Academia Today

Pat at Stubborn Facts learns a bit about how some contemporary academics respond to criticism:

As with the inital paper, the opening paragraph (initially written as a letter to the Philidelphia Inquirer responding to the Smerconish article) includes a massive, gratuitous, ad hominem swipe at all conservatives:

Mr. Smerconish chose to swift-boat us and our research in the tradition of the attacks made on Senator Kerry and Congressman Murtha’s war records in 2004, not to mention Rush Limbaugh’s ridiculing Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson tremors.

That's pretty funny - a shorter defense would be Bush Lied, People Died, so this paper is right!

Our involvement in this dust-up began when I provided a guest Insta-link last week, and Pat has done yeoman work debunking this dubious study since then.

However, although it is junk social science, it is partisan junk social science, so it will surely retain its audience.  And we thank Paul Krugman, who popularized it with his mention in a column last week.

MORE:  Let's have some more background:  The Political Profiling of Elected Democratic Officials: When Rhetorical Vision Participation Runs Amok by Donald C. Shields and John F. Cragan is here.

Krugman wrote this:

Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.

How can this have been happening without a national uproar? The authors explain: “We believe that this tremendous disparity is politically motivated and it occurs because the local (non-statewide and non-Congressional) investigations occur under the radar of a diligent national press. Each instance is treated by a local beat reporter as an isolated case that is only of local interest.”

Other commenters have expressed an alternative belief - Federal prosecutors are based in  the bigger cities, and Democrats tend to control the bigger sities.  So, just thinking out loud here, if a Federal prosecutor takes up a case close to home, it will more probably involve a Democrat.

Well - the authors have no data for the Clinton years or earlier, so any "explanation" is speculation.

YET MORE:  On the subject of junk social science - the preliminary results of this "study" are presented at E Pluribus Media, on on-line venture founded two years ago by some Daily Kos readers energized by the Jeff Gannon debacle (an oldy but goody with more than you could want to know about Gannon here.  Gosh, that was fun, though.)

OK, so it is a lefty agit-prop site, fine.  Please don't pass it off as a site for serious academic research.

And a Point to Ponder - those links from Kos really give the E Pluribus "research" a Google boost.  Right now when I Google on "Donald C. Shields and John F. Cragan", the Stubborn Facts rebuttal is on page 2. 

And this search - "shields cragan department of justice" - currently has the rebuttal on page 2.

Well, well.

Comments

[pete]

...

03/20/07 Reuters: Body found in Falluja

[Sorry, Pete - try to be even a bit on topic, yes?]

[sylvia]

By the way, good job on Instapundit last week TM. Lots of yummy snack food for thought on that.

[MayBee]

Yes, you did a great job on Instapundit last week. I can't believe we haven't all fawned all over you about that yet.

[Syl]

Funny that Pete/BTW has to pad his listing these days.

It's quite interesting, really, seeing the difference in what is listed today vs say a year ago.

The Iraqi troops are more involved in the fighting, and thus are taking casualties.

And including stuff on the Brits is precious. Waiting for money?

Thanks for illustrating the improvement in the situation in Iraq, Pete.

[bgates]

Don't you guys understand pete? We're fighting people who murder civilians and children. And we don't want to fight that kind of person.

...that was your point, right, pete? You don't want America to oppose murderers?

[Tom Maguire]

Thanks, all.

I want to leave a note to myself about Google-bombs For Truth - I really ought to put more info in the above post so that Google searches on the underlying research will also call up the debunking.

Not a "Google-bomb" at all, but you get the idea.

[sylvia]

"but you get the idea"

Actually not really. But it is early still. No coffe yet. I do like the phrase "Google-bombs For Truth" though, sounds very catchy.

[sylvia]

Just tried to read the stubborn facts. Couldn't really get into the whole methodology thing. I would have to study it much longer to decide whether it was accurate, and I'm already tuckered out from the New, New article. But the criticism does not seem "helpful" as Rumsfeld would say, to go there and bring up the whole swift-boating, and they instead should just try to engage on the facts. But yes, a google bomb for truth would help debunk the methodology, so I wouldn't have to do it myself and do any more thinking than I needed to. Must conserve all brain energy I have...

