Talk:John Lott

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Early Comments

Both pro-gun and anti-gun groups claim that the other side manipulates statistics, citing only (or chiefly) evidence that supports their own view while deliberately ignoring contrary evidence.

I am fairly competent in statistics and have spent a considerable amount of time studying the research. I think Lott makes a better case.

However, the article should not simply say Lott is right but rather summarize both Lott's arguments and his opponents' arguments.

Uncle Ed 15:18 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Stephen Carlson, you have removed valid viewpoints as "redundant", and you have inserted your own point of view by using incorrect terminology.

To call Mary Rosh an "online pseudonym" is an extremely POV euphemism. Lott created much more than a pseudonym, he supplied a whole identity that was quite obviously deceptive and fake, and used that fake identity in support of his real one. You removed without further justification a paragraph by the Mary Rosh persona that quite clearly demonstrates this:

"I had him for a PhD level empirical methods class when he taught at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania back in the early 1990s, well before he gained national attention, and I have to say that he was the best professor that I ever had. You wouldn't know that he was a 'right-wing' ideologue from the class. . . . There were a group of us students who would try to take any class that he taught. Lott finally had to tell us that it was best for us to try and take classes from other professors more to be exposed to other ways of teaching graduate material."
I kept the money phrase from the paragraph. The rest is fluff. A link to the whole paragraph is appropriate, though. SCCarlson 02:05 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
This is not "fluff", this is a sample of the nature of Lott's deception, which was not limited to simple statements, but provided a quite comprehensive, apparently believable background. This is information is extremely relevant, since Lott's defenders will of course try to claim that Lott's deception was limited in scope and did not go much beyond traditional online pseudonyms, which is plainly refuted by paragraphs such as the one above. --Eloquence

This is not a convenient pseudonym used to hide your identity, this is a fake persona, and there is nothing biased about this term. Lott himself said to the Washington Post that "I probably shouldn't have done it -- I know I shouldn't have done it -- but it's hard to think of any big advantage I got except to be able to comment fictitiously." Why would he say so when talking about a mere pseudonym, certainly nothing unusual? No, Lott did more than that, he deceived people with a deliberately and cleverly forged non-existent person in order to boost his own credibility.

Then include Lott's mea culpa in his own words. But passing judgment on his actions is POV, especially by using a term that connotes illegal activity (at least here in the U.S.; I don't know what Germans think the term means). SCCarlson
Nobody is passing judgment. --Eloquence
Then don't use a term that connotes criminal activity. SCCarlson 02:22 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Your edit of the last paragraph is equally unacceptable. The ad hominem argument has been explicitly rebutted by Lott's critics, and you have removed this rebuttal as "redundancy". --Eloquence 01:44 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The rebuttal merely restated the criticism. I tried to fold them together into a simple criticism + response of commensurate length. On the other hand, structuring the paragraph as (a) lengthy criticism + (b) short response + (c) lengthy (and repetitous) rebuttal is very unbalanced. SCCarlson 02:05 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. By removing the response from Lott's critics to the incorrect ad hominem argument, you silently imply that they have nothing to say about that argument. Of course, you could argue that you expect the reader to implicitly understand that counter-argument from the first sentence, but if we argued like that, we would have to reduce every NPOV representation to simple soundbites and leave it to the reader to fill the gaps, always being biased in one direction or another. This is obviously no way to achieve NPOV. Furthermore, the discussion in the last paragraph is not lengthy. If you want an example for a lengthy argument tree, take a look at war on drugs. And it is not unbalanced either -- if Lott's defenders have nothing to counter the counter-argument by Lott's critics, then it is perfectly NPOV to say so. --Eloquence 02:13 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
It was repetitive, confusing, and unbalanced. I attempted to improve itbut a blanket revert is not the way to achieve NPOV. SCCarlson 02:19 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Your repeated assertions do not change the facts above. --Eloquence 02:35 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Googling on "fake identity" includes on the first screen:

  • 5 pages on (illegal) fake identity cards, including one where a person was arrested.
  • 1 page about a commercial spammer.
  • 1 page promoting a conspiracy theory that the CIA was behind 9/11
  • 3 pages with no context

As a result, I cannot accept "fake identity" as a neutral term. SCCarlson 01:50 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

This is an incorrect approach to determining whether the term "fake identity" is biased, for the simple reason that the word "identity" alone has several meanings, namely specifically the traditional one, "the set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group" (American Heritage Dictionary), and the modern, colloquial meaning of identity as a token representing a unique persona. It is quite obvious from the context of this article that it is not about an identity token such as a passport, but about an identity of the traditional meaning. --Eloquence 02:00 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
It is standard lexicography that the meaning of phrases is determined by its usage and context. Usage in the U.S. (which I am familiar with) and documented with a Google search is sufficient to establish the derogatory connotations of the phrase. Furthermore, I fail to see how a discussion of the word "identity" stripped from its context with the word fake, which is crucial here can adequately address the meaning of the phrase fake identity. SCCarlson 02:19 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
It is quite obvious and expectable that the usage in the context of fake passports, ID cards etc. would overweigh, given the relative rarity of complex online personages like Mary Rosh created for social engineering purposes. This has no relevance for the question whether another meaning of "fake identity" has negative connotations once we have established implicitly to the reader that we are using this alternative meaning. I hope we can agree that "online pseudonym" is not acceptable because Lott's deception went far beyond the scope of a pseudonym. The alternatives would be: "fake persona", which sounds awkward because it is non-English and generally used in the context of dramatic performances, and "false identity", which is incomplete, because it was not only false, but invented by him. Of the options I can see, "fake identity" seems like the best one, but the more awkward "fake online personage" can be used in the headline where we have not yet established proper context. --Eloquence 02:35 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

