The Dartmouth dust-up continues. I’m not going to referee because I haven’t had time to review all the papers and claims. If you’re looking for the back-and-forth, it went like this:
- Reed Abelson and Gardiner Harris critiqued Dartmouth Atlas data and interpretation in a front-page NY Times story on 2 June 2010.
- Dartmouth researchers Elliot Fisher and Jonathan Skinner responded in two pieces on 3 June and 7 June 2010.
- Yesterday, Abelson and Harris offered a rebuttal in the Times.
Later: I meant to add, but didn’t have time, that sometimes analyses that are not 100% correct can still reveal the truth. An advantage of a simplified analysis is that it is easier to explain and understand. If conclusions from a more complex one are qualitatively similar, one might be forgiven–though not necessarily by the NY Times–for presenting the simpler version.
