Patri Friedman on Lott's Cats

I liked Freedomnomics, so feel free to discount what I say about P. Friedman’s criticisms of Lott, but they seem pretty weak to me.

Friedman: “Exhibit A: While I haven’t read Lott’s latest book Freedomnomics, Bryan Caplan’s review mentioned …” So Friedman is trashing the book based on a single item, and that based only on a snippet in a review without reading the actual book passage in question? And Friedman dismisses Lott as insufficiently careful in his scholarship?

Friedman: “Allerca … have never actually shipped any cats, and as far as anyone can tell at this point, their product is vaporware. (See Wikipedia, or Google for [Allerca vaporware]). Citing the economic theories of a vaporware producer w.r.t. their product does not exactly suggest careful scholarship.”

Wikipedia does not say that the product is vaporware. Sources who do say it are speculating. True, the announced ship date is later this year. So Lott can be criticized for his choice of verb tense: he should have used the future tense in describing how Allerca will (it has announced) neuter its cats to avoid facing competition from their offspring. But it seems too soon to declare the product vaporware just yet.

Exhibit B, if true, is serious. But hearsay does not rise to the standard of an Exhibit. I would take it more seriously coming from David Friedman.

I have the details of Patri Friedman’s exhibit B right here.

John wrote:

“As to the Merced instance, I believe that I sent his Dad these references here, here, and here. ”

I don’t know if you sent them, but I never received them. They certainly make the account you gave much closer to accurate than what I was able to find.

If, however, you compare Vin’s version–which, if I remember correctly, was also yours–to the news stories, you will see that he has added to the story as reported in the paper. In his and (I think) your version:

“Next, the sensible girl ran for where the family guns were stored. But they were locked up tight.”

That is not in any of the news stories. All they claim is that there was a gun somewhere, hidden. And it is “gun” not “guns.”

On your web page, you say:

“don’t know how anybody can say that Suprynowicz’s quote was inaccurate.”

Now you do.

The posts that John Lott links above were written in response to the posts on my blog here. (Lott does not mention this in his posts, because he does not want his readers to see my posts.) I made the same point David Friedman made above — none of the news stories supports his claim that “the sensible girl ran for where the family guns were stored. But they were locked up tight.”

So it’s not true that Lott just learned this now — he’s known about it for years.

Dear Brad:

Thanks for the picture!

Dear David:

Thanks for the comment. I would note that I was interviewed on a radio show with one of the Grandfathers of the girl who had been killed (he is a minister) (and I also talked to him at a later date on the telephone). In both conversations, he confirmed the statement that you point to “they were locked up tight.” The one discrepency was that it was my understanding that there was only one gun. I believe that I related this information to you.

In any case, Fox News did a story on the incident and the reporter interviewed myself and the father. I was interviewed first by the reporter and told him what I knew of the story. It was my understanding that the reporter then used that information as the basis of the interview that he had with the father. While the discussion could be a little clearer, the reporter did not apparently find anything that contradicted what I told him:

Lott cited a Merced, Calif. family whose guns were put away because of the state’s safe storage law. John Carpenter, who lost two children in an attack in 2000, said a gun would have stopped the man who broke into his home with a pitchfork.

For several years, gun control advocates have been quoting a study that reached a very different conclusion. University of Washington doctors claimed that in a dozen states which had safe storage laws, 39 children’s lives were saved.

Gun locks and the inability to access guns because of those locks was the whole point of the story (the title was “Study: Guns No Safer When Locked Up”).. If so, the story would not have been run using that example if the original claim that you disagree with was false.

Dear Mr. Lambert:

Not that I expect you to get anything correct and that you feel that you are the center of the world, but the posts directly note that “couple of people have asked me . . . .” My website regularly thanks people for sending me links and questions.

Yes, David’s recollection is basically correct. After being on a radio show interview with the grandfather (I was on simply because of my writings on gun and to make general comments on what the Grandfather was saying about the experience), I looked into the coverage more carefully and I later made comments about the newscoverage of the event. There was one original news story that got the facts of the story correct, but while later stories confirm it, I haven’t been able to find that particular piece again. The coverage in other places outside of the local coverage (with the exception of Fox News) did not get into the gun issues. Thanks, David.

The point in The Bias Against Guns that Patri was referring to was much narrower than that however. I had used a quote from Vin Suprynowicz to lead on of the subsections of the book and that quote focused on the issue of gun lock laws on safety. Except of Vin’s statement about “guns” instead of “gun,” I believe what he wrote was correct.

The Allerca website claims to have been shipping kittens since the end of 06, and has a number of YouTubed television spots showing the cats with their new owners to prove it.

The Allerca website has been claiming things for many years which did not turn out to be true (like that they were about to ship cats), so I am inclined to discount it. Those YouTube videos are the first actual cats I’ve seen, which is promising. When you say “new owners”, which spot are you referring to? In the one I watched (ABC7) the “owner” was identified as an Allerca spokesperson.

I would love to be wrong, but I have not heard/seen any evidence that they have sold any cats. And if you look at stories like http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060716-9999-1n16allerca.html, from one year ago, you see them admit that they aren’t shipping cats yet “Allerca, a self-described biotechnology company, began soliciting cat fanciers last month to fork out an eye-watering minimum of $3,950 to “pre-purchase” one of its kittens. And even though Allerca says it will take up to two years to deliver the pets, the company predicts demand will soon reach 10,000 kittens a year.” So as of a year ago, they were ready to accept money but were a couple years away from a product. The article also says various disturbing things:

“Allerca was evicted in February from its San Diego headquarters – which was also Brodie’s residence – in the downtown 777 Sixth Avenue Lofts complex for nonpayment of rent, according to court records. In addition, Allerca, Brodie and other Brodie-affiliated companies have accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in bad debt in recent years.”

“This is not the first time that Allerca founder Brodie has been involved in companies that propose to do things on a grand scale. At various times, the entrepreneur has promoted companies that proposed to create the world’s most powerful computer processor, as well as a national Wi-Fi network.

Some of Brodie’s companies seem to appear suddenly and fade quickly, and in some cases leave behind unhappy clients, unpaid employees, debts, lawsuits, court judgments and liens, according to court records, former Brodie associates and media accounts.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060716-9999-1n16allerca.html

This Allerca cat debate seems pretty pointless. Lott wasn’t citing this as part of an argument that genetic engineering was currently feasibly or anything like that, he was merely giving an example of a clever way a company had thought of to protect its intellectual property rights.

The more general question is comparing Freedomnomics to Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, a book with a number of now notorious problems. The economics profession, as a whole, however, encouraged public credulity over Freakonomics. A plausible explanation for this is that economists saw it in their self-interest for one of their number to become a celebrity to glamorize the whole business. Strange as it may seem, economists also act out of self-interest!

Lawrence,

It would have helped if he had chosen a title that was not such an obvious ripoff, especially in light of the lawsuits, the first of which (and most important as near as I can tell), has already been thrown out.

I would certainly agree that a book is an appropriate response, and at least parts of this one are such a response, if overhyped by many. I am not going to get further here into specific disagreements or complaints about specific points, some of which I commented on in my blog, but were not the specific points raised here.

This is why my friend dropped out of academia and became a lawyer. At least he gets paid to argue now.