"Fake identity" is a derogatory term. "On-line pseudonym" describes what he did. Evidence of deceptive intent was still included. The extended description of what is an ad hominem is tedious and one-sided. Also, I'm still wondering about the propriety of citing one's own post elsewhere in support of "critics say". SCCarlson

See above; online pseudonym is an euphemism that carries completely different connotations and meaning. "Eloquence" is an online pseudonym, an invented name. I do not, however, misrepresent myself as another person who supports my points of view -- that is a fake identity. Lott did that. "Tedious and one-sided"? Please, the last paragraph quite obviously cites both points of view. It is not Wikipedia's fault that the ad hominem argument is inapplicable in this case, it is the fault of Lott's adherents. Citing my own comment seems perfectly acceptable in light of the fact that 1) this is a story that was broken on weblogs, and the cited comment is a weblog comment and therefore a nice sample of such discussions; 2) I chose this comment not deliberately, but by searching for "Mary Rosh" and "ad hominem". --Eloquence 01:55 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You guys seriously need to chill out. Take a deep breath and relax. This is about having a good time, not fighting. Come on guys.

Stephen, I do not like other subtle changes you try to make to the article. There's a difference between "refused to" and "did not". "Refused to" means that he explicitly rejected offers to take part in discussions, "did not" might imply that he was simply not invited. John Lott told people that he had no time to deal with those pesky web discussions, while at the same time using the Mary Rosh identity to do so. This is deceptive, and an important distinction. --Eloquence

Again, it has to do with the connotations of the word that you may not be entirely aware of. "Refuse to" often connotes casting aside as worthless, spurning, etc. These are not objective terms. "Did not" is a neutral way to express what he did; "explicitly rejected offers" is OK to. If Lott is deceptive, it is OK to state the facts that could give rise that conclusion but, please, leave the judgment to reader. However, using terms like "fake identity" and "refused" also communicates an opinion or judgment of his actions. Sometimes it is difficult to separate our opinions from facts especially if there are strong opinions (as your self-cited article indicates), but I really want the article to be as objective and neutral as possible -- and this means avoiding loaded terminology. SCCarlson 02:55 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I agree that terms should be chosen that do not evoke unnecessary emotions. The problem is that in your supposed quest to be neutral, you have repeatedly removed important information and thereby accomplished the exact opposite. But the current edit looks acceptable to me. --Eloquence
We can attain NPOV nirvana by working together and adjusting our text, because you see things I don't and I see things you don't. Starting off in a frenzy of reverting makes it quite a bit difficult to get there, but, in this case, I think we managed to achieve something we both can live with. SCCarlson 03:11 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Florida 2000

Perhaps someone should contribute something more on Lott's involvement in the brouhaha over the Florida 2000 voting debacle. His paper was cited by the two dissenting commissioners to the Civil Rights Commission's report on the disenfranchisement of minority voters in Florida, which in my opinion makes it a historically significant matter.

From the dissenting statement:

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/dissent.htm

"The statistical analysis in the report is superficial and incomplete. A more sophisticated regression analysis by Dr. John Lott, an economist at Yale Law School, challenges its main findings. Dr. Lott was unable to find a consistent, statistical significant relationship between the share of voters who were African Americans and the ballot spoilage rate.

"Furthermore, Dr. Lott conducted additional analysis beyond the report’s parameters, looking at previous elections, demographic changes, and rates of ballot spoilage. His analysis found little relationship between racial population change and ballot spoilage, and the one correlation that is found runs counter to the majority report’s argument: An increase in the black share of the voting population is linked to a slight decrease in spoilage rates, although the difference is not statistically significant." -Abigail Thernstrom and Russell G. Redenbaugh. July 19, 2001.

The abstract of Lott's paper, published a week or two before the dissenting statement, is here:

http://lsr.nellco.org/yale/lepp/papers/256/

As I'm a newbie to Wikipedia, and no expert in statistics, I'm not about to leap in and try to digest this paper and its implications. I'll try to do a bit of legwork, though, unless someone else steps into the breach. 

--MR 00:45, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Moved from article

  • Criticisms of Lott's credibility

Lott's stature began to fall in 2003. His academic rebuttals to subsequent peer-reviewed work which reached conclusions opposite to his have been plagued by coding errors and other systematic sources of bias, which all served, whether innocent, deliberate, or subconscious, to falsely support his theory. Lott's op-eds and other popular works have been found to contain a number of elementary errors of fact; rather than admit them and correct them, Lott has tended to blame faulty editing on the part of the media, then go on to repeat the same errors elsewhere. Similarly, the identifications of the errors in Lott's academic publications have been met not with agreements and subsequent correction, but with denials, attempts to replace the files with corrected ones while denying they had been changed, and even clumsy attempts to give the new files backdated file dates to match the originals.

What is that? [[User:Sam Spade|Thomas Jefferson for President]] 23:36, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Why moved instead of edited? How does this strike you:

Some of Lott's academic rebuttals to subsequent peer-reviewed work which reached conclusions opposite to his have been demonstrated to have coding errors and other systematic sources of bias. Lott's op-eds and other popular works have been found to contain some errors of fact. Lott has tended to blame faulty editing on the part of the media, though the errors are subsequently repeated elsewhere. Lott has denied many of the errors, though at times he has replaced error-ridden files with corrected ones. His critics allege that he has also backdated corrections.

