…in this case, a lawsuit.
“Freakonomics” co-author Steven Levitt and HarperCollins Publishers Inc. were sued for defamation by former Yale Law School researcher John Lott, whose work Levitt discusses in the best-selling book.
Lott said in a federal lawsuit filed yesterday in Chicago that Levitt, a University of Chicago economist, defamed him when he wrote that other scholars have been unable to replicate Lott’s research linking lower crime rates with the right to carry guns. Bloomberg.com profiles the case against the author and publisher.
Sour grapes
Looks to me as if Lott is getting all pissy because he got caught out doing sloppy work. I read Freakonomics, and I don’t recall the cited portion, but Lott doesn’t have to have falsified his data to generate unreproductible results. More likely he interpreted the data himself, and did so in accordance with his prejudices. And I do seem to recall thinking at some point while reading that book that avoiding this is why ethical researchers send their work out to be analyzed by independent laboratories. At any rate: you cannot libel someone with the truth; the first test is that that slander must have been uttered with a reckless disregard for the truth. If Levitt wrote correctly that the results are nonreproductible, then he could not have libelled Lott. Off hand, I’d say that Lott’s interpretation of Levitt’s statement as libelous is in keeping with the way he interprets data he collected, to prove something he has already concluded.
Umm
If that’s the what’s going on, then Lott has no case.
The implication I gather is that other people have replicated Lott’s data and conclusions, and that Levitt is defaming Lott, in order to push Levitt’s own political views, or to stir up controversy (and pad his wallet). Conversely, maybe Levitt is just a sloppy researcher, and didn’t bother to more than glance at work in that area, and make a sweeping statement. Which would be unfortunate – because if you’re going to be sloppy, don’t name names, and you’ll be able to get away with it. Calling other people liars, or bad researchers when they’re not is something you should be held to account for.
It’s a Hitler tactic, lie about your opponents, loudly and often, and people will come to believe the lie. Which is why we have slander and defamation laws. And someone bringing a spurious slander/libel/defamation suit would be easy to counter in the press and in court – just tell them to present some facts, and say you stand by your words.
I’m interested to see how this turns out. I don’t know of any other people who’ve replicated Lott’s work off-hand, so I can’t weigh in on this directly. I’d like to know who is correct in this case.
— Ender, Duke_of_URL
Here’s a much better link about the disputec wbkTQTKdpsQ9GQfch2VKKC
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=SqnDDgjd6
— Ender, Duke_of_URL