When a book sells well over a million copies this goes beyond a mere debate among academics. To say that other scholars have been unable to replicate one’s work is the same thing as fraud. I and other academics have written Levitt asking him to fix his claim. He has been unwilling to do so. I have people approaching me frequently asking if it is true that other scholars can not even replicate my research. Apparently the numerous academic articles in places such as the JLE have not been sufficient to offset this effect.
Levitt has sensibly kept his mouth shut and just posted the news story about the lawsuit on his blog.
Dr. Free-Ride is not impressed:
Hey, maybe economics doesn’t work the same way science does. But, in the case that it’s trying to, it’s worth noting that there are lots of explanations for failed attempt to replicate results. Maybe the researcher trying to replicate the results made a mistake. Maybe the original researcher made a mistake. Maybe there’s some parameter not yet sufficiently controlled in the studies (perhaps because it hasn’t been noticed yet, or recognized to be important to the results). Falsification is way down the list of things you check when your attempts to replicate research founder.
Also, there’s something perplexing about Lott’s claim that researchers who disagreed with his results “used ‘different data or methods to analyze the relationship between gun-control laws and crime’ and made no attempt to ‘replicate’ ” his research. Presumably the point of Lott’s research was to demonstrate that there was a robust relationship between gun-control laws and crime — one that wasn’t an artifact produced by one particular data set or one particular methodology for analyzing it. At the very least, wouldn’t meaningful replication include seeing if the relationship persists when additional data are examined? Or does Lott thinks “replication” amounts to no more than checking his math on the problem he set up?
Sarah at GalleyCat writes:
The thing that seems odd is that Dubner isn’t named as a co-defendant — but that’s likely because Lott doesn’t have a longstanding axe to grind against him as he seems to have with Levitt. The story stretches back to a 2001 panel at the National Academy of Sciences where Levitt’s research on gun control was ultimately attacked by Lott — anonymously — in print and online. It’s always fun when grudges end up as lawsuits…
Tyler Cowen reacts with:
“!” is all I can say.
Scott at SlushPile.net has:
I’m beginning to think that lawsuits are the literary equivalent of the rapper beef. There is a longstanding tradition of hip hop performers calling each other out on record in order to generate controversy. Sometimes this conflict is just a healthy rivalry, other times it is a dangerous tension. And occasionally, the beef is generated by a younger artist who is just trying to make a name for himself. Early on in his career, an up-and-coming 50 Cent took a swing at some of raps biggest names with his single How to Rob. The song detailed his plans for robbing those hip hop giants and when some of them responded on their own subsequent records, everyone knew the name 50 Cent.
This might seem funny outside of academia, but within academia it’s friggen hysterical. The mild criticisms Levitt levels at Lott wouldn’t even count for interesting tiff at a professional meeting where boorish behavior and condescending denouncements of others are the norm. To sue over such mild statements is bizarre and demonstrates just how thin skinned and bizarre John Lott is.
Kevin Drum says:
Needless to say, to “replicate” a result doesn’t necessarily mean to use precisely the same data and methods as the original researcher, but as it happens other researchers have used Lott’s data and methods, and once they corrected his coding mistakes they found that his results didn’t hold up. In response, Lott simply switched to a new method so that the correctly coded data would continue to support his theory.
Steve Sailer doesn’t have anything sensible to write, but boy does he ever dislike Levitt:
By himself, Levitt is a poor prose stylist. When I debated him in Slate.com in 1999, I felt sorry for him because his response was so weakly written. But, Dubner is a facile, persuasive-sounding professional writer, who makes Levitt’s slap-dash ideas sound more plausible than they really are. Plus, Dubner worships Levitt, which feeds into Levitt’s egomania.
Nicki comes out in support of Lott:
But there are times when one needs to strike back, and I believe this is one of those times.