User:Hipocrite

Thats better, I'll put it in the article. Sam [Spade] 20:48, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi. How long is it appropriate to wait for a reply? I'm thinking 72 hours?

Hipocrite 19:02, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

i have no clue, if somebody doesn't answer me ASAP I try their talk page. Sam [Spade] 20:48, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I guess I'm the one responsible for the offending paragraph; on the one hand I knew when writing it that it seemed a little slanted, but on the other hand I couldn't see any nice way of putting things. FWIW I think your edits are bending over backwards to be NPOV, so I suggest just go ahead. Gzuckier 21:33, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

When reading this article, I learn far more about critics of Lott than Lott himself. Its very obvious the primary authors don't agree w Lott whatsoever. It strikes me as a snowjob personally, the Adolf Hitler article is more fair and balanced, to my eye ;) [[User:Sam Spade|Thomas Jefferson for President]] 23:47, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Disagree. Look back over the history of the article. John Lott himself is a principle.

User:Hipocrite

Are you sure that isn't just someone's online pseudonym? ;P Mike Lorrey

Details of today's reversion of previous POVness: 

Unlike his political opponents, who have a history of cherry picking data from selected jurisdictions that support their
preconceived conclusions, his studies were the first in this issue which looked at the entire FBI crime database for the United States 
over a period of years

This statement is the result of either complete ignorance or absolute bias on the part of the author and actually putting it out there as fact should in itself disqualify the author from any further writing on the subject. 

[much criticism of Lott] primarily by those with an anti-gun agenda.

Does the POVness here have to be pointed out? Probably, even though it won't convince the FaithBased GunHuggers. So, how is it established that everybody who finds fault with Lott's scholarship is clearly operating as the result of their 'anti-gun agenda', and the fact that they can find actual definite valid lacks in both Lott's logic and his, to be kind, reliability is something to be ignored? 

 another alleged witness

Given that the 'alleged' witness was one of those who was actually holding the shooter when the police arrived, I feel that his witnessing the event should be able to be moved from the 'alleged' category to the 'in fact' category without generating too much controversy over POV allegations, no? Gzuckier 19:28, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If we are to chastise John Lott for using a pseudonym, so he can safely discuss his own work, then we have to chastise the founding fathers who did much the same with correspondence that was published in newspapers during the time the Federalist papers came into being. Men such as Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, James Madison, and others did this. Yet they receive no criticizm.

I'm not saying that what he did was not wrong. But can someone show me, without altering the stats where his conclusions in "More Guns, Less Crime" are incorrect? --Al 01:15, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, although I've been disapproving of what seems to be a penchant for trivial fibbing on Lott's part, and I've disagreed with his major conclusions in More Guns Less Crime, I always maintained that that represented some ground-breaking work. That's kind of the way it often goes in these types of fields, somebody takes an available dataset and applies some analysis to it to derive some hitherto unknown results; later research/analyses might find completely different answers, but the first guy still gets the credit for opening the door. So maybe I'm a good person to respond. I have no idea what you mean "without altering the stats", though, since that's part of the analysis. Anyway:

Firstly, More Guns, Less Crime is a silly title; there are always more guns, since guns are being manufactured faster than they are being destroyed, lost, reitred, etc.; so during any period when crime is dropping, it's indeed More Guns, Less Crime, but by the same token, during any period when crime is rising, as in just before Lott's analysis started, it was More Guns, More Crime. Maybe that's just a catchy title, but it's been adopted as a slogan, so somebody ought to point out the error.

As accurately as I can express, I think Lott's thesis is More Armed Lawabiding Citizens, Less Crime. A sentiment frequently expressed, and one certainly worth investigating, versus the alternatives, More Armed Lawabiding Citizens, More Crime, or More Armed Lawabiding Citizens, No Diff. To prove his hypothesis, Lott obviously requires to prove, or at least strongly support, three things: 1) there were more armed lawabiding citizens. 2) there was less crime. 3) the two were related more than just coincidence. Puncture any one of these, and the hypothesis falls into "not proved" territory. So far so good? Anyway (and this is pretty much boiler plate analysis, not very original on my part) he hasn't really proved any one of the three.

Going in reverse, #3) the old "correlation does not prove causation" argument, so often used by folks on Lott's side of the fence against their opponents who have better cases; even assuming Lott is correct that there were more guns and that the crime rate went down, there were lots of other things going on at the time; the crack epidemic was settling down, the economy was changing, the age demographics of the US were changing, the makeup of urban and rural populations were changing, the news media were changing, etc. etc. Any or all of these factors could influence the crime rate. In fact, the causation could very likely be the other direction; when crime hits a peak, people want the government to "do something" and that usually involves messing around with the gun laws, in one direction or another. Then the crime rate goes down due to normal random chance.

2) Was there a drop in crime? Well, overall, yes. But that can be superseded by more detailed analysis. There are lots of assumptions and such that go into any such model: Dezhbakhsh and Rubin, for instance, redid the analysis allowing the carry law to have different effects in each county and to affect other parameters in the model, in contrast to Lott's analysis; they found the carry law did not have any clear effect on rape or assault, that it was associated with a reduction in homicide in only 6 states (out of 33), and with an increase in robbery in 13 states. Which leads to a general observation with the dataset here; the drop in crime is mostly due to a big drop in crime in Florida, and to a lesser extent a drop in crime in Texas, after liberalizing concealed carry. Other states, not much effect, one way or the other. Which tends to make one think that maybe it wasn't the concealed carry that was really the cause.

