghdad Murder Rate
Chris Lawrence defends Lott against the charge Wyeth made yesterday. James Joyner also comments. Lawrence is correct when he points out that Lott's claims about Baghdad murders are not lies unless Lott knows them to be false, and, in the absence of reliable data we don't know…
Responding to the DI
The Discovery Institute is apparently going to come out with a report tomorrow outlining 14 "false facts" in my book. I hope that the first I hear about the contents of this report is not on the air with Michael Medved. We'll see. Still, we can start with Discovery's press release announcing the…
How do researchers perceive peer review?
You don't have to look far to find mutterings about the peer review system, especially about the ways in which anonymous reviewers might hold up your paper or harm your career. On the other hand, there are plenty of champions of the status quo who argue that anonymous peer review is the essential…