There’s a sense in which Bjorn Lomborg is entitled to feel aggrieved about the finding of scientific dishonesty made against him. His book is no more or less dishonest than the average book on this topic coming out of the thinktanks on both sides. Indeed given his heavy reliance on works like Kahn and Simon’s Resourceful Earth (Hudson Institute) and Ronald Bailey’s The True State of the Planet* (Competitive Enterprise Institute) it could scarcely be otherwise. And as Lomborg’s book shows, there’s plenty of bias on the other side – he makes some pretty effective criticisms of Lester Brown’s Worldwatch Institute and flogs the corpse of the Club of Rome mercilessly.

Viewed as a polemic, the book is very effective – rather than defending Simon and other anti-environmentalists on the points where they are indefensible (the harmlessless of lead, the decline in fish catches, global warming) he adopts a safer position without mentioning the errors of his friends. Similarly, Lomborg is clever in taking a left-sounding line (instead of fixing global warming, give the money to poor countries) when convenient, while dropping it when it isn’t (carbon emissions trading isn’t politically feasible, because we would have to give a lot of money to poor countries). All par for the course in this kind of debate, and no more biased than Brown or Simon.

Why, then, has Lomborg copped so much more flak than others (including from me)? There are several reasons. First, there’s Newton’s Third Law – having been given glowing reviews by The Economist, the New York Times and the Washington Post, Lomborg was bound to attract a stronger adverse response.

Second, Lomborg displayed more hubris than most, skating over a wide range of disciplines where he was clearly unqualified, and attacking lots of very prominent scientists on the basis of tendentious presentations of their views.

Third, there was his self-presentation as a deep-green environmentalist, who was converted to the truth by his failed attempts to refute Julian Simon. This kind of Sunday school story is very effective in the short run, but it raises the bar in terms of the standards of honesty you are expected to satisfy. No one is surprised when, say, TechCentralStation, touts Julian Simon’s well-known successes while ignoring his failures, but one would expect Lomborg to pay more attention to the failures, given his supposed starting point.

Finally, and most damagingly, Lomborg has tried to have his cake and eat it as regards the scientific status of his book. On the one hand, it’s published by the most prominent of the University Presses, has the usual scientific apparatus of footnotes and references, and touts Lomborg’s academic credentials. On the other hand, he’s avoided the usual processes of peer review, given a biased and selective summary of the evidence, and generally used the tactics of a polemical debater rather than a research scientist. It’s this that’s got him into trouble with the Danish Committee.

(*Corrected – see comments thread).

Update The Economist takes the line that Lomborg’s book is not scientific research and should not be treated as such

Why, in the first place, is a panel with a name such as this investigating complaints against a book which makes no claim to be a scientific treatise?

Fair enough, but as I’ve said, Lomborg has tried to have his cake and eat it on this issue. Some of his defenders are still taking the exact opposite line, that Lomborg’s book is a sound scientific contribution to knowledge. And, after invoking Orwell, the Economist describes Lomborg’s data as “largely uncontested” (emphasis added), an Orwellian turn of phrase indeed.

I’ve previously made the point that in his discussion of Tasmanian Aborigines and their supposed cultural incapacity for things like “guerilla war” and even “compassion”. Keith Windschuttle is guilty of an extreme form of the cultural relativism he denounced in The Killing of History. I’m pleased to see, via Rob Corr, that conservative anthropologist, Ron Brunton agrees, saying

Windschuttle rightfully criticises the one-dimensional view of white settler attitudes that emerges from some historians’ accounts. But he holds an equally crude view of Aboriginal motivations and capacities.
He derides the suggestion that Tasmanian Aborigines might act with “humanity and compassion” because such notions were “literally unthinkable” to them.
This baseless claim not only displays the cultural relativism that Windschuttle otherwise scorns, it also goes against significant evidence that was available to him. (emphasis added)

Brunton’s intro says he also “finds a lot to admire”. Unfortunately, I missed this piece when it came out, and I’ll have to head off the library to check the whole piece (or pay Rupert Murdoch for access to his archives).

At this stage, I think it’s clear that Windschuttle’s critique of Lyndall Ryan, while weakened by his own misleading quotation of her work, has raised important, and so far unanswered questions. In addition, he has debunked some popular massacre stories. On the other hand, his quibbles about minor misquotations in the work of Henry Reynolds are looking increasingly petty as the weaknesses in his own work are exposed.