1) Were there even more armed citizens on the streets? Just because concealed carry laws were liberalized? Not really proved. Polls of concealed carry permit applicants indicate that the overwhelming majority of them already own a gun, now they want a carry permit. The percentage of people who own guns is notoriously hard to measure, but over dozens of different surveys, there is no evidence that it has risen in fifty years (Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and their Control 1997). Lott assumes a rise in gun ownership from 26% to 39%, but that's just because he uses an old survey which shows a low percentage, and a newer survey which shows a higher percentage; looking at the totality of all surveys shows that combination to be a real outlier. It could just as easily be demonstrated in the opposite direction using two different surveys.

That's just a bare bones critique. There is a lot more stuff, like unlikely results in Lott's analysis: Lott's model shows very little effect of the percentage of young black males on crime, but a high dependence on the percentage of elderly black women, suggesting it's got some problems. Men who apply for concealed carry outnumber women by 4:1, but he sees an identical effect on crime against men and women. Worse yet; obviously, kids don't apply for concealed carry, yet the effect on crime against kids looks the same. If criminals are fearful of concealed weapons, you'd expect crime against strangers to go down more than crime against family members, but Lott's data shows the opposite. There is no "displacement" of violent crime into neighboring jurisdictions that haven't liberalized carry laws. Dade county kept meticulous records of incidents involving concealed carry permit holders for 5 years, and out of 100,000 total crimes in the area over that period, they logged a total of 12 where a concealed carry was involved; and of these 12, one involved shooting an attacking dog, one involved a bailbondsman shooting at an escapee, and one involved the criminal taking the gun away from the citizen; no criminals were wounded, and only two were captured, both burglars where a concealed carry permit wouldn't have been needed. And that assumes that none of these 12 would have been carrying a weapon if they had not had the permit. Even if you assume there were a lot of unreported incidents (Kleck estimates 65% are reported), it's still a pretty low number versus 100,000 crimes, to have such a big effect on discouraging criminals. All in all, it looks like there is one or more underlying factors that are not included in the model; maybe even things nobody has thought of yet.

Anyway, that's a start. There's a ton of controversy in the literature, including some pretty advanced statistics. Gzuckier 19:39, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The wrong phrase?

-- Ok, so maybe "without altering the stats" was the wrong phrase to use. In any event, I can provide at least 5 examples where a potential crime was stopped by the presence of a licensed handgun, and it was not reported to the police.

Some people might ask "Why not call the police?"

The answer is in 4 parts.

1. No shots were fired, it wasn't necessary. 2. The weapon never left it's holster, it wasn't necessary.

3. SOME of the 5 incidents happend in locations where I know the local police are not friendly to CPL (Concealed Pistols License) holders. It was not necessary, nor wise to call the police in these instances.

4. In ALL the incidents, the perp took off running. They were long gone, and the chances of the police finding them was very remote. In other words, it wasn't necessary.

I know, some of you are STILL going to say, "You should have called the Police." Maybe I should have, but I didn't. And I'll bet there are thousands, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of other incidents that have not been reported, just like mine. Who knows, maybe even millions. --Al 15:49, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I probably wouldn't have called the cops either. Gzuckier 04:59, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Just a head's up: the top external link - to John Lott's Weblog, is broken.

It's fixed now.Al Lowe

Lott's edits

Mary Rosh


I've reverted a whole pile of edits that Lott made from several different IPs to push his POV. This follows earlier wholesale deletions he made to remove all criticism of himself. --TimLambert 11:36, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tim. Wiki frowns upon autobiography, especially when editing in/out controversial material. But could you list those IPs you say are Lott sockpuppets, and any reason (apart from the views pushed) as to why you think they are Lott? William M. Connolley 13:09:52, 2005-07-12 (UTC).
All of the anonymous edits from 69.143.118.89 onwards look like Lott's work. 69.143.118.89 is definitely a Lott IP address, see here. 38.118.73.78 is from the American Enterprise Institute. The other IPs are new to me, but they were mostly attacks on his critics rather than facts about Lott, so didn't belong there anyway.--TimLambert 15:36, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I just reverted a huge unmarked edit by 69.141.3.180. William M. Connolley 22:17:02, 2005-07-12 (UTC).
69.141.3.180 is one that Lott has used before. --TimLambert 01:00, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mr. Lambert, keep your paws off my contributions. They are relevant and apply where they are. If you insist on removing MY contributions again, I will lodge an official complaint with the management.Al Lowe

Al, please explain why you think your edit is relevant in a paragraph about allegations of media bias. Are you saying that the WaPo is not biased against guns because it reported about armed students? --TimLambert 03:33, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This is funny. The reason I joined Wikipedia was reading about the John Lott edits on WP:VIP through a google link from a search to "john-lott". I think this was late October, 2004. I loved to see the polite but firm way in which the attempted vandalism was corrected and I've been with Wikipedia ever since. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:43, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mr. Lambert, my edit is relevant because it counters the previous edit, that is backed up by a working link to a Washington Post story. The edit before has a broken link. And no, I'm not saying the Wa. Post isn't biased against guns. Simply their published story contradicts the edit that is immediately before my contribution. It is part and parcel of the same story.Al Lowe 04:25, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Al, your edit doesn't contradict the previous sentence at all. It is not in dispute that Bridges had a gun when he tackled the shooter. What is in dispute is whether Bridges pointed his gun at the killer 'before' the killer dropped his weapon or whether the killer had already put his gun down when Bridges arrived on the scene. The story in the WaPo doesn't tell us either way. The story does undercut Lott's claim that the US media doesn't report defensive gun use. --TimLambert 11:08, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, what you describe as your edit is actually an edit that was first made by one of Lott's sock puppets. I have deleted it. --TimLambert 18:48, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's ok. I put it back. Al Lowe 06:59, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If I put it in, it's MY edit when I put my litte sig to it, regardless who put it in to begin with. The story actually doesn't undercut Dr. Lott's claim. It does show that SOME news papers do report defensive gun use. But it is still a vastly under reported occurance.