[sylvia]

I love the smell of a fresh blog in the morning. I can rule the "Recent Comments". But I think the brain energy is not quite up to it yet, so I'll have to tkae a break and return faster and stronger later.

[Curly Smith]

Mr. Smerconish chose to swift-boat us

translation from hackish to English:

Mr. Smerconish chose to tell the truth about us and that's not fair. The truth has no place in politics and truth-telling Conservatives are mean. Sure we're lying, but they're our lies so they're true lies which makes them the truth. Anybody that disagrees with our true lies is just divisive and mean-spirited. It's our truth and we'll tell it how we want to! Now who's going to change my diaper?

[hit and run]

Besides, the new term is "smear".

[jeff z]

Pete's post is critically important and should be taken to heart, because it makes no logical sense; even if our entire force in Iraq were, God forbid, utterly annihilated or perpetrating the most hideous crimes, it would not only not refute Pat's position, it would be of no relevance whatsoever. Pete could have typed in the first page of the Philadelphia phonebook or an opera libretto and his argument would have been just as effective.

To put in the words of the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."

However, if you've ever spoken with someone who is mentally ill, or simply a friend who is irrational on a specific matter, Pete's response is familiar. You know how it is: You walk someone through a logical argument, such as, for example, the TV set is not really telling them what to do. They may well agree with you every step of the way. You explain what a TV set is, how it works, what it can do, what it cannot. The person follows along, agreeing with you, but at the end will say, "but the TV really is telling me what to do!"

In a less extreme case, you may be explaining to a friend why a certain relationship is a disaster. They'll agree with every point you make--"he's unfaithful, he inconsiderate, he's a liar," yada, yada, to the nth degree..."but he loves me" is what you'll hear back.

Pete truly believes he has refuted Pat. Any rational argument, no matter how obvious, will ever convince him otherwise. The motto of the Petes of the world:

"I know that this defies the law of gravity, but, you see, I never studied
law. -Bugs Bunny

[Gabriel Sutherland]

That was an excellent read at Stubborn Facts. I've been cited with this study at least a dozen times in conversation this past week on the subject of the US Attorneys dismissal. Previously, I had just been responding that the study was incomplete with a publish date of 2008 leaving all of its findings up for debate or to the least defined as "preliminary conclusions". This was sufficient, but this new information is much better.

I'm familiar with ePluribus Media. That Messers Shields and Cragin have actually cited it as a source of publication is a poor indicator. It's not a peer reviewed journal as Pat from Stubborn Facts points out. Furthermore, I wonder if Messers Shields and Cragin's employers recognize ePluribus Media as a source of publication of their study.

[PatHMV]

Gabriel, thanks for the compliment. (And don't worry, Sylvia, I know I can be a bit long-winded. Occupational hazard.)

In our comments section, Maybee pointed out that E Pluribus Unum is actually a spin-off by some Daily Kos diarists. Another commenter, Rich Horton, replied that he's going to hold his breath until the MSM reports on an academic study published in LGF... pray for him.

Tom, thanks for the post. I've run some Google searches, and one or more of my posts at Stubborn Facts generally appears just one or two spots down from the E Pluribus Unum post. Anybody who wants to know the truth has no excuse. I've also e-mailed Smerconish with some links.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Hmm. Professor Shields and Professor Cragin are both Professor Emeritus'.

The chatter at ePluribus Media about this study is informative. Like this comment for example.
link

Is it possible that the discrepancy can be explained by observing that Democrats might be more prevalent in urban areas, where provable corruption is more often found than at state/national levels? Consider the vast numbers of contracts awarded at the city/local level, and the proximity of the elected officials to the businesses that want those contracts.

Heh, whoops. About that.

