Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Final Word on Dubner and Levitt

From Dr. Confused

Have you read any of his books? My husband loved Freakonomics so I read it as well. My husband has no math or science background. I found the book to be a huge load of tripe. It was an entire book premised on conflating correlation and causation, served up with a generous helping of self-satisfied preening about being rogue economicists or some such
More analysis @ the link

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I emailed Levitt about some specific problems with his chapter on climate change and basically got a canned response.

As a John Bates Clark medal recipient who is supposed to be among the most promising economists under 40, he really is rather pathetic.

There must a be a dearth of smart young economists these days is all I can figure.

Anonymous said...

Levitt was criticized severely by Ray Pierrehumbert, his colleague at the Univ. of Chicago. See
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/communicating-climate/

-Nevada Ned

David B. Benson said...

Economists of the University of Chicago stripe (doesn't mean all of them at UC are Friedmanesque) live and publish in a never-never land with little grounding in reality.

Unfortunately.

Anonymous said...

"I emailed Levitt about some specific problems with his chapter on climate change and basically got a canned response."

I very much disliked the chapter when I read it, and I am not happy with the defense of the chapter by Levitt & Dubner where they just dig themselves in deeper and deeper...

Having said that, I think it is perfectly reasonable for someone who is probably getting deluged by emails to respond with canned responses. If I'm ever lucky enough to become a big name climate scientist, I am not looking forward to the possibility that I'll get hundreds of emails from WattsUp clones. Therefore I am cautious about sending email to people I disagree with, if I think it is likely they've already gotten a truckload of such correspondence.

carrot eater said...

I agree with the latter anonymouse.

The guy is likely getting a ton of unsolicited emails from random strangers these days. I'd be surprised he wrote back at all.

Beyond everything else that's been covered, an annoying part of that chapter was how it felt the need to reference other Freakonomics material that was completely unrelated. "look how clever we are being here - it's just like the last book, where we were really clever about these other things, let us remind you how smart we are, and how dumb everybody else is"

Anonymous said...

I think it is perfectly reasonable for someone who is probably getting deluged by emails to respond with canned responses. "

It may be expected, but that certainly does not make his response "reasonable".

The canned response basically repeated a talking point that Levitt had left on the real Climate site in response to Pierrehumbert's take down.


I don't think he even realizes how far off the tracks he has gone.

Anonymous said...

Dumber and Levitty

carrot eater said...

Well, I'd say canned responses to emails from random strangers is reasonable.

However, RC or Romm are not random strangers; for them a response addressing the specific points being made is more in order.

EliRabett said...

Carrot Eater, are you a long lost relative on Dad Rabett's side, or merely an omnivore?

carrot eater said...

Eli, my name is my attempt at a humorous homage to your website. I have come to use it elsewhere, as well.

Though I am also an omnivore.

Anonymous said...

Well, I'd say canned responses to emails from random strangers is reasonable.'

so, if the canned response said "the earth is flat", you would consider that "reasonable"?

Levitt's response may not have gone that far, but nearly, since it did not even address the problem that was highlighted (and that had been highlighted by Pierrehumbert). It was essentially an attempt to change the subject.

I don't consider an unreasonable response "reasonable', quite independent of whether the query came from a "random stranger".

no one FORCED levitt to respond to a "random stramger".

he CHOSE to do so -- and to do so with what essentially amounted to bullshit. There is nothing the least bit "reasonable' about that.