And strangely, the story doesn't say that Odighizuwa put his gun down before Bridges arrived. It does say that he was subdued without incident by armed students. That is contradiction enough for me. Al Lowe 07:09, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In fairness, I made some further edits to what was first put up. I think it is a fair statement. Al Lowe 07:38, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]


MY edits REMOVE NOTHING, and add to the page. Lambert's Edits are removing MY edits. Al Lowe 22:14, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You've just copied the edits Lott made. Notice that I left the edits you wrote yourself. --TimLambert 01:07, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So what is it, Dr. Lott isn't allowed to provide info that disputes opposing POV? I thought the idea was to present BOTH sides, not just one side.Al Lowe 01:10, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The article should be from a neutral POV, not from Lott's POV. And a lot of the stuff he wrote wasn't true. Look at the latest edit you restored: "In his dissent, Wilson states that all the research provided 'confirmation of the findings that shall-issue laws drive down the murder rate . . . .'" That's not what he stated. And then there was a bunch of stuff about how unusual the dissent was, clearly designed to insinuate that the panel had done something untoward. Read the dissent and the panel's reply and try summarizing it in your own words. Don't rely on Lott's version of what others have written about his research. --TimLambert 12:26, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Well, you're partially correct. What Wilson said was:

In view of the confirmation of the findings that shall-issue laws drive down the murder rate, it is hard for me to understand why these claims are called “fragile.”

Al Lowe 19:08, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Where they incorrect?

I'm curious. What was it about the previous additions that made them "INCORRECT?" In other words, other than the possibility they were posted by a "Sock Puppet," what about them was wrong????06:16, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Al, you are vandalizing Wikipedia

I will not have revert wars with whomever wants to have revert wars, but I kindly ask that you NPOV the paragraph about lott improving out understanding of crime.

  • Have you even LOOKED at Wikipedia:Vandalism??? I have, and I don't see where I have vandalized Wikipedia.

Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature explicit and inarguable are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia.

Al Lowe 15:30, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And you're not??

You know, the funny thing is the statement that you and Hipocrite insist on removing isn't even mine. But that's ok. I guess with all the other stuff posted that is NOT NPOV, having something in his favour is just too much to ask. Never mind about balance. AND I'm not removing stuff, EVERYONE else is. Also, Show me where what I've TRIED to add back is incorrect! Al Lowe 12:35, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

    • Al, what you added back in, read, parapharsed: "John Lott ROCKS!" I know it's not you that wrote it - I expect the person that wrote it, who I've respected but disagred with regarding this page is now mostly embarassed they wrote it. Let's you and me try to find something that's NPOV and makes everyone happy, as opposed to playing revert wars?Hipocrite 13:59, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Actually, the paragraph about Lott's positive contributions is mine. In the spirit of npovness, not just for wikipedia but in general, I have to recognize that Lott did something that hadn't been done before. You or I may not like the conclusions he drew and/or find fault with his reasoning in the analysis, but that's often par for the course with initial sort of groundbreaking stuff like this. One guy thinks 'What if I apply technique X to field Y?' then others take the ball and run with it, maybe in a completely different direction. For all Lott's flaws, I believe that he's the Lewis and Clark of this particular branch of gun law/violent crime research, which is why everyone else is arguing with or agreeing with him, and not somebody else in the field. So, that's my argument for the paragraph. The positives and negatives don't cancel each other out, each stands alone. Gzuckier 14:27, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Ok, perhaps I misunderstood. As an educated amature in the field, I'd say that Milton Friedman, Reinhard Selten, David Ricardo and more recently and more mainstream exitingly Steven Levitt did groundbreaking things in the spirit of your comment above. However, In the spirit of helping me understand and us reaching consensus, could you detail WHAT exactly he did that was groundbreaking, and so that we're not doing original research, WHO says it was groundbreaking?Hipocrite 16:27, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Just compiling the massive dataset and trying to do some regressions on it, in the field of violent crime. Gzuckier 16:50, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • That's not groundbreaking, because Steven Levitt did it already - http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5268.html - I picked him because he really was groundbreaking for regressing things on crime rate (notably abortion), though I doubt he's say he was the first (I could go through his papers and the refrences, which I'll get crackalacking on now).
  • Speaking of Milton Friedman, he had the following to say about John Lott.

"This sophisticated analysis yields a well established conclusion that supports the wisdom of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution rather than of those who would limit the right of law-abiding citizens to own and carry guns. . . . Lott has done us all a service by his thorough, thoughtful scholarly approach to a highly controversial issue."

My opinion

Ok, Hipocrite, what you revised is NOT neutral.

Lott supporters believe that this shows Lott has added significantly to our understanding of the causes of crime, while his detractors allege that the substandard quality of his data and analysis have clouded what is already a cloudy picture.

This is so biased, it's not even funny. If I were John Lott, I'd just erase the whole page and ask Wikipedia to not let it be put back on. And if they didn't, I'd create webpages all over proclaiming how biased this article is against him. How his detractors consistently delete anything positive and praise all the negative and just do not maintain any semblance of NPOV.

