Some legalistic quibbles

I’ve previously complained about how Krugman misrepresented my views, John Cochrane’s views and Milton Friedman’s views.  Now we can add Levitt and Dubner to the list.  That’ right, the following statement made by Krugman is pure fabrication:

The chapter opens with the “global cooling” story “” the claim that 30 years ago there was a scientific consensus that the planet was cooling, comparable to the current consensus that it’s warming.

Why does Krugman keep doing this?  Why does he continually misrepresent what others say?  My theory is that he assumes those he disagrees with are either fools or knaves.  Instead of doing a sympathetic reading, trying to discern what others are really trying to say, he looks for the “gotcha.”  I just read the chapter, and it bears little resemblance to his description.  And I have read a lot of scientific papers on geoengineering, on both sides of the issue, so I know a bit about the field. 

I also don’t get this, from his latest post

Ryan Avent makes a general point about people who dismiss cap-and-trade as too hard, then promote something else that only seems easier because you haven’t thought it through. I agree with him about the carbon tax issue; and while I hadn’t thought about applying the same principle to geoengineering, he’s completely right. Having somebody “” who? The United States? The United Nations? The Coalition of the Willing? “” pump sulfur into the atmosphere through an 18-mile tube, or cut off sunlight with a giant orbital mirror, would either (a) require many years of hard negotiations or (b) quite possibly set off World War III. If it’s (a), why is that so much easier than a global agreement on emissions? (Which, as Brad points out, really would only have to involve four big players.)

How is it easier to get international agreement to slow the rise in global warming through policy changes that will cost $100s of billions, if not trillions, as compared to policy changes that will cost less than $1 billion (the big tube)?  Both strategies require international agreement to slow the rise in global temperatures.  But one costs 3 orders of magnitude less.  Can someone explain Krugman’s reasoning to me?  And WWIII?  China is building hundreds of coal plants that will emit lots of carbon and warm the climate, and I don’t see anyone calling for a military attack on China.  So are we to believe that countries will sit back and let others heat up the planet, but attack other countries if they merely slow down the rate at which the earth is warming?  I just don’t get this argument.  As far as I know the geoengineering people are talking about slowing the rise in temps, not cooling the planet below its current level.

And one other thing; in his newest post Krugman indicated that he saw Dubner’s post that discussed the global cooling passage.  I don’t know about you, but if it were me I would either strongly disagree with Dubner on that point, or apologize.  What I would not do is keep silent when a distinguished public figure accused me of making a false accusation, and made the charge in the very same newspaper I wrote for.

And then it gets even worse.  Krugman made the following charge:

they grossly misrepresent other peoples’ research, in both climate science and economics.

Dubner responded:

Last week, a few days before Romm’s post, Caldeira sent an e-mail to Myhrvold and cc’d me as well. It included a chain of earlier e-mails between Caldeira and Romm.

The chain begins with Joseph Romm telling Caldeira that he had read SuperFreakonomics and “I want to trash them for this insanity and ignorance.” Romm adds that “my blog is read by everyone in this area, including the media” and tells Caldeira that “I’d like a quote like ‘The authors of SuperFreakonomics have utterly misrepresented my work,’ plus whatever else you want to say.”

I understand that blogging, especially advocacy blogging, doesn’t operate under the rules of journalism (where you don’t feed quotes to people), but still: that’s quite a quote to feed to someone.

Caldeira didn’t give him the quote. He did, however, respond point-by-point to a series of statements about him in the book. “The only significant error,” he wrote to Romm, “is the line: ‘carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight.’ That is just wrong and I never would have said it. On the other hand, I f&@?ed up. They sent me the draft and I approved it without reading it carefully and I just missed it. … I think everyone operated in good faith, and this was just a mistake that got by my inadequate editing.”

Read Dubner’s entire “anatomy of a smear” post, it is devastating.

And here’s Krugman’s response:

Legalistic quibbling about who said what in an email isn’t going to help Dubner and Levitt here: in this crucial chapter, there’s an average of one statement per page that’s either flatly untrue or deeply misleading.