‘Sceptical’ ‘environmentalist’ * Bjorn Lomborg has been the subject of a complaint to the official Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty of the Danish Research Agency (roughly equivalent to the US & Australian national Academies of Science). From bertramonline here’s a translation of the key findings.

Objectively, publishing the publication in question can be characterized as ‘scientific dishonesty’. When, however, also taking the subjective criteria of intention and gross negligence into consideration, it cannot be said that Bjørn Lomborg’s publication is covered by this characteristic. On the other hand, the publication is found to be contrary to the norms of sound scientific practice.
….
Given the considerably large number of scientific themes the defendant deals with without having any specific scientific expertise, [the Board] did not find — or deems it possible to bring forth — a sufficient foundation to conclude that the defendant wilfully or in gross negligence tried to mislead his readers.

Bertram has more on the Danish reaction to this, which is spiced up by the fact that the Danish government has given Lomborg a generously-funded research institute to run. And there’s a full English translation of the report here.

To summarise drastically, the Board’s finding is that Lomborg has presented a selective and biased statement of the evidence in support of a particular case, but has put it forward as a scientific publication through his statements, and through the use of scientific footnoting conventions. This is certainly true of his treatment of the economic issues, as I point out here

Thanks also to Rob Schaap, who alerted me to English-language coverage of this in the Washington Post.

* As I said in the piece linked above, “Lomborg is free to believe the most optimistic estimates on every environmental issue, and the most pessimistic estimates of the cost of doing anything. But he shouldn’t call himself ‘skeptical’ or an ‘environmentalist’. “

According to the NYT, the U.S., in a Shift, Is Willing to Talk With North Korea About A-Arms. This is good news, in the sense that it marks a step forward from the incoherent response we’ve seen so far from the Administration. On the other hand, the fact that there seems to be no alternative to buying these guys off is bad news. Coming back to the good news, only a government that’s already driven its population into destitution by a lunatic policy of autarky* and maintains absolutely closed borders would be as invulnerable to pressure as North Korea, so perhaps there won’t be too much of a precedent.

What this all means for Iraq is anybody’s guess.

* I had “autarchy” which is also correct for the DPRK, but not what I meant. Thanks to PM Lawrence for picking this up. Another entry for the “modern thought” blog, perhaps?

Visit Rob Schaap’s blogorrhoea for a fascinating, if a bit abstract, debate about the strengths and weaknesses of the neoclassical economic model, bouncing off the Gittins piece I linked to late last year. Be sure to read the comments thread, where many of this blog’s regulars, notably including derrida derider, have already weighed in.

I should really write something about this, but I’m still struggling with the best way to handle long posts on abstract issues. I’ve had a bit of success with the modern thought blog, and I may go this way. Comments anyone?

A year or two ago, selling education over the Internet was going to be the wave of the future. As yet another university pulls out of the market, it is clear that (outside the kind of low-grade technical training offered by the ‘University’ of Phoenix), this is an illusion. The best hope is for non-commercial ventures like MIT OpenCourseWare.

Now I’m at the University of Queensland, that I’m distantly affiliated with one of these ventures, Universitas 21 Global. It was established a couple of years ago with a lot of fanfare and a claimed budget of $US50 million. So far, an online MBA has been announced – mountains and mice come to mind.

Like Jason Soon my deadly sin is Pride, according to yet another on-line quiz.

When you think about it this is pretty much a no-brainer for bloggers, with the exception of some really angry warbloggers. Sloth is out by definition, and anyone who uses the Internet for blogging fails badly on Lust. In a social and economic order based primarily on Avarice, Envy and Gluttony, it’s hard for an individual to stand out on these qualities. By contrast, Pride (or self-esteem as we now call it) is an essential precondition for proclaiming your opinions to an audience of billions (OK, hundreds, but billions might read it one day).

Update My beliefs about the sins of bloggers have been refuted by the sample in the comments thread, including anger, gluttony, lust and even sloth (Scott Wickstein, who tends to swear off blogging for a while, then return like a moth to the flame – sloth or workaholic?).

The Bush stimulus plan is just like the last one only more so – permanent tax cuts for the rich instead of temporary assistance for those in the bottom half of the income distribution and temporary increases in public expenditure. Nathan Newman has a more specific critique of the centrepiece, elimination of taxes on dividends, as does Paul Krugman.

There’s a plausible microeconomic case for not taxing dividends, or for imputation on the Australian model, based on a simple model of how companies work, but when you look at all the tax advantages associated with company structures, the case looks a great deal weaker.