If I were John Lott that is.

From my perspective, the ONLY way to return this to NPOV status, is to list his date and place of birth, his education, and where he's worked, the books he's written, perhaps his op eds. List his site, and an equal number of pro and con sites, without any commentary, pro or con. Any thing else should be in the discussion page and not on the article it's self.

But that's just my opinion.Al Lowe 15:30, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

    • Why not work with us above to help us make the page better, rather than taking toys and heading home? Lott's conduct was embarassing, and that's why the page is embarassing - because it's accurate. The sentace you dislike sucks, I know, but it's better than the old sentance, which I wanted out. I'm trying to find middle ground with you - a person who I am growing to believe is using wikipedia as a soapbox. That you think that wikipedia on John Lott should be a repository of links on John Lott is telling.Hipocrite 16:32, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, it's already a repository of links, mostly on sites that are heavily critical of him. My suggestion was that we at least BALANCE the links. Or better yet, delete all the opinion links, and be done with it.Al Lowe 15:44, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not a soapbox, but "accurate" in who's opinion? In any event, lets take the last edit.

Lott supporters believe that this shows Lott has added significantly to our understanding of the causes of crime, while his detractors allege that the substandard quality of his data and analysis have clouded what is already a cloudy picture.

If we really want this to be NPOV, it should read something like this:

Some people believe that Lott's work this field is ground breaking and that it has added significantly to our understanding of the causes of crime. On the other hand, some people believe that his work is shoddy and substandard in quality. That his data and analysis have clouded an already cloudy picture.

I think the stuff about supporters and detractors/critics should be left out as some of his critics actually do think his work is ground breaking. Also, by replacing "supporters" and "detractors" with "some people" makes it more NPOV, in my opinion. Al Lowe 18:52, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Aside from the fragment in your description, that's reasonable, but now I'll have to ask for evidence that anyone knowledgable believes that Lott's work is groundbreaking. I believe that the entire paragraph is groundless excess, now that I understand what he's done that's "groundbreaking" is apply economics to crime, which Gary Becker was awarded a Nobel for long before Lott started.Hipocrite 19:27, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • Don't you mean that Gary Becker was awarded Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, which if I read correctly is not a Nobel prize. Regardless, is there anyone "knowledgable" who thinks his work ISN'T ground breaking?Al Lowe 20:01, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
              • See, you're gotchya at the top would be great, if the article you linked to didn't contain the phrase "commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics." This is a wonderful example of your standards of scholarship - weak, and designed to win, rather than discover the truth. Finally, I insist that my work in Economics is Groundbreaking, because you can't find anyone "knowledgable" that's ever said it wasn't.
              • See Talk:Gary Becker for further discussion on the "Nobel Award for Economics." Basically, it may be described as a Nobel award. But it does not come from the Nobel Foundation.
                • With that, you end all reasonable discussion. You want to play "I'm right, you're wrong!" And I want to play "Let's get it right." Eagerly waiting for you over here.Hipocrite 18:13, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                  • You said Becker was awarded a Nobel, I show he wasn't so I'm playing games?? Please. Frankly, I don't give a rat's behind what Becker got, HE didn't garner all the attention that Lott did.Al Lowe
                    • You are playing games because, when Hipocrite pointed out that the "groundbreaking" work done by Lott was previously utilized by Gary Becker for which he was given an award, instead of ceding the point and removing that baseless sentence you chose to nitpick over the title of the award. If you want to argue that subject, try here. Sellario 5:55pm CST, 25 July 2005
                    • I could have sworn we were past this point.Al Lowe 00:52, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since we're not. I was asked if I could show anyone else who might think of John Lott's work as groundbreaking. Well, Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D did. Even Michelle Malkin did at one time, maybe she still does, I don't know. He's also received kudos from Milton Friedman (another winner of the "Nobel award in Economics"), James Buchanan (yet another winner of the "Nobel award for econonmics") not to mention Ted Nugent. (Who wouldn't want in endorsement from "The Nuge." So where does that put us? If anyone wants to take out the "offending" sentence, be my guest. But don't be surprised when it shows back up, once I finish my research. (We really need emoticon jpegs so I can show smiley faces.)Al Lowe 01:10, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why is it considered groundbreaking? The reason originally given was for "compiling the massive dataset and trying to do some regressions on it, in the field of violent crime" but Hipocrite showed that Steven Levitt had already done that. And the same with Gary Beckner... 2:02am CST, 26 July 2005
      • Why don't you ask Milton Friedman, or James Buchanan. They are the experts. I'm certain they can tell you. Amd so Levitt and Beckner had applied economics to crime. Did they do it in the same way that Lott did? I don't know. I didn't win the "Nobel Prize in Economics." But again, what happened to NPOV? But I do have another lingering question. Did Levitt and Beckner apply economics to the Gun control debate? Maybe that is what makes Lott's application "groundbreaking?"Al Lowe 12:44, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • You are making the positive claim that he was "groundbreaking," now prove it. But, if you care, no, he was not the first - http://www.claytoncramer.com/shall-issue.html - October 17, 1994, at the very least. NPOV dosen't mean that incorrect things get put in the article because some guy on the internet thinks it might be true.
          • Actually, I presented evidence that other people think his work was groundbreaking. But I'm looking into it. However, NPOV also says:

            1. An encyclopedic article should not argue that corporations are criminals, even if the author believes it to be so. It should instead present the fact that some people believe it, and what their reasons are, and then as well it should present what the other side says.