All I can say is wow.  Is that how you’d respond if Dubner made those charges against you?  Give Krugman credit for audacity.  He was wrong about the global cooling “mistake” so he comes back with the argument that there are 45 unspecified errors or deeply misleading statements.   Let’s just say I’m glad Krugman wasn’t a right-winger during the early 1950s.  (Perhaps he refers to DeLong’s post, but DeLong’s list (of 21) starts off with the same global cooling issue Dubner already shot down.  There is nothing at all misleading about Levitt and Dubner’s discussion of the global cooling scare in the 1970s.)  BTW, I agree with some of DeLong’s points, but many are trivial or simply differences of interpretation.

Just to be fair, I think Krugman does have one good point.  It is hard to understand why people who believe in incentives find it so difficult to think that a carbon tax would work.  But Dubner and Levitt would probably argue:  “Yes it would work in theory, but real world governments are unlikely to move fast enough.”  And they’d probably be right.  And of course this is exactly the same argument Krugman used against relying solely on monetary stimulus.  Yes, an aggressive inflation target might do the job, but real world central banks are too conservative.  And in a sense Krugman was right too.  Real world central banks did prove to be too conservative.  And Krugman should have been as tough on them as he is on politicians who oppose carbon reduction policies.  (You knew I had to work monetary stimulus into this.)

PS.  Bob Murphy also has a nice post on this issue.

HT:  Yosef  and RArmant for sending me chapter 5.


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23 Responses to “Some legalistic quibbles”

  1. Gravatar of John Thacker John Thacker
    19. October 2009 at 06:25

    “Yes it would work in theory, but real world governments are unlikely to move fast enough.” And they’d probably be right. And of course this is exactly the same argument Krugman used against relying solely on monetary stimulus. Yes, an aggressive inflation target might do the job, but real world central banks are too conservative. And in a sense Krugman was right too. ”

    In a sense, though of course in the real world governments don’t move fast enough with fiscal stimulus; not in approving it, and not in spending it.

  2. Gravatar of Daniel Kuehn Daniel Kuehn
    19. October 2009 at 07:04

    I haven’t read the global cooling chapter, but this is something that is commonly abused. In the seventies there was consensus – but it was consensus that we were on a long-term cooling trend. The timeline was over the course of several millenia. People use that now as some sort of counter about our uncertainty with respect to climate change.

    The problem is, climate change is a short term spike determined by forces other than global cooling – in other words, they’re not contradictory. Climate change skeptics try to use it as an example of climatologists who can’t get the story straight.

    I like to think about it like the economy. We are on a long term growth trend. Every once in a while, though, the economy shrinks as a result of other factors. These two stories aren’t inconsistent. It’s like short waves or long-waves.

    So maybe Dubner and Levitt addressed the problem correctly – that would be nice. Like I said I didn’t read the chapter. But often people do twist the “global cooling” story, and it is right that they be corrected.

    Unless you have different understanding of the global cooling argument in the 1970s that you’d like to elaborate on – rather than misrepresenting Krugman’s views on it.

  3. Gravatar of Thorfinn Thorfinn
    19. October 2009 at 07:33

    There is one big flaw I noticed in the chapter that other haven’t picked up. Levitt and Dubner classify coal miner deaths as representing an externality of coal mining.

    But of course, this is just an on-the-job hazard, which will be reflected (internalized) in the pay of miners. Maybe miners don’t know that. But the relative higher pay of these jobs suggest that they do know to an extent.

    This is nitpicking. But then again, this is econ 101 stuff; there are plenty of other examples to choose from.

  4. Gravatar of Alex Alex
    19. October 2009 at 07:50

    Scott,

    I don´t know why Krugman cares about global warming… after all he believes that in the long run we are all dead so fiscal consequences of the stimulus plans are not important.

    Alex.

  5. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    19. October 2009 at 08:25

    ‘ Legalistic quibbling about who said what in an email isn’t going to help Dubner and Levitt here….’

