Hi David,
> To begin with, neither John Lott nor David Mustard is or was a
> University of Chicago professor. Mustard was, I'm pretty sure, a grad
> student, and Lott was an Olin Fellow--a visiting position.
Thank you for the correcting my error. I don't think that my error(s)
detract from my main point however. Do a search for "Olin Fellow" on
Google. Here are some of the names that pop up on the first page:
William J. Bennett, John M. Olin Fellow in Cultural Policy Studies, The
Heritage Foundation
Dinesh D'Souza, John M. Olin Fellow, American Enterprise Foundation
Rachel Bronson, Olin Fellow, National Security Studies, Council on Foreign
Relations
Serguey Braguinsky, Olin Fellow, University of Chicago Law School
Imagine for a moment that Lott and Mustard were "Carnegie Fellows" at
Berkeley, and that other "Carnegie Fellows" were prominent liberal scholars
at places like the Economic Policy Institute, Institute for Policy Studies,
and the Alliance for Justice. Would you not suspect that ideology might
play a role in their research?
> >As a model of how to help break this deadlock, I would like to see more
> >studies funded by organizations modelled along the lines of the US
> >Environmental Protection Agency's Health Effects Institute.
>
> Why do you regard that as more neutral than the University of Chicago
> Law School, even assuming (contrary to fact) that the University of
> Chicago Law School controls the research done by a faculty fellow on
> a one or two year visiting appointment?
I did not mean to suggest that U. of C. Law school apparatchik's hand down
memo's dictating the results of the day's research. Rather, I think that
people self-select for environments where their existing biases will be
supported.
Hypothetical FRI researchers may be no more neutral than U. of C.
scholars. However, as far as widespread acceptance of the study is
concerned, it is the perception that counts. I would suggest that no
matter how scrupulously Lott and Mustard avoided bias, their methodology
would be hotly contested because of the U. of C.'s status as the namesake
instition for the "Chicago school of economics", as well as the "law and
economics" movement. Those bodies of thought are, after all, well-known for
their general hostility toward government regulation.
Therefore, I think that the results of a studies done by a Firearms Research
Institute, jointly funded by the NRA and HCI, would be regarded as more
credible than a study done by researchers supported by the Olin Foundation
at the University of Chicago.
I believe that a hypothetical FRI-managed study would produce results that
corroborate Lott and Mustards findings. But I think that you would see much
less post-hoc bickering over the methodology, as both opponents and
proponents of gun-control would have vetted and approved the methodology
before funding it in the first place.
> Insofar as people at U of C Law School have any ideological bias on
> these issues, it is in the opposite of the direction of Lott's
> research; while Chicago is less left wing than other major law
> schools (and the left wing people it has tend to be more
> interesting), that doesn't make it a hotbed of NRA support. I would
> be surprised if the Republican candidate for president had gotten a
> majority of votes of the law school professors at Chicago in any
> election over the past fifty years, or if as many as a quarter of the
> faculty were opposed to gun control laws. To the University's credit,
> its scholars produce research across a wide range of ideological
> positions.
You may be correct--U. of C. Law School may be less free-market oriented
than I imagined. But what do you think pop's into the heads of most
educated lay person's when they think of U. of C.? I'd bet that phrases
like "Chicago school of economics", "Milton Friedman", and "free markets"
would rank high on the list. U. of C. may not be a hotbed of NRA support,
but I think that few people were surprised that a U. of C. study came out in
favor of reduced government regulation.
> Don't you find something a little odd about comparing HandGun
> Control, Inc. to the University of Chicago, with the implication that
> they are both organizations pushing an agenda? Surely the comparison
> should be to the NRA. Or, if you prefer, you could compare work done
> at Chicago to work done at Harvard.
Yes, a comparison to Harvard would be a better choice--I picked HCI simply
because it would be obvious that results of HCI-funded research should be
looked upon with a jaundiced eye. I didn't intend to suggest that U. of C.
and HCI were co-equal in terms of bias.
> If anything, the institute you describe strikes me as more likely to
> act on a political agenda than a major university is. As you describe
> it, it is directly funded by the EPA and the automobile industry,
> both parties with large axes to grind. While there are many issues on
> which the two disagree, there may others on which their interest is
> in common--so why would you trust the output of such an institute?
Yes, but at least with respect to automobile pollution, they have very
different axes to grind. Presumably the force of their opposing biases
would balance the grinding wheel of truth...:>
Would you not trust the HEI's results, at least with respect to auto
pollution, more than you would trust the results of another party funded
unilaterally by either the automobile industry or the EPA alone?
Chris
