Lott has made some more responses to some of the questions asked and comments made. First, he has responded to my remaining questions I asked a while ago. Let's see how he went:
- Why did Lott repeatedly make false claims that the 98% figure came from other studies and from Kleck?
Lott says:
As to attributing things, in op-eds or talks I simply don't go through and explain where every statistic that I mention comes from.
This isn't an answer at all. I didn't ask why he didn't give a source, I asked why he gave an incorrect source many times.
- Even Lott cannot possibly be sure that the correct result of his survey was 98% since there is no way to check his calculations. Why did he repeat the figure over and over again?
Lott says:
Is there any evidence to suggest that I can't figure out a weighted average?
Well, yes there is. Lott's 98% figure is markedly different from that obtained by nine published surveys. There is more to getting the number than just calculating a weighted average, since the weights must be computed, the interviews coded and so on. And while Lott has experience in analysing data, this was the first survey he ever conducted, and he admits that he did not get help from people experienced in the area.
- Lott has conceded that the size of the defensive gun use sample in his survey was very small. Too small, in fact, for the result to be statistically reliable. Why did he never even mention the markedly different results obtained from the other surveys with vastly greater sample sizes?
Lott just ducks this question.
- Why did he make his 98% claim well before his survey was completed? (And without attributing it to his survey.)
Lott effectively claims that the 98% number from his survey did not change after January because almost all the interviews were completed in January (at least 98% if he didn't get more gun defenses after then). Fine. But on Feb 6, 1997 he couldn't have known that the number wasn't going to change. Why go to all the effort of weighting everything to get a preliminary estimate? And then not saying that it was a preliminary estimate? In fact, not saying that it came from his survey at all?
Second, he has a reply to some questions ArchPundit asked and also included his new survey. ArchPundit has fired back with one two three postings where he is rightly critical of Lott's methodology. Jacob T. Levy is not impressed either.
And, third, he has a response to Lindgren's comments on his tax returns yesterday. In this response Lott has changed his story again (see Section 4 of Lindgren's report for some of the other changes he has made.) In September Lott told Lindgren:
The survey was done by phone by several University of Chicago undergraduate volunteers in their junior or senior years in 1997, so there are no financial employee records.
Now, he says:
While I no longer have records for what was paid them, it is my recollection that I did pay them something for their work and I did tell Lindgren that I had given them something.
Now maybe he has recalled something that he didn't remember earlier, but he certainly did not tell Lindgren this in September.
Tom Spencer has some more information on David Gross and explains that he is one of the mysterious people Glenn was complaining about yesterday. It seems to me that if you think someone is behaving badly you should explain why and link to them so anyone interested can check for themselves, but I'm a total newb here and Glenn has been blogging forever, so I'm sure he knows what he is doing.
Steve Verdon observes that both versions of the famous sentence are conditional. OK, but my point is that Lott will not admit that he originally attributed the 98% figure to "national surveys".