    Too perfectly Krugmanewque. Because, in the prior thread I gave an example of Krugman humiliating himself over legalistic quibbling over who wrote what in an e-mail. I.e. Krugman accused Thomas White of felonious behavior–stock market fraud–in 2002, only to be ordered to withdraw such charge by his NY Times editors when it turned out Krugman’s source was a lunatic.

  6. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    19. October 2009 at 09:29

    John, Yes, I agree. I opposed fiscal stimulus for several reasons, including the lag problem.

    Daniel: You said;

    “I haven’t read the global cooling chapter, but this is something that is commonly abused. . . . So maybe Dubner and Levitt addressed the problem correctly – that would be nice. Like I said I didn’t read the chapter. But often people do twist the “global cooling” story, and it is right that they be corrected.
    Unless you have different understanding of the global cooling argument in the 1970s that you’d like to elaborate on – rather than misrepresenting Krugman’s views on it.”

    I don’t get it. You haven’t read the global cooling chapter, but you say I misrepresented Krugman’s view’s on it? How did I misrepresent his views? I quoted him verbatim? Aren’t you doing the same thing as Krugman, making an accusation with no basis in fact? And by the way, Levitt and Dubner’s book doesn’t contain a global cooling chapter, it contains a global warming chapter, where they argue global warming is real, and needs to be addressed.

    Levitt and Dubner did address the global cooling issue correctly. It was a minor anecdote, accurately told, and followed by many pages explaining why global warming is occurring. They never claimed a consensus in favor of global cooling.

    Thorfinn, I saw several flaws. The 2% figure for the human contribution to carbon emissions is misleading, as it suggests humans play a small role in global warming. I don’t know how that got by the editor. It must allude to a natural cycle of carbon in and out of plants, oceans etc. But the net increase is mostly human. My other complaint is that they skim over the issue of ocean acidification, which cannot be addressed by geoengineering. But it is very good that people will see the geoengineering option in a widely read book. I am pretty sure that the world will eventually rely on some geoengineering, although I also believe we should and will gradually move away from carbon energy sources (unless we can miraculously find some economical way of removing carbon that has already been emitted.

    Alex, I have noticed recently that Krugman is very interested in any issue that seems to call for bigger government. Indeed even if the real implication of the current crisis is the need for monetary stimulus, he relentlessly focuses on the big government alternative (fiscal stimulus.)

    Patrick, Yes, I saw that in the previous thread. How can one person make so many mistakes of this sort? I suppose I feel passionately about this because he also did it to me.

  7. Gravatar of StatsGuy StatsGuy
    19. October 2009 at 09:56

    I would write a long opposing view, but one of my personal heros already has sort of summed up my opinions:

    http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/10/my_review_of_fr.html

    The only useful thing I had to add was the game theoretic issue with encouraging second-best solutions, which I noted in the previous thread.

    So the end results is… blech. Overall, a pretty poor chapter – sloppy, journalistic, sensationalist – yet proposed by a set of individuals who proport to approach the topic with academic discipline (whose strongest contribution is primarily their academic pedigree). Yet Chapter is _not_ disciplined.

    Gelman hypothesizes why:

    “Between Freaknomics 1 and Freakonmics 2 came years of blogging, and I wonder if that dulled Levitt’s edge. In a blog it’s just too easy to throw out ideas without seriously evaluating them. And it probably didn’t help that, with their book’s immense popularity, they were getting hundreds of admiring comments on the blog each day. In my own blog, in contrast, the comments are few enough that when somebody disagrees with me, I notice it.”

    The sad part is that the over-reaction of certain people on the left is overshadowing the admittedly fair points they raise.

    For example, Chapter 5 _does_ open up in a journalistic way that clearly is meant to establish a parallel between the global cooling scare of the 70s and the global warming scare of today – even though (as Krugman and DeLong note) the weight of evidence today is vastly heavier (and has endured longer) than in the 70s. But Chapter 5 does not call this a “scientific consensus”.

    Chapter 5 is riddled with all sorts of little, sloppy things, but because Krugman over-reacted Dubner and Levitt have just become the poster children for the anti-global warming debate.

