tlambert | April 5, 2004 The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) attempts to classify each pesonality into one of 16 types described by the four letter codes in the table below. TypeLogic has descriptions of all the types, as well as a FAQ. You can find your out own type in this on-line test. If you have a blog you can enter your type in the table below.
[Go here to see the table and the form.](http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/survey/myersbriggs.html)
Google Directory has a huge pile of links on the MBTI. I think some of those people take it way too seriously. This page has some…
tlambert | April 3, 2004 Kevin Baker was one of the bloggers who posted on the story about Lindsay's sword killing, claiming that it showed that for all intents and purposes self-defence in the UK was illegal. Despite learning that Lindsay had chased the robber out of his home and stabbed him in the back four times, in the comments and on his blog Baker continued to insist that self defence was illegal in practice in the UK. His argument was that England's "laws concerning weapons make self-defense, for all intents and purposes, a lost cause". His argument is badly wrong for two reasons.…
tlambert | March 31, 2004 A couple of weeks ago Xrlq wrote about me: He's the Australian blogger who aspires to do to John Lott what Clayton Cramer did to Michael Bellesiles. Unfortunately, he doesn't do a very good job; while Cramer uncovered overwhelming evidence Bellesiles's fundamental research was fabricated, the best Lambert has been able to do is to uncover a few really stupid things Lott has done on a few isolated occasions. The rest of his rebuttals consist of gratuitous attacks on Lott personally.
I felt that this was incorrect, so I remonstrated.with Xrlq in…
tlambert | March 27, 2004 I wrote earlier about the Tony Martin case. Martin shot a fleeing burglar in the back and left him to die. He was convicted of murder (reduced to manslaughter on appeal). Pro-gunners such as John Lott, Glenn Reynolds and John Derbyshire have written about the Martin case, apparently unaware of the facts that showed that the killing was not in self defence, and proceeded to make bogus claims that self defence was against the law in Britain. Claims which they have never bothered to correct.
Last week this story appeared in the Scotsman: A man who stabbed to…
tlambert | March 27, 2004 The Panda's Thumb is an excellent new blog devoted to defending the integrity of science against attacks from creationists. I put it straight into my blog roll. Mark Perakh has a post where he tells a story that should be very familiar to those who know about Lott's antics at Amazon.com.
My book Unintelligent Design became available from Amazon in the middle of December 2003. On December 22 those curious observers who watch the sometimes funny exchange of opinions regarding books offered by Amazon, already could read a review of my book signed "A reader…
tlambert | March 26, 2004 The Australian published a letter to the editor the day after Lott's piece on laser pointers: John Lott (Opinion, 24/3) claims an Australian academic with a laser pointer would cause panic. I'm an Australian academic and when I use a laser pointer it does not cause a panic. Lott has confused high-powered lasers, which are restricted because they can cause eye damage, with the low power laser pointers we use in lectures. He also thinks that the Victorian ban on swords applies to steak knives. It's funny when a foreign newspaper has a story about…
tlambert | March 24, 2004 Lott has an opinion piece on page 15 of today's Australian. Lott writes: Americans may feel safe when an academic addresses a conference using a laser pointer. In the hands of an Australian, however, there is understandable fear that these devices could do untold harm. An Australian academic with a laser pointer would cause real panic.
Well, I'm an Australian academic and I use a laser pointer in my lectures and guess what? There was no panic. They don't even cower in their seats in terror. Weird.
As far as I can tell, the fact that the sale of high-…
tlambert | March 18, 2004 When I was looking in the Philip Morris Documents Archive for information on their astroturf operations, I noticed some familiar names: The American Enterprise Institute, The Heartland Institute and the Cato Institute. All have been involved in employing and/or promoting John Lott.
For example, here is a quote from Philip Morris' 1999 communications plan: Our communications plan will include enlisting allies and other potential third parties to help provide an "echo chamber" of opinion in local, regional and national media, consistent with our messages.
Some…
tlambert | March 18, 2004 Via David Bernstein I learn that the finalists for the Lysander Spooner award are: James Bovard, Terrorism and Tyranny;John Lott, Bias Against Guns;Charles Murray, Human Accomplishment; and[his] own, You Can't Say That!
