Archive for 2023
September 24, 2023
OPEN THREAD: Be here now.
FOLLOW THE SCIENCE, AND TAKE NOTES WHERE IT GOES: The Band of Debunkers Busting Bad Scientists.
An award-winning Harvard Business School professor and researcher spent years exploring the reasons people lie and cheat. A trio of behavioral scientists examining a handful of her academic papers concluded her own findings were drawn from falsified data.
It was a routine takedown for the three scientists—Joe Simmons, Leif Nelson and Uri Simonsohn—who have gained academic renown for debunking published studies built on faulty or fraudulent data. They use tips, number crunching and gut instincts to uncover deception. Over the past decade, they have come to their own finding: Numbers don’t lie but people do.
“Once you see the pattern across many different papers, it becomes like a one in quadrillion chance that there’s some benign explanation,” said Simmons, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the trio who report their work on a blog called Data Colada.
Simmons and his two colleagues are among a growing number of scientists in various fields around the world who moonlight as data detectives, sifting through studies published in scholarly journals for evidence of fraud.
At least 5,500 faulty papers were retracted in 2022, compared with 119 in 2002, according to Retraction Watch, a website that keeps a tally. The jump largely reflects the investigative work of the Data Colada scientists and many other academic volunteers, said Dr. Ivan Oransky, the site’s co-founder. Their discoveries have led to embarrassing retractions, upended careers and retaliatory lawsuits.
Science needs a housecleaning. Every successful system accumulates parasites, and it’s been successful long enough to have accumulated a lot.
RULES PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: TX state rep Travis Clardy (R) voted against school choice, sends his kids to private school.
ARNOLD KLING: The Strategy of Dating Short Men: Why don’t more women use it?
Back when I was single, I did feel that my 6’3″ height was an advantage, but I think women make a bigger deal of height — or at least talk about it more — than they did back then, probably because that was pre-social media and pre-dating apps.
ERIC COWPERTHWAITE REPORTS on Day One of this year’s Gun Rights Policy Conference. “This conference is great. Much better than NRA.”
NOWADAYS, I JUST ASSUME THESE STORIES ARE LIES UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE: Hasan Minhaj and the rise of the fabricated-trauma porn industry. “Are Americans going out of their way to feel miserable? And if so, have they started a market for ways to fulfill that yearning? Kat Rosenfield tackles that question today at the Free Press, and it’s a doozy. She centers the question on an award-winning comic named Hasan Minhaj, who recently got exposed as a serial fabricator of claims of victimization over his Muslim heritage.”
EVERY UNIVERSITY HAS WHOLE DEPARTMENTS AIMED AT FEEDING FEMALE ANGER AGAINST MEN: “Diverting Hate has nearly $700,000 in funding from the Department of Homeland Security, which views online hate as a driver of targeted violence and domestic terrorism. The group targets younger men—ages 18 to 34.”
Again, Gender Studies departments — and much of the rest of the campus — at universities everywhere foster female anger, and do it proudly. But this is a problem of “hate” — probably because of growing evidence that young men are trending Republican.
Remember: Hate that boosts Democrats and leftist causes is “passion for justice.” When it’s young men who feel that they’re getting a raw deal, that’s “hate” — if it might lead them to vote for the GOP.
SPRING FASCISM PREVIEW: Canadian Parliament gives standing ovation to Ukrainian Nazi.
Speaker of the House Anthony Rota recognized Yaroslav Hunka, 98, for his service in the ‘First Division’ of the Ukrainian National Army before immigrating to Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomed him as an honoured guest as part of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Canada.
“We have with us in the Chamber today a Ukrainian-Canadian veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian Independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today,” said Rota.
All House parties, Senate groups and foreign dignitaries gave Hunka a standing ovation for his efforts against the Russians then and now.
“He’s a Ukrainian hero — a Canadian hero — and we thank him for all his service,” concluded Rota.
However, Canada’s leading military affairs reporter, David Pugliese, wrote a 2020 article that says no such ‘First Division’ existed during WWII.
Members of the division served Adolf Hitler’s 14th Waffen SS Division Galicia — a designated criminal organization, according to the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, reported military journal esprit de corps.
As many as 2,000 Waffen SS soldiers of Ukrainian heritage, including Hunka, supposedly changed their identities and masqueraded as “refugees” before capture to seek refuge in Canada in the 1950s.
As many as 30,000 Ukrainian refugees fled Europe for Canada at the time.
Before members of the unit surrendered to Allied forces, they hid their SS connection in the final days of the war by renaming themselves the First Division Ukrainian National Army.
More details at Forward: Zelenskyy joins Canadian Parliament’s ovation to 98-year-old veteran who fought with Nazis.
The Canadian Parliament gave a standing ovation on Friday to a 98-year-old immigrant from Ukraine who fought in a Third Reich military formation accused of war crimes.
The elderly veteran, Yaroslav Hunka was honored during a session in which President Volodomyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine addressed the lawmakers to thank them for their support since Russia invaded his country, saying Canada has always been on “the bright side of history.” The Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota — who had compared Zelenskyy to Winston Churchill — recognized a “veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98.”
The assembly then rose to applaud a man in a khaki uniform standing on the balcony, who saluted, according to this screenshot from Canadian television.
The man was identified as Hunka by the Associated Press, which published a photograph showing Zelenskyy smiling and raising a fist during the ovation.
The AP caption described Hunka as having “fought with the First Ukrainian Division in World War II before later immigrating to Canada.” The First Ukrainian Division is another name for the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, the military wing of the Nazi Party; the unit was also called SS Galichina.
