Dan from Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics has a problem:
I'm working in a fairly esoteric field in which there are very few existing academic papers (because it's a highly politically charged topic, I've decided not to discuss it here until I have at least have all the data before me). One of the papers was co-authored by John Lott. I'm seriously queasy about citing Lott, given his spectacularly unprofessional behavior in the past surrounding "More Guns, Less Crime" and the Mary Rosh fiasco. So, the question is: do I cite Lott, cite Lott with a footnote indicating that the man is all but entirely discredited, or just ignore the paper?
Usually it is best to provide all relevant information to your readers, so you can't ignore his paper or his misconduct. So you cite the paper and add a footnote warning your readers that he is not a reliable source of information.
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Howard Nemerov has a post defending Lott and responding to Chris Mooney's Mother Jones article. Unfortunately, he gets his facts wrong, leaves out inconvenient facts and indulges in fallacious arguments. I'll go through his post and correct these, but first some general comments.
Even…
This is an annotated list of John Lott's on line reviews at Amazon
and at Barnes and Noble.
Most of his reviews were posted anonymously or under a false name, and he used this anonymity to post many five-star reviews of his own books and to pan rival books.
When you post a review at…
Last December I examined a posting by John Ray who dismissed ozone depletion as a "Greenie scare" using facts he seemed to have just made up by himself. Now he's back, attacking gun control. This time he's not using facts that he made up---he's using facts that Lott made up. He quotes…
The last time I looked at the reviews of More Guns, Less Crime at Amazon.com I noted how, after a negative review was posted, Lott would post a five-star review to push the negative review off the front page. On December 11, someone posted a negative review of More Guns,…