6/14/2006

Lindgren's post on David Gross and the Survey data

Jim Lindgren has a new post that indicates that a concern Lindgren raised earlier that David Gross might have taken Hemenway's 1996 survey and not my 1997 survey. In bold type near the end of his post he notes:



"Since neither the demographics nor the descriptive accounts matched Gross to any Minnesota respondent, it seems clear that Gross was not surveyed by Hemenway in 1996."


Lindgren notes that it is possible that Gross may have taken another suurvey in 1997, but no such remotely similar survey has ever surfaced. Opponents, even those immersed in these issues, have not pointed to any remotely similar survey during anywhere near that time period. If Lindgren does not believe that Gross is making up this memory out of whole cloth and Lindgren claims that he believes that Gross did take a survey when Gross says that he did, either point to some other possible survey that was given around that time or concede that Gross took my 1997 survey. Of course, I raised this several years ago and at that time Lindgren pointed to the 1996 Hemenway survey. Now that Hemenway has finally released the data from that survey, it is clear to everyone that Gross could not have taken that survey. Rather than just conceding the point, Lindgren points to claimed inconsistencies in Gross's statements, but Gross strongly disagrees with those claims (see point 4a). David Mustard also states that Lindgren inaccurately reported what Mustard told Lindgren.

It is also very disappointing that Lindgren has put no pressure what so ever on getting Hemenway to release his 1999 data. However, Lindgren in a email to me this week indicates that: "By the way, when I talked with either Hemenway or the survey organization they used for the 1996 study, they suggested that for most of their studies after 1996, they had lists at least of the telephone numbers used (they didn't for the 1996 study except on paper in boxes someplace)." However, Hemenway told Jeff Parker earlier this year something quite different:


From: David Hemenway [mailto:hemenway@hsph.harvard.edu]
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 10:56 AM
To: Jeffrey Parker
Subject: Re: John Lott survey

Dear Jeffrey:
Unfortunately, it does not appear to be possible. I emailed the
survey firm which conducted the surveys, and they no longer have the data
on the phone numbers. Here is the email response I received.

Best Regards,
David


Just as he did for years with the 1996 survey, Hemenway has consistently refused to release the 1999 data.

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