Obviously they’re hiding the fact that the Iraq war is going really really well in all areas and was a terrific idea in which all decisions were perfect.

It speaks volumes for this blog and its readers (And I find that insipid bloggers tend to have insipid readers) that most of the comments about my article, which I will be revisiting using the new data, is about . . . my former mustache.

No, we just don’t think you’re worth engaging. You’ll find that people here are quite intelligent (many much more than I). They simply don’t take the likes of you seriously, and they realize the futility of trying to engage wingnuts like you in serious debate. So, they (to my great mirth) find it more satisfying to mock you—and for the rest of us reality-based folk, laughing and the catastrofuck created by the right wing gets us through the day.

You’re talking about Thomas Sowell, aren’t you?

mikey

Geez, they’ll just give PhD’s out to anybody these days…

I have to take issue with this, if only slightly.

It is possible, during the course of PhD studies into a given topic, to acquire a certain level of expertise in separate-but-related areas – certainly enough expertise to publish in that related area.

For example, I can totally see how one could acquire a high level of competence in statistics from studying economics, under certain circumstances (full disclosure: I myself have a master’s in the subject, and while I know economists who could probably pull it off, I personally would never dare consider myself qualified to even being writing a pure statistics paper. My PhD work has been in another field entirely).

However, that certainly doesn’t mean such intellectual cross-training is automatic. From what I do understand about Kane’s paper, it seems like this is an example of a far more common phenomenon – that of talking out of one’s own ass.

So ultimately, your laughter seems justified regardless.

This Kane did his PhD in political economy, and his degree in philosophy and sturph. Statistician he ain’t.

Now despite being a mathematician, I am also not a statistician. However, the prudent non-statistician bloody well refrains from writing academic bloody articles on topics they’re only vaguely aquainted with.

I’d imagine that Kane is just as qualified to challenge the original authors’ epidemiological qualifications as their statistical ones.

Hmph.

Oh, and Herr Doktor: this cranky comment doesn’t mean you’re compelled to keep silent on matters on which you have no PhD. Merely that if you write an academic paper on matters on which you have no PhD, I’ll be compelled to laugh immoderately at you.

I’m sure I just saw a rodent whizz by. Excuse me all, time for chasin’ things.