Dr Limerick thinks Lott isn't washed up, because the AEI and similar institutions will always have a place for him.
Andrew Chamberlain tells us why character matters:
By Lott's total disregard for norms of honesty, he's revealed a deep character flaw that runs to his core. And people always become what they have in their core.I keep having conversations where people argue the Mary Rosh scandal has no impact on Lott's scholarship. This is absurd. The scandal demonstrates that Lott is a man with no integrity or respect for the truth. Like it or not, this casts doubt on all his work, since all scholarship depends fundamentally on a tacit trust between author and audience.
Because intellectual resources are scarce, not every datum in papers can be justified, or every claim checked for accuracy. We have to trust scholars to some extent. And anyone who trusts John Lott after the Mary Rosh debacle is a damn fool. Or in the case of many conservatives, a blind ideologue.