One also learns another detail from the ePluribus Media comments. Apparently they have a most favorite trading partner status with Daily Kos. ePluribus Media has a Kos account where they can post their new studies AND ASK FOR DONATIONS. Call me crazy, but somehow I doubt I could just log onto Daily Kos and just start asking people to give me money. Something tells me the Don would have to grant me this privelage.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Ok, this I did not know.

ePluribus Media has scheduled a large conference call for Friday, March 18 at 8:00 PM EST. To date, we have a membership of over 740 at propagannon.com. Soon, we will be announcing our new web presence called ePluribusMedia.org.

source

ePluribus Media is worse than I had previously known.

[MayBee]

Thank you for finding that, Gabriel. As I noted on Pat's blog, ePluribus began as a bunch of daily kos diarists and commenters that wished to find out more about Jeff Gannon. That was going to take down the government, you know. I remember watching their creation happen.
They cross posted this particular study on Daily Kos, mentioning in the comments that it had been entered in their opinion section.
I can't decide if it is sad or dastardly that academics would consider getting something on ePluribus to be "published", let alone peer-reviewed. Although perhaps peer reviewed is apt.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Maybee: I've determined that one of the board of directors of ePluribus Media, Aaron Barlow, is actually an assistant professor at CUNY. He teaches English.

I've asked ePluribus Media for a list of their board of directors. My suspicion is that Professors Shields and Cragan are not all that familiar with ePluribus Media. Thinking ahead, it could be worse, maybe they ARE familiar with it and they're Kossacks themselves.

[MayBee]

Hmm, Gabriel. One wonders how they stumbled upon ePluribus at all. Or how ePluribus stumbled on them.

[PatHMV]

If you do a search for [donald c. shields communication], you'll get a bunch of his actual research from his academic field. Have fun trying to read through that... works better than Ambien.

While his subject matter is extremely abstract, his academic work shows that he does know HOW to do a proper paper, with detailed citations and methodology. He just chose not to in this "study," which is not in his field.

[Tully]

Gabriel,

It's nice to see that someone over at ePluribus noticed something about this "study" that I repeatedly pointed out elsewhere more than a week ago. Namely, that without any political bias at all being involved, US Attorneys' investigations of corruption will tend to focus on major metro areas with US Atty's offices in them, which are by and large controlled by Democratic municipal administrations.

On simple political demographics alone, one would expect there to be more corruption investigations in major metro areas rather than in West Podunk, for the same reason that Willy Sutton robbed banks. That's where the money is. And that's where US Atty's offices are.

State and county AG's would handle most cases of local corruption. Only when the money involved is federal or the corruption extends up the state house (potentially compromising the state AG office) is there any reason for a US Atty to get involved.

Pointing out these basic political demographic facts, of course, is a no-no in certain circles.

[homeboy]

If you'd like to see the definition of Junk Science: The Authoritarians
<http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/>.

[homeboy]

Sorry, it clipped the website:

"http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/"

[sylvia]

"OK, so it is a lefty agit-prop site, fine. Please don't pass it off as a site for serious academic research."

Yes I understand it better now (sorry Pat, it was just too early) You always have to be careful with stats cause they are just too easy to manipulate. Definitely a longer history than just the Bush admin would be needed to see if the pattern was different under him and yes some info on the sample pool to see if the pool of Democrats outweigh the Republicans in terms of access. Also, one thing they didn't consider, Democrat pols might be more likely to commit crimes! Well you never know, but I don't think anyone's ever quite studied it that way. But good job on the stat debunking though.

[Merv Benson]

One can also conclude that there are more corrupt Democrats than Republicans.

Is there a break down on how these cases were distributed in the eight US Attorney Districts that are in issue?

Just judging on the tone of the debate over this non scandal it appears that some Democrats do not have a high regard for the law when it comes to a President's ability to hire and fire any US Attorney he wants to.

[Dan Collins]

Not to mention "faggot"!

[Tully]

"One can also conclude that there are more corrupt Democrats than Republicans."

One could, but it would be just as unsupported by this "study" as any other conclusion claimed. Except perhaps conclusions about the authors.