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Update on Lott suit
Posted by David Hardy · 12 January 2007 03:40 PM
Concurring Opinions has an update on John Lott's lawsuit against the author of "Freakonomics." The judge dismissed the claim as to the statement in the book that Lott's work could not be replicated -- finding that the average reader might think that merely meant that others differed with his conclusions -- but kept in a claim that Lott had been defamed by an email that claimed he had "bought" an issue of Journal of Law and Economics and only put in studies that supported his results.
(Via the Volokh Conspiracy).
The judge has made a factual error. Saying that Lott's work could not be repeated has a specific, scientific meaning - that is, his experiment could not be repeated with similar results. Its general meaning is irrelevant given that the subject is the accuracy of Lott's statistical analysis.