            As far as reasons, can I help it if the people saying Lott's work is groundbreaking, don't say why? In any event, I am attempting to find out the reason behind those statements.Al Lowe 23:18, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's amusing how you start with a conclusion--that Lott's work is/was groundbreaking--and then attempt to "research" evidence to support your premise. Very objective.
  • My "conclusion" is based on what other, more knowledgable people have said about Lott's work. I don't feel qualified myself to say that it is. I am not an economist. So yes, since someone else asked was "evidence that anyone knowledgable believes that Lott's work is groundbreaking." So, I obviously can't present myself as "knowledgable on this subject. Who's going to take the word of a person who's highest academic achievement is a high school diploma? From the discussion so far, I don't think anyone.Al Lowe 15:44, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • It seems the research should be done before proclaiming Lott's working groundbreaking, and not saying that it's groundbreaking then doing a simple Google search for "John Lott + groundbreaking".
      • EXCEPT, it's not ME who's proclaimed his work as ground breaking. However, even in her criticizm of Lott, Michelle Malkin had this to say.

        ...showed a groundbreaking correlation between concealed-weapons laws and reduced violent crime rates.

        Michelle Malkin, The (John) Lott ControversyAl Lowe 00:06, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Are you intentionally trying to sabotauge your own side of this debate? That article is about how he lacks credibility. Can you find someone saying THEY BELIEVE HIS WORK IS GROUNDBREAKING, NOW?

While you're at it, try to make sure that person is even remotely qualified to make that determination. Conservative Talk Radio hosts and columnists don't count.

  • Says who? WHO makes the determination of which opinions count, and which ones do not?? While the article from Malkin did attack his credibility, she did say that his work was "groundbreaking." Watchdog
  • If you don't know what ground has already been broken, you cannot credibly describe a work as groundbreaking.Hipocrite 14:15, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I changed it to say that multiple sources describe it as groundbreaking (which is a fact in itself and does not need additional speculation as to the reasons why they say so), plus a quote from an actual Lott critic explaining what innovation his work added; and the response is to delete the whole chunk, so I'm going to POV it. And believe me, for me to feel that this article is too POV in Lott bashing, it's got to be pretty far out there. Gzuckier 15:09, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Right, except for the fact that multiple sources don't describe it as groundbreaking. The critic said that the work was NOT innovative - his main description was that it was "statistical one-upmanship," if I reccolect correctly. You put "groundbreaking" in quotes, but failed to attribute it. Now you attribute it to "multiple sources," but you fail to name them.
    • Gzuckier, you have the dispute there but for the wrong reason. Again, who are the multiple sources and are they credible? Do they exist, or did YOU claim Lott's work to be groundbreaking and then try to find people who praised Lott in the past?
    • Ok, let's not call it "Groundbreaking." Instead, I purpose we call it "scholarly in it's approach," as Miltion Friedman did. [1]Al Lowe 15:01, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Scholarly in its approach is kinda redundant to me. Lott is a "resident scholar" at AEI, according to the FIRST sentence in the entry.
        • Maybe so, but you know there are going to be people who will object to any description that is not degrading. I did a google search, as suggested, and I got more articles that included "John Lott" and "groundbreaking" than you can shake a stick at. The problem is that since most of them are on what some might refer to as "pro-gun" websites, most of his critics are going to discount them for obvious reasons. But then again, most of the articles that are critical of him, are on what I might call "anti-gun" websites. Which takes us right back to where we began.Al Lowe 18:06, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Another one

Ok, here's another edit I don't agree with.

Still, Lott's work, if accurate, would seem to rule out the possibility that deregulation...

In my opinon, this just adds another doubt to a sentence that already makes that point. If we didn't have "if accurate" in the sentence, the sentence fragment of "would seem" says the same thing to me.Al Lowe 19:00, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

    • "would seem" discusses the inherent uncertainty in the conclusions, "if accurate" discusses the inherent uncertainty in the data and analysis. Hipocrite 19:34, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I suppose it works, assuming only college grads are viewing this.Al Lowe


And another one...

Lott was unable to provide any evidence for his survey.

I suppose according to "some people" we are to ignore statements by David Gross, Prof. David Mustard, and John Whitley[2]??? Dr. Lott's page has references that point to these statements. Unless someone can show me they are false, why not include them? They seem to me to offer the missing evidence.Al Lowe 19:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV failure

Articles should be written without bias, representing all views fairly. This is the neutral point of view policy. The policy is easily misunderstood: It doesn't assume that writing an article from a single, unbiased, objective point of view is possible. Instead it says to fairly represent all sides of a dispute by not making articles state, imply, or insinuate that only one side is correct. Crucially, a great merit of Wikipedia is that Wikipedians work together to make articles unbiased.

