‘Robert Musil’, the Man Without Qualities responds to my intervention in his debate with Arnold Kling. He raises a lot of points, so rather than have a single monster post, I’ll begin by conceding some errors, then deal with other issues as I get time.

First, I apologize for my crack that ‘MWQ clearly wouldn’t know an economic model if he fell over one’, for which I had no basis except that MWQ appeared to assume the correct conclusion without addressing the modelling issues. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Second, I accept that it was Arnold Kling who made the allusion to my Australian nationality (for which he has, in any case, graciously apologised via email) and that MWQ in fact gently tweaked him on this point.

Third, I know that I get a bit overheated (awful pun intentional) about Lomborg and global warming generally. I care a lot about global warming – I’ll say some more about this soon. Moreover, I don’t regard Lomborg as an honest opponent, for the reasons I’ve stated in previous posts, and I am annoyed to see his claim to be a ‘Sceptical Environmentalist” given credit. No doubt I sometimes get too annoyed.
That said, I find it amusing that MWQ invokes The New Australian as an arbiter of Internet decorum. Australian readers will know that this site drips vitriol from every comma. For those who want to check, if you follow the link provided by MWQ, be sure to read a few other articles.

Finally, this debate reminds me that I must get around to reading the real Robert Musil. Look for a response in a “What I’m reading” post some time.