John Lott Strikes Again

that is as pathetic as it is hilarious

I can’t believe Lott keeps doing this, and leaving such an obvious trail.

Perhaps he subconsciously wants to be caught?

Krauthammer’s never around when you really need him.

TallDave on Lambert’s site reminded me that judging from the behavior of historians on the left concerning the gun debate, Lott’s behavior seems extremely reasonable. I mean, at least Lott didn’t lie about his work (Bellesiles anyone) and then have people use his work as citations in court cases and in legislation.

There’s really no reason to think that this is John Lott at all. Presumably John doesn’t need to cut and paste from the WSJ to write a review on Amazon. (The “review” is in fact a published letter to the editor.) Whatever one thinks of John, I think it should actually take some evidence–which is entirely lacking in this case–before throwing around silly accusations.

Lambert notes that “Economist123″‘s Amazon wishlist (until Lambert pointed it out) showed his initials to be “JL”…

I think it should actually take some evidence—which is entirely lacking in this case—before throwing around silly accusations.

What a curious idea. I suggest you forward it to John Lott.

Economist123’s wishlist did indeed show that his initials were “JL”.

It got mysteriously scrubbed a few hours ago, shortly after Lambert pointed this out.

Doug M.

I can’t believe John Lott has the audacity to comment here hiding under aliases of ‘Thomas’ and ‘Jet’. Please, John, stop it.

Lee,
Bellisiles resigned after his peer reviewed book was defended for over a year (by media and acadamia) before the accusatinos were taken seriously. During that year, the book was cited in a 9th circuit court case and used to argue legislation. Then only after a year of defending Bellisiles did acadamia start to admit their peer review was shit. Then it took another year to get Bellisiles forcefully removed (he only resigned if you think given the option of being fired or resigning, is actually resigning).

So we have lieing bastard, who makes shit up and has it make the front pages and effect government’s stance on the 2nd amendment; or guy who doesn’t make shit up, but spices up his amazon review. And you call the right political in who they judge. Hypocracy at its finest.

Lee,
When Arming America was cited in the 9th circuit on a gun case, you don’t think acadamia should be responsible for lending their reputation, via peer review, to the books credibility? And here I was thinking that having something peer reviewed meant that it had been reviewed and approved by a scholar’s academic peers and that actually counted for something important.

The survey accusations are unproven and likely to remain so. And making up a survey, not crucial to your thesis, is entirely different than multiple fabrications that your entire thesis is based upon. The survey only lent weight to Lott’s arguement. The fabricated records WERE Bellisiles argument. And yet, even after the charges were against Bellisiles were irrefutable, Emory took amoast a year to invesitage, giving every appearance they were hoping it would just go away and they wouldn’t have to fire Bellisiles. Emory is still zero.

The problem with Lambert is that he selectively edited the posting on Levitt’s book. Lambert plays it as some one posting a comment and then signing it, but when you actually read the post, it is clear that the person was just reposting a letter in the Wall Street J.

http://xrlq.com/ has this:

“However, Lambert’s “proof” is so thin as to border on laughable. His smoking gun? Economist123 copied and pasted a review of another book that had previously been published by the real John Lott. Well, gee, that settles it. I mean, it stands to reason that anyone who can copy and paste a book review written by John R. Lott must be John R. Lott himself. Right?”

What makes it worse for me is Lambert’s selective editing. Without it there is no claim.

all this talk of acadamia is aking me hungry.

“When Arming America was cited in the 9th circuit on a gun case, you don’t think acadamia should be responsible for lending their reputation, via peer review, to the books credibility?”

I’ve tried to think of a witty retort to this, but your statement is so bizarre that I simply can’t think of one. By what possible standard is the credibility of “academia” on the line because Knopf, a trade press, published a book that turned out to be a fraud?* Let alone because some lawyer cited the book in a brief? If Emory had retained him, I can see how their credibility would be on the line, just as Harvard Law School’s continued employment of plagiarists destroys, in my view, their credibility… or AEI’s continued employment of Lott belies their line that they represent some sort of right-wing version of Brookings.

*Does Knopf even do peer review? If they do, is it perfunctory peer review (e.g., Palgrave or Routledge) or real peer review (e.g., Cambridge University Press)? I have no bloody clue.

“And making up a survey, not crucial to your thesis, is entirely different than multiple fabrications that your entire thesis is based upon. The survey only lent weight to Lott’s arguement.”

You sound like a parody of some of the students who come up before disciplinary committees: “okay, so I fabricated one data set, but some of the other ones were real.” Uh-huh. Don’t let the door hit you on the way to suspension.

At a more metalevel, I always love this argument.

“A: Lott did something disreputable again.
B: Look, over there, Bellisiles!”

Yes, I second that! We need more people like bi!

The odd thing is that the Lott reference in Freakonomics is maybe one paragraph (I don’t have it in front of me, but it certainly was not a central part of the argument about violence). And however the Lott data actually plays out when analyzed properly, the claim of the book (that gun availability does not seem to have a big correlation to crime rate) is true. The correlation if it exists is at largest, very small.

I think Lambert’s and the following Kieran posts are just sour grapes over Lott’s comment (as econ123) being spot on. Looks like Levitt had his work mortally wounded long before he went on to make cash off it.
http://slate.msn.com/id/33569/entry/33575/

jet is John Lott, and I claim my ten shillings.

The odd thing is that the Lott reference in Freakonomics is maybe one paragraph

Not odd at all, since it’s consistent with past behaviour. Lott has an ego the size of a small planet: that’s perhaps why he has to offload it into so many sockpuppets.

Tim Lambert’s next post, where he identifies by IP the new Lott-sock, “Tom H” that showed up in his comments to argue over today’s earlier sock puppet story, is a classic. It really is pathological: http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/2005/05#lottcomments

Hey guys! Sock-puppet rumble on CT again! *gets popcorn*

“Sebastian believes that the claim of the book “More Guns, Less Crime” is “gun availability does not seem to have a big correlation to crime rate”.”

Huh? I was talking about the claim of Freakonomics. Which is pretty obvious even if you had to rely on contextual clues since I mention Freakonomics by name and “More Guns, Less Crime” contains its thesis is the title. So if you can’t tell which book I’m talking about when I talk about ‘its’ thesis (which by the way we have noted Lott disagrees with) perhaps you should question your own reading comprehension rather than shooting yourself in the foot while suggesting that mine is lacking.

bi, you shouldn’t be so open-minded your brains fall out. Lott and his nom-de-plumes have consistently misrepresented themselves. If someone behaves like that, why should I give credence to any of their work? It doesn’t mean I won’t listen to some other researcher claiming that concealed guns reduce crime; it just means I’l ignore assertions made by Rosh as I cannot trust their good faith.

I save my credulousness for those who do not have a track record of abusing it.

Sorry sebastian, my bad.

Now, who can spot the Lott sock puppet?

Doesn’t annonymizers still exist? I am baffled why someone can’t hide it better than that.

This would make a good horror movie plot. “John Lott could be any of us!”