On 8/26/06, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The paper may be crap, but in dismissing it out of hand you sound like the Heritage Foundation.
There are several clues. None of them are decisive, but noticing those clues is not dismissing the paper "out of hand." First, it's fairly evident that the article -- written by a "news staff writer" for "All Headline News" -- would appear to be based mainly on a press release from either the paper's authors or the conference sponsors. Second, the quotes from the authors (presumably press-release content) offer a degree of glib certainty that seems consistent with an agenda-driven study, rather than a "rigourously objective" one. This is not to say that agenda-driven research is always entirely without merit. It's just that given the apparent source and given the apparent agenda, there's not an awful lot in the article to suggest any great surprises. Rather than dismissing the paper out of hand, it would be more accurate to say that comments here were skeptical of the hype for the paper based on the evidence provided. Now if Doug Henwood, instead of making dismissive comments about other people dismissing papers out of hand, would actually take the trouble to read the paper and find out whether or not it's crap -- and if he finds that the paper contains a persuasive analysis -- I would be more than happy to reconsider my own lack of interest in reading the paper. Having criticized unnamed others for dismissing the paper out of hand. It would seem to me that if Henwood doesn't follow through with a careful evaluation of the paper, he himself would be dismissing the paper. I leave it to Doug to judge whether or not his dismissal would be out of hand. -- Sandwichman