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)[reply]

Hipocrite, No, it's not about winning. And if the article were better, there might be (MIGHT, not absolutely) balance to the article. At the very least, there should be far less for Dr. Lott to complain about. Or rather, I should say, a properly done article would make it more difficult for Dr. Lott to yell "foul."
Al, what you write is not true. The edits you wrote in the Media Bias section have not been deleted. The edits where you just parroted what Lott had written were delted and rightly so, since they were inaccurate. Have you actually read Whitley's statement?--TimLambert 18:40, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Mr. Lambert, if you are referring to his emails to John Lott, that are copied at [3], yes, I have read it. He doesn't confirm the survey, but he does confirm the HD crash. He also implies that he thinks he may have witnessed some people related to the survey. No, it's not proof positive. But it's a start.Al Lowe


I still think this article is not NPOV, it does not appear to represent all views fairly.Al Lowe

Introduction

Is it just me, or is the summary on the top of John Lott's entirely on the wrong track? Lott is primarily known due to accusations of academic misconduct levelled against him. He is NOT known for the quality of his scholarship - indeed, every significant piece of work done by Lott has been criticized for deliberate misrepresentations. In light of this, shouldn't the summary of the article talk more about the controversy - and less about where Lott worked and what his research interests are?

pierre_menard

He was known FIRST for his work. The controversy came afterward. If you want an article on the controversy, then perhaps that calls for a seperate article.Al Lowe


Was he ever actually KNOWN for his work? There are loads of researchers in the social sciences, many who published books on guns. Most do not have wikipedia articles devoted to them. Methinks if it were not for the controversy, John Lott's article today would be a stub.

User:pierre_menard

His first "splash" that I know of, was for research he and David Mustard worked on together. And I know that I for one, heard of him and his first book, "More Guns, Less Crime" before I ever heard of the controversy. And I know of quite a few more people who would say the same thing.Al Lowe

  • MGLC was a reasonably well known semi-popular work. He was never known for being a good economist, but he's well enough known for being a good guns-rights advocate from the math side. Without the contravercy, it would be a stub.


Well, it depends on whether the order is chronologically, or by "most outstanding factoid". The controversy broke in the beginning of 2003, well after the More Guns Less Crime stuff had been out there being debated, hashed and rehashed. Which one is now "more important" is kind of a judgement call. Certainly, nobody would care about any controversy if his work wasn't previously considered significant. On the other hand, the controversy itself generates a buzz; sort of the way there are a zillion books about how to make Windows run right, with virtually none about how to make the Macintosh run right. In a weird way, his fame is from the intersection of both track records, the well-known book and the well-known scandal, more than any simple arithmetic combination of 70% one and 30% the other. Gzuckier 18:14, 25 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Now I can actually agree with the above.Al Lowe 18:56, 25 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Me too. Taking this as our starting point, shouldn't the summary on the top of the page devote more space to the controversy? It mentions it almost as an afterthought, whereas as we can all agree the scandals are a very significant source of Lott's fame. User:Pierre menard

  • I would think, that if you want the controversy at the top, then the article should be called "The John Lott Controversy." However, that would mean starting a new article, and taking all the controversy out of this one, putting it in the new one, with links from this one to the new one. As it is, the controversy already takes up about 2/3rds of the article. Now you want it at the top? Doesn't sound very NPOV to me. But that's just my humble opinion.Al Lowe 07:14, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV Reinsertion

The article used to call Lott's work "groundbreaking" read as follows: Lott's work is an example of statistical one-upmanship. He has more data and a more complex analysis than anyone else studying the topic. He demands that anyone who wants to challenge his arguments become immersed in a very complex statistical debate, based on computations so difficult that they cannot be done with ordinary desktop computers. He challenges anyone who disagrees with him to download his data set and redo his calculations, but most social scientists do not think it worth their while to replicate studies using methods that have repeatedly failed. Most gun control researchers simply brushed off Lott and Mustard's claims and went on with their work. Two highly respected criminal justice researchers, Frank Zimring and Gordon Hawkins (1997) wrote an article explaining that: "just as Messrs. Lott and Mustard can, with one model of the determinants of homicide, produce statistical residuals suggesting that 'shall issue' laws reduce homicide, we expect that a determined econometrician can produce a treatment of the same historical periods with different models and opposite effects. Econometric modeling is a double-edged sword in its capacity to facilitate statistical findings to warm the hearts of true believers of any stripe."

Are you kidding me? It's not groundbreaking, you've never, and you'll never find a remotely qualified person ever saying it was groundbreaking work.

NPOV

What is the current dispute that has caused someone to reinsert NPOV? Hipocrite 01:22, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • How about the reliance on the NAS panel that issued "Firearms and Violence:A Critical Review." The panel can hardly be called unbiased, having been seated during Clinton's term as President. Yet they are held up to us as though they are the "Gods of research." Then of course there's Tim Lambert, who goes around removing anything remotely pro-Lott, while this article abounds with anti-Lott links, at least 12 of which are links to information on his (Lambert's) site. IF this article is of a Neutral Point of View, I wish someone could show me how. NPOV says that "Wikipedia policy is that all articles should be written from a neutral point of view: without bias, representing all views fairly." Hardly any of the information in this article is without bias. And most certainly, the views are NOT represented fairly. I'm just sorry someone else beat me to putting the NPOV back on the page. Maybe next time. Al Lowe 21:17, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Can you suggest changes to the page that you believe would make it NPOV?Hipocrite 15:28, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
IF we can find a way to balance the positive with the negative, then I think we might reach NPOV. Al Lowe
That's nice. Now do something. I boldly made a huge edit. What have you done to make the article better?Hipocrite 06:33, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
IF I made the changes I want to make, to bring the article into NPOV, several people would be screaming bloody murder and would be calling me a vandal. But I'll see if I can come up with something in the next couple of days. Al Lowe
I do not go around removing anything remotely pro-Lott. I've removed stuff that is not true and it's been pro-Lott and anti-Lott. You've been restoring edits made by Lott without checking to see whether they were accurate or not. --TimLambert 15:40, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Accurate based on WHO's opinion/fact??? As well, you and others have added stuff based on negative opinion, or modified positive opinion to less than neutral opinion. Al Lowe

I have made a temp edit that may help move us forward. John Lott/Sandbox

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