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Two college professors from Princeton and Harvard respectively author a book called Growth in a Time of Debt based on faulty research using bad, manipulated data and spreadsheet errors form the intellectual argument for the same bullshit austerity policies that are destroying Western Civilization. Now these two cocksuckers have been exposed and are still defending their research which produces the opposite results every time somebody tries to reproduce it. So considering how much human misery they've caused, I think these two should be fired and blacklisted from working at any educational institution or government position on the planet. What do you think?

I think tenured professors, or really any researcher or academic, should benefit from unrestricted free speech in nearly all cases.

Professional incompetence and/or sabotage isn't protected by the first amendment. Last time I checked, fabricating and/or royally ****ing up an experiment and then standing behind it anyway was enough to get any teacher fired. I'd rather not have these two get away like Milton Friedman.

Other than your intent here being utterly ridiculous, an attempt to shut down economic discourse based on absolutely no rational logic whatsoever (as if the writers of the paper were in some way trying to influence things with their work rather than just make an honest assessment of the situation), your facts are wrong as well. Yes, they made a spreadsheet error, which affects the data present for just one small part of their work. These things happen- they happen in all sorts of studies, and if exposed do no favours to people's academic reputation. It does not. however, make much of a difference either to the whole thrust of their paper or their presented argument.

If you seriously think that people should get fired for this sort of thing, then you have serious issues. You are sounding highly disturbing.

Well I don't have idea about this so not able to suggest you. It seems quiet serious problem here.

I don't see any difference in this than Milton Friedman using South American dictators to experiment with his bullshit theories or paid scientists somehow determining that clear cutting and smoking are good things. You guys are making the same fallacy that the mainstream media make in thinking that facts are democratic and that crap that actually hurts real people is deserving of equal time and consideration. It's especially astonishing in this case since these two were clearly paid to get the results that they got.

so wait a second... you would be against scientists doing research to find possible benefits of smoking, a priori, because you have a problem with it?

ya, that is absurd

Originally posted by Oliver North
so wait a second... you would be against scientists doing research to find possible benefits of smoking, a priori, because you have a problem with it?

ya, that is absurd

No I have a problem with scientists coming to a conclusion first and then massaging their experiments to fit that conclusion and the findings of research being mysteriously affected by injections of cash. Especially when those findings end in high unemployment crumbling societies, and death.

And yes I'm aware that smoking helps with Colitis.

Reinhart and Rogoff published a non-peer reviewed article that, ultimately, contained an error in their excel program. I think you are referring to politicians and media...

Yeah, this is absurd. Let's just not post papers in the general public, because if we're wrong and enough people get mad, they'll be fired. Excellent basis for public discourse.


The fact that it wasn't peer-reviewed isn't their fault; it's the media/politicians for taking it as fact. Publishing results is no crime, nor is defending a thesis...even one that is commonly accepted as flawed. They'll be skewered in the court of public opinion, which is fine. Good or bad, it's what society does. But their jobs should not be the faintest bit in jeopardy.

it'd be as crazy as jailing scientists for being unable to predict natural disasters...

wait a minute...

Darth Jello's kneejerking "I demand they be dragged through broken glass" strikes again.

It's worth noting that Stephen Colbert hilariously destroyed these two in a recent segment. I'm sure it's Youtube-able, or available on his site. Worth a search for those interested in this.

...though it obviously doesn't shake my earlier opinions in this thread. I realize that's obvious, but this is the internet, so it's best to be redundant.

Originally posted by Digi
It's worth noting that Stephen Colbert hilariously destroyed these two in a recent segment. I'm sure it's Youtube-able, or available on his site. Worth a search for those interested in this.

...though it obviously doesn't shake my earlier opinions in this thread. I realize that's obvious, but this is the internet, so it's best to be redundant.
Lol, I just watched it.

"Oh please, if ignoring New Zealand, Australia, and Canada were a crime, all of America would be on death row."

Ya, I had seen that too.

ultimately, if they make no effort to correct their mistake or continue to promote this specific study to promote the idea that debt eventually produces negative growth, then maybe we can talk about them being intellectually dishonest. It seems more like they were just sloppy.

To be fair to the authors, when the numbers were fixed, all that changed was the magnitude of the effect, not the direction or trend. Basically, they did show that debt can lead to losses in growth. In fact, it is still arguable that there might be a threshold where too much debt does produce negative growth, it would just be higher than the 90%-of-GDP limit that Reinhart and Rogoff found.

It would be interesting to see the data with excluded nations included, however, what might be even more informative is if we could do some type of factor analysis comparing nations where high debt slowed growth with those where it didn't, to find what policies protect against growth loss when the government needs to increase spending.

Was there any intentional malice on their part, ie did they knowingly use false data or did they just **** up?

I've seen nothing that suggests outright fraud, no

They're defending and standing by their results despite everything! Their work has been responsible for poverty, and unemployment crises the world over. You guys are acting as if they wrote some insignificant little study. This was used to justify AUSTERITY.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
They're defending and standing by their results despite everything! Their work has been responsible for poverty, and unemployment crises the world over. You guys are acting as if they wrote some insignificant little study. This was used to justify AUSTERITY.
That's an interesting way to phrase things.

Let me try.

"I asked for a cheeseburger, and instead he gave me a HOT DOG."

It sounds so insidious now.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
This was used to justify AUSTERITY. To be fair, I'd blame the idiots in government who didn't check the work before making policies based on it more than the guys who created a failed piece of work, in this situation.

for sure

the issue is clearly more that people didn't criticize the governments for basing so much on a sing;e, non-peer reviewed study rather than attempt to ban people for making an error.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
They're defending and standing by their results despite everything!

source?

I'm interested in what they are saying, you know, given a lot of their results are still true, if not to the same magnitude they initially predicted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/opinion/reinhart-and-rogoff-responding-to-our-critics.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0

and what do you find so controversial in that? can you quote paragraphs?

Their defense never addresses the fact that their results can't be legitimately reproduced or the suffering that they have caused. Their defense stinks of Julius Streicher at Nurenberg. They had every opportunity to say stop but in contradiction to their own assertions of neutrality on page 3, I recall them lauding governments that went on austerity kicks based on their research. Even Germany is about to drop to say nothing of the rest of non-Scandanavian Europe and the US.

... actually, the first thing they address is the error in their spreadsheet, which is what was causing people to be unable to replicate the results.

Also, you need to really focus your criticisms. You can't blame people doing research for the media and state manipulating the data...

You do blame them for lobbying cities and states to take their suggestions and then lying and saying you didn't. BTW, more evidence of selective use of data and statistics and extremely sloppy research came out today. Namely over-relying on data from Japan because it fit the outcome they were hoping for.

focusing on something because it demonstrates the effect you are looking for isn't problematic, it just makes the results less generalizalbe.

Wait, you are criticizing them for endorsing their own research now?