Talk:John Lott

talk page reverts

The deleted thread should stay (altho I guess at this point it should be archived along w much of the rest of this page). The "header" at the top, however accurate it might be (I hope its completely inaccurate of course) should probably not be there. I get the impression this page needs some outside input, maybe an RfC or some such? Sam Spade 22:46, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

I will allow the NPOV tag to remain up for exactly 48 hours unless the inserter of said tag takes a specific and concrete NPOV dispute and writes it up in the ready made format, below

You will allow? There are long discussions on the errors that Lambert and friends want to insert in this biography, though you all want to move those discussions to the archieves or worse cut them out when they don't go your way. Why not accept the warning label?

If there is no NPOV dispute, or there is no discussion on talk, the tag is not accurate. There is a lot of discussion on talk about how you hate Tim Lambert. There is no discussion on talk about the article. Below is a ready made section for you to discuss NPOV problems. Use it. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:52, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

There are so many disputes that haven't responded to. It is amazing to read how much time and effort Al Lowe has spent on this. Others haven't spent as much time as Lowe, but there are other substantial discussions. I think that Al Lowe got it right when he wrote:

Look at what a guy named AlLowe wrote last summer about this:

The article on John Lott clearly fails the NPOV test. And of course, if anyone tries to put in anything that responds to the opposing viewpoint, it is removed, and the poster labeled a sock puppet or accused of Wikipedia:Vandalism. This happens regardless the accuracy of the edits, which do NOT take away from the opposing views, but instead attempt to respond to them, in a balancing act.Al Lowe 15:11, 20 July 2005 (UTC) You people are making a mockery of wikipedia.---Cbaus - December 21, 2005 4:01 p.m. EDST USA

For some links to past discussions see:

1) See Al Lowe's comments 1

2) Al Lowe's comments 2

3) Al Lowe's comments 3

4) Al Lowe's comments on NPOV Failure

5) Al Lowe's comments on NPOV Reinsertion

6) Al Lowe's More on NPOV

7) CBaus's Observations from a Newbie

8) Timewarp's Moving Forward

9) 137.216.209.23's Ready made section to discuss a PoV problem

Hogwash. Take one of the so called problems, and write below. Hipocrite - «Talk» 23:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

"Hogwash" seems to pass for all the response that you are willing to give to all these posts. I may not know as much as these guys do, but it is clear that you are not interested in a discussion. However, just for the sake of discussion, take Timewarp's first point about "Why call Lott's research as being just on deregulation?" Timewarp proposed a concrete change, and he got nothing in return. His second point is a request to you: " I can not find one place where you provide even one example of a peer-reviewed research producing a result that is the opposite of Lott." That is just his first two points.

Are those your two NPOV problems? No problem. Propose a concrete change for the first issue, and I'll accept it. I provided a number of links to research - additionally, it's listed all over the references section. Additionally, linking to research is not an NPOV problem. If you believe there is a WP:NOR violation somewhere, point it out (as was done before) and I'll go cite you the cite for it. Hipocrite - «Talk» 00:01, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Those were just the first two points in only that single section. Both were discussions you were involved in and both were discussions where you failed to respond to concrete suggestions for change. The date on that discussion is October and you still do not offer a response!

I just offered you a response. 1 - propose a change to the scope of his work that is neutral, verifiable and factual and I will make it myself and 2 - NOR is not an NPOV problem. Hipocrite - «Talk» 00:23, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Since you were involved in this ealier debate, you know that a concrete proposal was already provided for both of these points by Timewarp, and you have decided to just pretend that it wasn't made in detail to you multiple times. Here was Timewarp's suggestion for the first point:

"Although Lott has published in academic journals regarding education, voting behavior of politicians, industrial organization, labor markets, judicial confirmations, and crime, his research is hard to consistently tag as liberal or conservative.

"For example, some research argues for environmental penalties on firms.[1] While other research on guns is viewed as quite conservative. He has also published in the popular press on topics such as the validity of the 2000 Presidential Election results in Florida, or how low the murder rate in Baghdad is after the US deposed Saddam Hussein, he is primarily known outside of academic econometrics for his involvement in arguments regarding the beneficial results of allowing Americans to freely own and carry guns."

It is a waste of space and is completely unnecessary since you have already had this provided before, but here is one of the responses offered earlier on the second issue.

Peer-reviewd studies that discuss, replicate, duplicate or disagree with Dr. Lott's research:

• Using Placebo Laws to Test “More Guns, Less Crime”
• Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns and Violent Crime: Crime Control Through Gun Decontrol?
• TESTING FOR THE EFFECTS OF CONCEALED WEAPONS LAWS: SPECIFICATION ERRORS AND ROBUSTNESS, Carl Moody
• RIGHT-TO-CARRY CONCEALED WEAPON LAWS AND HOMICIDE IN LARGE U.S. COUNTIES: THE EFFECT ON WEAPON TYPES, VICTIM CHARACTERISTICS, AND VICTIM-OFFENDER RELATIONSHIPS, David Olson
• The Effect of Concealed Weapons Laws: An Extreme Bound Analysis, William Alan Bartley and Mark A Cohen
• [2]
• Does the right to carry concealed handguns deter countable crimes?
• Testing for the effects of concealed weapons laws
• Olson/Maltz, Homicide in Large U.S. Cities
• The Effect of Concealed Weapons Laws: An Extreme Bound Analysis
• Privately Produced general deterence

Other discussions regarding Lott's research, including non peer-reviewed research:

• John Lott's weblog
• John Lott's data, available for downloading
• John Lott's Research Papers at the Social Science Research Network
• Opinion pieces by Lott in the general press

• The Latest Misfires in Support of the “More Guns, Less Crime” Hypothesis
• Confirming More Guns, Less Crime
• Shooting Down the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis.

You do know that Lott is employed by AEI, don't you?'Gzuckier 07:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Statistical One-Upmanship Quote

When this page gets unprotected, I'd prefer to expand that quote to prevent misunderstandings (my changes got lost in the revert war).

Basically, one gets the impression from the current version of the article that people don't like Lott's findings because he performs really, really complex computations. However, this is not at all the point of the Goertzel piece being quoted; Goertzel is pointing out that econometric regressions of the sort Lott performs have to be robust, that you should not be able to make a few very small changes along the way that radically change the final conclusion. Lott, however, makes computation that cannot be performed on ordinary computers, resulting in the inability of other researchers to check whether his findings are robust. Nevertheless, DESPITE these obstacles, other researchers did eventually find that Lotts work is not robust, and hence his conclusion are not valid. A fuller quote would communicate this criticism better. --Pierremenard 16:13, 26 December 2005 (UTC)