  8. Gravatar of David Stinson David Stinson
    19. October 2009 at 10:02

    “Just to be fair, I think Krugman does have one good point. It is hard to understand why people who believe in incentives find it so difficult to think that a carbon tax would work.”

    Seems to be a lot of that going around. In particular, I find it rather surprising how many economists downplay (or studiously ignore) the role of moral hazard in creating instability in the banking system.

  9. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    19. October 2009 at 10:08

    Statsguy, If I was judging it as scholarship I’d rate it very low. I never read Freakonomics so I just sort of assumed that this journalistic approach is what they do.

    I agree there are a few slip ups by Levitt and Dubner, and I agree that the left is its own worst enemy. I get tired of Krugman mischaracterizing people’s views. He acts like everyone who disagrees with him is stupid.

    But I still think this chapter is valuable. It is disgraceful that geoengineering has gotten so little attention. My 10 year old daughter is taught these scary stories about the horrible things that will happen to our planet, and they are sheer fantasy, there is no way we would allow 9 degrees of warming and flooding of coastal cities. We need to grow up as a society and stop acting so innocent. We control the planet now, for better or worse. We decide what species go extinct, and what species that would have normally gone extinct even without humans get saved. We control the temperature. There is no longer any point in being coy about it. It’s up to us to decide what sort of planet we want. BTW, this is equally directed against conservatives and liberals.

  10. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    19. October 2009 at 10:11

    David, That is a good point. And the mantra is always more regulation, not fixing the root cause of the moral hazard, which is FDIC and too big too fail. In the 1980s the biggest problem was FDIC, and we thought we’d fixed that problem, but this time it was too big to fail. Who knows what it will be next time. And Iceland shows that deposit insurance is still an issue.

  11. Gravatar of marco marco
    19. October 2009 at 13:37

    Can you clarify what about Krugman’s statement is “pure fabrication”?

    As I read the opening page and a half of that chapter, it does open with the global cooling story. It quotes reputable news sources from the 1970s, which cite “experts”, “a National Academy of Scientists report”, “climatologists”, and “scientists” making dire predictions about global cooling. And it makes a direct parallel to the threat of global warming consensus of today.

    Since the book draws no explicit conclusions from that anecdote, the clear takeaway for readers is that scientific consensus was wrong 30 years ago. This is what Krugman disputes (fairly, I thought) in the opening of his blog post. What am I missing?

  12. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    19. October 2009 at 15:19

    marco, Yes I can clarify, Krugman said they made the “claim” that there was a consensus in favor of global cooling. They did not make that claim. And it would be absurd to argue they even implied it, as that would mean that they spent 40 pages coming up with a solution to a problem that didn’t even exist. And yet they clearly indicated they did believe global warming was a problem, and that geoengineering was going to be required to deal with it. It is obviously just a brief one page anecdote showing (correctly) how hard it is to predict the world’s climate. Under Krugman’s interpretation they would have gone on to poor cold water on the global warming hypothesis, they would have been global warming deniers. But they didn’t, and they aren’t.

    Krugman made a very serious charge, basically accusing them of professional incompetence. You just don’t do that sort of thing unless you have all your ducks lined up in a row. But there is absolutely nothing he can point to, either in the passage in question, or in the broader theme of the chapter as a whole, that supports his interpretation. If you want to criticize someone for creating impressions, doesn’t Krugman’s post create the impression they distorted the views of the experts they used, and that those experts never saw a draft? And doesn’t Krugman’s post create the false impression that they are a bunch of global warming deniers? So I don’t think Krugman’s defenders want to take an “impressionistic” approach in their defense. I read the opening to the chapter, and I would never make that sort of accusation based on such flimsy evidence. I love reading that story about Newsweek covers from the 1970s predicting global cooling and saying we needed to put soot in the Arctic. I’m glad they put it in the book. And yet I don’t believe it discredits the current scientific view of global warming.

    BTW, When will Krugman release his secret list of 45 errors and distortions? How many people think he even has such a list? Or is that also just his “impression.”

    I hate to overdo this response. But reread your second paragraph. Is all that true? If so, it is what it is. You can’t have it both ways. If a lot of important scientists believed in global cooling, and readers assumed that a lot of scientists believe in global cooling, then the takeaway was accurate, wasn’t it? Let’s have some respect for the readers.