This is the same unit that is honored by controversial monuments in Canada, Australia, and, as the Forward recently exposed, the suburbs of Philadelphia and Detroit. Jewish groups have called for their removal.
After a Forward article in August that was followed by coverage in the Philadelphia Inquirer, local television stations and other news outlets, the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia temporarily covered the monument located in a cemetery in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, pending discussions with local Jewish leaders. The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and regional branches of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League had expressed outrage about the monument.
Formed in 1943, SS Galichina was composed of recruits from the Galicia region in western Ukraine. The unit was armed and trained by the Nazis and commanded by German officers. In 1944, the division was visited by SS head Heinrich Himmler, who spoke of the soldiers’ willingness to slaughter Poles.”
Three months earlier, SS Galichina subunits perpetrated what is known as the Huta Pieniacka massacre, burning 500 to 1,000 Polish villagers alive.
Not surprisingly, “Several Jewish advocacy organizations are condemning members of Parliament for giving a standing ovation to a man who fought for a Nazi unit during the Second World War,” CTV News reports.
(Classical — and NSFW — reference in headline.)
FREDDIE DE BOER: I’m looking for more ghostwriting work.
Personally, I’ve never used a ghostwriter, as I’m too vain about my writing to pass off anyone else’s. And my style is inimitable anyway. But there’s no shame in it, anymore than in hiring someone to mow your lawn. Not everyone is good at everything.
I would say that I would be a good ghostwriter, but my one effort along those lines — a vocabulary paragraph written for a classmate in the eighth grade (hey, she was cute, and she begged me) — led the teacher to immediately say “Glenn Reynolds wrote this.” I don’t think a recognizable style is a good thing in a ghostwriter.
DON’T GET COCKY: Trump Leads Biden by Nine Points in New Washington Post/ABC News Poll.
But it’s not as if the last couple of years have made a good case for a second Biden term, especially compared with the state of the nation during Trump’s four years.
UPDATE (From Ed):
WaPo/@ABC poll has Trump leading Biden, 51%-42%. Uh-huh.
Useful to remember that poll in late October 2020 had Biden winning WI by 17 points; he carried the state by less than a point#pollfailTroubles for Biden not just his age in reelection campaign: https://t.co/WClxnNMXjj
— W. Joseph Campbell (@wjosephcampbell) September 24, 2023
MY SLIGHTLY CONTRARIAN VIEW: The lovely and talented Ed Driscoll posted a Red State take about a CNN talking head getting killed by Rep. Matt Gaetz.
To be sure, there is a not-unwarranted schadenfreude when CNN and the other DNC stenographers get busted so easily for being so wrong on something so simple to check. But allow me to propose a different view:
No doubt, the talking head (or her producer, more likely) got it wrong (Gaetz voted for the bill twice).
But to her credit, Ms. Phillip utters the three most important words a journalist can ever say: “I stand corrected.” (Note also that Gaetz was very gentlemanly about it.)
One of the dirtiest little secrets in media and media law (and I ought to know) is the overwhelming hubris they display when fact-checked, digging in their heels and insisting they are right. It took The New York Times a week to correct the slander that George W. Bush “served a plastic turkey” as a photo-op to US troops in the Middle East. And a wide swath of Democrats still believe it.
So, gentle reader, I propose that while Ms. Phillip (and/or her producer) are hopeless amateurs, I see some ray of sunshine in her admitting she was wrong and upon that basis, having no reason to continue the interview, given that its premise was faulty.
**Updated with correct name spelling. Thnx, IP readers!**
CHANGE: Conservative Speaker Reports On ‘My Surprisingly Pleasant Experience At Yale Law School.’
It’s looking as if woke rage is old hat.
SO FAR, NOBODY HAS DIED FROM SPACE GERMS: In A First, NASA Returns Asteroid Samples to Earth.
TRUMP THE MODERATE: “I like seeing Trump opponents engage on the substantive merits of issues (as opposed to demonizing Trump, the man). I can see why there is hesitancy to engage him on the merits, and not just because it undercuts the demonization strategy — ‘normalizing’ him. It may reveal that his positions on the merits are better than any alternatives his opponents are capable of articulating.”
GAVIN NEWSOM: WE’LL HAVE HIGH SPEED RAIL SOMEDAY, MAYBE. Ron DeSantis: We have it now from Miami to Orlando. “Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said this is only the second high-speed rail in America.” And next, on to Tampa!
Related: I was on the 1st Brightline train to Orlando — here’s what it was like. “Each seat has multiple power outlets, and the Wi-Fi truly was high-speed based on my experience and the test I ran. I was even able to successfully join (and participate in) our morning editorial team call on Zoom. . . . it was amazing to take a passenger train from South Florida to Orlando. It helps that Brightline isn’t just any train. I’d put its amenities and comfort up against some of the top European rail products, and this new service will make it easier to explore more of the state without driving or flying.”
NOW OUT: Thomas Sowell’s Social Justice Fallacies. #CommissionEarned
NATE SILVER ANSWERS THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is Dallas On The Atlantic Coast?
JON GABRIEL: We’re stuck with a Trump vs. Biden rematch in 2024? Not even close. 2024 election lineup is far from set, even if pundits say it is.
LIGHTNING DEAL: Gravity Electric Salt and Pepper Grinder Set. #CommissionEarned (Bumped)
A BRIDGE TOO FAR: Sorcerer: William Friedkin’s Long Lost Existential Thriller.
My latest, over at EdDriscoll.com.