Update Brad DeLong has much more on this, with detailed analysis of the distributional impact, a ‘more in sorrow than anger’ piece on the declining credibility of CEA Chair Glenn Hubbard and lots of links. While you’re there, check out his “overheard at the AEA meetings” post, for a view of how (academic) economists talk among themselves.

To see a proper critique of dubious statistics, look at The New Republic’s debunking of the Body Mass Index. This rough and ready statistic (weight in kilos divided by the square of height in metres) has become the standard number in claims about obesity, with values over 25 being taken as overweight, and values over 30 as obese.There are two big problems with this, according to TNR
(a) Since it doesn’t distinguish fat from muscle, the BMI is a lousy measure of fatness. Estimates of body fat percentage can be obtained reasonably reliably using calipers for skinfold measurements
(b) There’s little convincing evidence that fatness per se, as opposed to inactivity and lousy diet, poses a health risk

Point (a) is well-known, but the persistent use of the BMI reflects the perceived need to simplify health messages, even at the risk of distorting them. The most recent issue of the Scientific American has an article on rebuilding the food pyramid that makes the same point regarding the famous food pyramid. A revised and more complex version (refined starch including potatoes are bad, and unsaturated fats and oils are good) has now been issued.

On point (b) it’s difficult from the evidence in the paper to disentangle the problems associated with the BMI with the evidence regarding the effects of fatness. I suspect it’s somewhat moot, in that with regular exercise and a good diet, you’re unlikely to have excessive body fat, whatever your BMI says.

(Disclosure: As measured most recently, my BMI is 25.2)

Update As if to prove TNR wrong The Age has a story showing a big reduction in life expectancy for those who are obese (BMI>30) at age 40. The objection that obesity per se is not disentangled from phsyical inactivity still appears to apply.

I’ve been getting quite a few visits lately from a site called Numberwatch. Its front page states:

This site is devoted to the monitoring of the misleading numbers that rain down on us via the media. Whether they are generated by Single Issue Fanatics (SIFs), politicians, bureaucrats, quasi-scientists (junk, pseudo- or just bad), such numbers swamp the media, generating unnecessary alarm and panic. They are seized upon by media, hungry for eye-catching stories. There is a growing band of people whose livelihoods depend on creating and maintaining panic. There are also some who are trying to keep numbers away from your notice and others who hope that you will not  make comparisons. Their stock in trade is the gratuitous lie. The aim here is to nail just a few of them.

This sounds fair enough, though the reference to “Junk science” raises some alarm bells.

Turning to the piece that’s linked to mine, the first thing I read is

You are now 25 times more likely to be mugged in London than in Harlem (according to The Mail on Sunday)

This sounds like precisely the kind of misleading media number that deserves debunking, and I look forward to the demolition, but nothing of the sort follows. Apparently, the Sunday Mail is not among the “growing band of people whose livelihoods depend on creating and maintaining panic.” For Numberwatch, it’s an authoritative source.

A factoid like this is impossible to pin down exactly (what exactly distinguishes “mugging” from robbery in general, and where do you get crime statistics for Harlem, which is not, as far as I know, an official jurisdiction of any kind). The best I could do is this sudy of Crime and Justice in the U.S. and England and Wales: Convictions per 1,000 population from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics. According to this source, the robbery rate in England is 1.4 times higher than in the US (similar comparisons hold for other property crimes and for assault, while rates of rape and murder are much higher in the US). Perhaps the Mail on Sunday has special statistics showing that Harlem is much safer than the US as a whole, but I doubt it.

Coming to my own sins, it turns out that they are not to do with numbers at all, or with anything of substance, but with the prose style of my post on political correctness, which Numberwatch author John Brignell describes as “stream of consciousness unconscious humour”. Brignell also dislikes a graph by Alan McCallum, which I linked to, though again he offers nothing substantive. Alan responds, with characteristic courtesy, here.

While we’re on the subject of “keeping numbers away from your notice”, I’ll mention that I get email notices of a number of monthly surveys put out by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. One is on mass layoffs. My last email contains the advice

This is the final news release for the Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program. Since 1994, the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration has funded the program. That funding will end on December 31, 2002. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has been unable to acquire funding from alternative sources and must discontinue the MLS program.

And on political correctness, Gerard Henderson makes the same point as me about the absurdity of people like Les Murray claiming to be persecuted dissenters.