  13. Gravatar of Greg Ramsom Greg Ramsom
    19. October 2009 at 15:48

    Politicians have incentives too.

    Seen the exemptions for Demo client groups?

    In the hundreds of billions.

    ” It is hard to understand why people who believe in incentives find it so difficult to think that a carbon tax would work. ”

    Buchanan & friends could help you understand …

  14. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    19. October 2009 at 16:49

    Greg, Good point. In a way I agree with you. It’s just that I am used to mainstream economists like Mankiw arguing from an “ideal” perspective, and I sort of thought that Levitt was also taking that approach. I was a bit surprised by his claims that incentives wouldn’t effect energy use all that much. My impression was that long run demand was fairly elastic, but perhaps I am wrong.

    Yes, once it gets into Congress it is a mess, which is why I will probably oppose whatever “cap and trade” scheme they come up with, it will probably do more harm than good.

    The weird thing is that economists tend to oppose command and control like fuel economy standards, and favor “market” approaches like cap and trade. But once it gets through Congress I bet the actual cap and trade policy will be even worse from a free market perspective than a simple increase in the corporate standard (CAFE standard.) It will be riddled with special interest exemptions and complex enforcement issues.

  15. Gravatar of Daniel Kuehn Daniel Kuehn
    19. October 2009 at 17:54

    RE: ” don’t get it. You haven’t read the global cooling chapter, but you say I misrepresented Krugman’s view’s on it? How did I misrepresent his views? I quoted him verbatim? Aren’t you doing the same thing as Krugman, making an accusation with no basis in fact?”

    My comment clearly said you misrepresented his views on 1970s global cooling, not his views on the chapter. I seem to have misinterpreted what you meant when you wrote:

    “He was wrong about the global cooling “mistake” so he comes back with the argument that there are 45 unspecified errors or deeply misleading statements”.

    My point was that he was actually right in his explanation of what went on with global cooling theories – in fact he put it in much better context than skeptics usually do. My point was further that I don’t know how Dubner and Levitt dealt with the issue – they did a great job with everything in their last book, after all – but Krugman is always on target with explaining the relevance and context of the global cooling theories. When you wrote “He was wrong about the global cooling “mistake”” I thought you meant that, and not that he was wrong about Dubner and Levitt. And I was a little bothered that you accused him from shooting from the hip when you didn’t provide any reason for why he was wrong about the global cooling theories.

  16. Gravatar of Daniel Kuehn Daniel Kuehn
    19. October 2009 at 17:57

    Re: “Can you clarify what about Krugman’s statement is “pure fabrication”?”

    I agree. Krugman is often guilty of going on a tirade, but reading your post I couldn’t help feeling like I was missing some justification for why Krugman was wrong. It mostly seemed like you didn’t think it would spark WWIII, and you thought he was audacious. Not as much meat as you usually have in your posts.

  17. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    20. October 2009 at 03:56

    Daniel, You may be right that my post lacked meat. And I misunderstood why you were complaining. But I still think his wild accusations that he frequently throws out are not responsible. He should be a more sympathetic reader of what others are trying to do. People like Friedman, Cochrane, Levitt, etc, are not morons, nor are they intellectually dishonest. And they shouldn’t be treated that way. If you look at that passage in sympathetic terms there was no problem at all. And if he doesn’t want to be a sympthetic, if he wants to be a hyper-critical reader, then he better make sure he has exact quotes to prove his point, not vague impressions.

    But yes, I agree that Krugman’s view on the 1970s was fine, he was wrong about what he suggested Levitt and Dubner had claimed.

  18. Gravatar of Paul Johnston Paul Johnston
    20. October 2009 at 05:51

    For what it’s worth. I think StatsGuy hit the nail on the head. The Freakonomics blog is one of the 5 or so blogs I read. And even as someone without a PhD in economics, I notice frequent undergraduate economics mistakes (to be fair Dubner makes a lot more of them, if not all). I point them out sometimes but a lot of the comments don’t get approved.