My congratulations to all the finalists. To get into the final four just required emailed votes and it wasn't even against the rules to vote more than once by using multiple email accounts. Winning the award will be more difficult for Lott, since it will be decided by a jury of members of the Center for Independent Thought's…
tlambert | March 16, 2004I have posted some of my emails to the firearmsreg mailing list from September and October 2002. This shows some of the initial discussion of Lott's mysterious survey. Read them here.
tlambert | March 12, 2004 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…
tlambert | March 10, 2004 Via Randy Barnett we learn that Lott's Bias Against Guns has been nominated for a Spooner award for the best book on liberty published in 2003. On the voting page they state: only one vote per email address will be accepted
I predict that Lott's book will get a Lott of votes.
tlambert | March 9, 2004 Seems that bloggers have a strong urge to post their scores for Bryan Caplan's Libertarian Purity Test. So here's a spot where you can post your score and find blogs with similar (or different) scores.
[Go here to see the table and the form.](http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/survey/libertarianpurity.ht…)
The test does seem to be another one of those tests that tries to convince you that you are a libertarian. It said that I was a "soft-core libertarian", which I don't think is right, but it's still fun as long as you don't take the results too…
tlambert | March 6, 2004 Last month I wrote about how junkscience.com and The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition were fronts set up by tobacco companies to oppose regulatioon of smoking. Chris Mooney published a very interesting article in the Washington Post on the use of the phrase "sound science" by other industry funded groups to oppose government regulation.
Iain Murray then attacked Mooney, accusing him of misrepresentation, distortion and double-speak. Mooney has replied here, in my opinion thoroughly destroying Murray's arguments.
I've been reluctant to write anything about the climate change debate…
tlambert | March 5, 2004 Andrew Wakefield published a study linking immunization injections with autism. The Lancet now says that it should never have been published because of a "fatal conflict of interest". At the time Wakefield was being paid to collect evidence to support possible compensation claims. Ten of his coauthors have issued a retraction, though Wakefield has refused. I think it was unethical for Wakefield to conceal his conflict of interest.
George Ricaurte published a study alleging that MDMA (Ecstasy) causes brain damage. It turns out that he actually used a different drug in his experiments.…
tlambert | March 3, 2004 Say Uncle suggests that I am "anti-gun" and implies that I "favor more gun control in the US". I am not "anti-gun". Here is a picture of me (on left) with a gun. Unless you think that Lott is some sort of gun, criticizing him is not being "anti-gun". Nor do I favour more gun control in the US. I have never written anything saying what I think the laws in the US should be---I don't think that is any of my business. As for Australia, I felt that the laws before 1996 were about right and I do not think that the 1996 laws were a good idea. (Not that there is the slightest scrap of merit to…
tlambert | March 1, 2004 Glenn Reynolds writes: Here's another in a steady stream of reports along these lines: 76 million people own a gun in this country. And now more than ever, the number of women who are buying and learning to fire guns is increasing.
It is indeed one of a steady stream of reports. A steady stream of bogus reports that gun ownership by women is increasing.
Tom Smith and Robert Smith thoroughly debunked this notion in a paper published in The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (86:1 1995). They examined such claims and the evidence and concluded:
Through the…
tlambert | February 28, 2004Chris Mooney writes that he hasn't received an adequate response from Lott's webmaster about the changing files on Lott's website either.
tlambert | February 27, 2004Summary: Lott now claims that an incriminating file where he had been caught cooking his results was not meant to have been on his website and was only there because his webmaster screwed up. Unfortunately, his latest story is full of holes.
Way back in September last year I detailed how, after Ayres and Donohue showed that correcting Lott's coding errors made his results go away, Lott changed his model to bring his results back. Then when I asked him questions about the changed model, he tried to cover up the change by replacing the file at johnlott.org…
tlambert | February 27, 2004 Allan Lichtman posts on spoiled ballots in Florida 2000. (Hat tip: Ralph Luker). He rightfully refers to Lott's claims about ballot spoiling as "bizarre". Lott claims: African-American Republicans who voted were 54 to 66 times more likely than the average African American to cast a non-voted ballot (either by not marking that race or voting for too many candidates). To put it another way: For every two additional black Republicans in the average precinct, there was one additional non-voted ballot. By comparison, it took an additional 125…