    I think Krugman did what he seems to be doing best lately: grossly exaggerating “errors” (and ideas) to the point that it is hard to take the rest of his posts seriously. When in reality there probably were errors that could have been refutted logically and coherently but will now be overlooked because of his tantrum.

  19. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    20. October 2009 at 09:07

    Brad DeLong picked a fight over this with the wrong guy:

    http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/

    ————quote————-
    What do I mean when I say that they engage in embarrassing and unethical behavior? For instance, their blog etiquette is simply a disgrace, especially for people who claim to be professional, e.g., they each disallow substantive comments that they disagree with, either from me or from those supporting things that I have said. To provide an example, yesterday after I had accused DeLong of deleting comments from his blog he protested vehemently to me by email that:

    ‘ My default is that everyone’s comments are automatically published. (I do prune them later, if I think they are actively misleading. But I don’t refuse to post.)’

    The screen shot below from DeLong’s blog last evening (taken by an observer and sent to me by email this morning, thanks D!), do the comments look “actively misleading” to you? They are polite and on point. Yet they were immediately deleted by DeLong. Several other similar comments were “pruned” as well. Hey, it is DeLong’s blog and he can run it like he wants, but to put forth a bald lie and then accuse me of “insanity” for pointing out that he actually deletes comments (when he does) takes chutzpah.
    ————–endquote—————

    Those with a history with DeLong will enjoy the several posts at Pielke’s blog where the issue develops.

  20. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    20. October 2009 at 16:31

    Paul, You are exactly right. I noticed some errors or at least very misleading statements. There are flaws in chapter 5. But I still think it was a good essay, despite its flaws, because it addressed an important topic (which I address in a new post.)

    Thanks Patrick. I don’t have time to check up on blogs that delete quickly, so I appreciate the info. At least other bloggers are trying to keep him honest on the comments issue. I have only deleted perhaps 3 or 4 non-commercial comments. I have deleted a couple hundred commercial comments. But 3 or 4 isn’t too bad compared to the 6000 plus I have published. And they were either using profanity or racist arguments.

  21. Gravatar of Barry Barry
    22. October 2009 at 04:31

    http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2242

  22. Gravatar of Barry Barry
    22. October 2009 at 04:36

    Adding to this – I just read the start of chapter 5. Levitt and Dubner start with the ‘global cooling story’. Now, they’re very slick; they make it look as if there was a consensus, without actually saying so. A very nice slalom around the truth, never guite touching the flags. It reminds me of Amity Schlaes (‘The Forgotton Man’).

    This is a clear indication that they were not mislead, that they are indeed being fraudulent.

  23. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    22. October 2009 at 05:05

    Barry, I didn’t interpret the opening as claiming a consensus. If they wanted to claim that, they would have. The idea that they are slick here is silly. They are if anything rather naive in many of their comments on global warming, they are clearly not experts.

    But if you read the entire chapter, instead of just the opening, you’d see that they are not global warming deniers, indeed they accept the scientific evidence for global warming, which is why they devote 20 pages to geoengineering solutions to the problem. So what motive would they have for trying to claim a consensus for cooling in the 1970s? And indeed what difference would it make?

    If you are going to look for “hidden meanings” isn’t it much more plausible that people like Krugman are (falsely) accusing them of being global warming deniers? Isn’t that the implict message of an argument that there was a consensus in favor of global cooling in the 1970s? And yet that is obviously not their message.

    I took the intro as showing just how difficult it is to forecast the climate. And it is difficult. There are a wide range of forecasts for the next 100 years.

    If Krugman had said they hinted or implied a consensus, I would have disagreed but let it go. But he said they claimed a consensus. And that’s just false. You simply can’t accuse people of professional incompetence unless you have strong evidence, and Krugman didn’t have it. Of course his posts contained other false claims as well, such that they misrepresented the views of others, whereas we now know that the climatologist in question was given a draft of the chapter and OK’d it. And Krugman has claimed 45 mistakes and deeply misleading statements in the chapter, but as yet has only named one, and it he is wrong on that one.

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