John Lott's sock puppet.

[beagledave]

What the hey…haven’t seen a gun debate trainwreck in awhile

Do we have any posters named “Mary Rosh” on the dope? Because, apparently if we do, we’ve been honored by the presence of John Lott in the flesh.

In postings on Web sites in this country and abroad, Rosh has tirelessly defended Lott against his harshest critics. He is a meticulous researcher, she’s repeatedly told those who say otherwise. He’s not driven by the ideology of the left or the right. Rosh has even summoned memories of the classes she took from Lott a decade ago to illustrate Lott’s probity and academic gifts.

“I have to say that he was the best professor I ever had,” Rosh gushed in one Internet posting.

Indeed, Mary Rosh and John Lott agree about nearly everything.

Well they should, because Mary Rosh is John Lott – or at least that’s the pseudonym he’s used for three years to defend himself against his critics in online debates, Lott acknowledged this week.

“I had him for a PhD level empirical methods class when he taught at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania back in the early 1990s, well before he gained national attention, and I have to say that he was the best professor that I ever had. You wouldn’t know that he was a ‘right-wing’ ideologue from the class. . . . There were a group of us students who would try to take any class that he taught. Lott finally had to tell us that it was best for us to try and take classes from other professors more to be exposed to other ways of teaching graduate material.”

When a reporter attempted to read the posting to him over the telephone, Lott stopped him after the first few words. “I’m sure I did that. I shouldn’t have done it.”

I don’t really have a dog in the gun use debate, I do have a problem with morons who practice outright intellectual dishonesty (on this board or elsewhere) …kind of makes it hard to know when to believe them…

Wow…look at the posting above…isn’t it the most articulate, well reasoned post you’ve ever seen on the boards. I want to marry that beagledave, he’s dreamy!

–signed-
BassettGina

[Larry_Mudd]

Here’s a link to the “Mary Rosh” postings, for those interested.

What a twit.

[minty_green]

Hey, give the guy a break! He just wants to pretend he’s a helpless girl being taken by a 180 pound man.

[SPOOFE]

Hey, I’ve pretended to be a woman online before. 'Course, that was while playing Counterstrike and I wanted to see a bunch of “u sukc fag”-spouting 12-year-olds feel the “humiliation” of being beaten by a girl…

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

Let me get this straight…someone posting anonymously to a web forum under the name BeagleDave/BassetGina is criticizing another person for posting anonymously to a Usenet forum under the name “Mary Rosh.”

Admiring the nice ebony color of the kettle, are we?

[wring]

*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow *
**Let me get this straight…someone posting anonymously to a web forum under the name BeagleDave/BassetGina is criticizing another person for posting anonymously to a Usenet forum under the name “Mary Rosh.”

Admiring the nice ebony color of the kettle, are we? **

you’ve got to be kidding.

You don’t see anything disingenious/dishonest about the author of a study posting under an alias to message boards, in support of his study, saying stuff like “when I had him as a prof at the U, blah blah blah”, and liken that to some one posting on a general knowledge message board about a wide variety of topics??

Point being: why the subterfuge? if his studies and methodolgy can stand up under scrutiny, why the need for a sock?

[minty_green]

So then in your mind, Dewey, there’s no ethical difference between posting anonymously and falsely claiming to be somebody else for the sake of boosting one’s real-life reputation?

AFAIK, my real-life work has never been a subject of discussion on the SDMB. If it did, however, I assure you that I would not claim to be somebody else for the sake of saying what a fine, outstanding lawyer handled that case, how much I learned when I had the opportunity to discuss the case with him in person, etc.

[xenophon41]

Gosh Dewey, you’re right. The similarities are devastating. Why, I can’t count the times beagledave has jumped into a debate and defended his own purported scholarship under the anonymity of his SDMB username.

And I can’t count the times because I’ve no reason to think beagledave has actually done anything so pathetic. Of course, if 'dave has been doing that, he himself thinks he’s a jackass, so I’m wondering if evey you buy your “pot/kettle” garbage.
Twit.

[Avalonian]

*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow *
**Let me get this straight…someone posting anonymously to a web forum under the name BeagleDave/BassetGina is criticizing another person for posting anonymously to a Usenet forum under the name “Mary Rosh.”

Admiring the nice ebony color of the kettle, are we? **

John Lott fan, are we?

Seriously, you don’t see a problem with someone posting in praise/support of someone else, a supposed academic scholar, when they are in fact one and the same person and lying about that fact? I suppose there’s no problem with political action groups writing letters to newspapers using the names of dead people either? :rolleyes: Get real.

If John Lott wanted to defend his views, why didn’t he just defend them under his own name? Did he really need the smokescreen? beagledave is right; it’s intellectual dishonesty, and certainly not comparable to posting an honest anonymous message under a chosen username.

(on preview) - Or what wring said.

[beagledave]

*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow *
**Let me get this straight…someone posting anonymously to a web forum under the name BeagleDave/BassetGina is criticizing another person for posting anonymously to a Usenet forum under the name “Mary Rosh.”

Admiring the nice ebony color of the kettle, are we? **

Uh…what?

The anonymous nature of his posting is not the problem, the problem comes when he flat out lies about not only his identity…but invents stories to butress his claims.

Of course the BassetGina thing was a satirical jab at what Lott was doing…something I thought was quite obvious.

FWIW, I ain’t all that anonymous either.

See that handy, dandy www button at the bottom of my post? (Again…anonymous posting doesn’t have anything to do with my criticism of Lott)

Whoooooooooooooosh.

[elucidator]

Well, it can lead to more variety of experience and opinion. Like when Xenophon signs on as december, it permits a whole different aspect for his…

Oh. Wasn’t supposed to tell. Sorry, Xen/Dec. I forgot.

[xenophon41]

Dammit, UncleBe— er, 'lucy!!

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

*Originally posted by wring *
**you’ve got to be kidding.

You don’t see anything disingenious/dishonest about the author of a study posting under an alias to message boards, in support of his study, saying stuff like “when I had him as a prof at the U, blah blah blah”, and liken that to some one posting on a general knowledge message board about a wide variety of topics??

Point being: why the subterfuge? if his studies and methodolgy can stand up under scrutiny, why the need for a sock? **

I don’t find it disingenuous in the slightest. Lott was posting to Usenet, which by comparison makes our own BBQ Pit look like a bastion of calm, rational, intelligent, emotion-free discourse. If Lott wants to play in the Usenet waters, I don’t begrudge him the use of anonymity.

For Christ’s sake, it’s not like Lott doesn’t defend his work in the open. Here is a list of articles from Lott’s AEI profile page; and here is a another list of Lott publications; in both cases, many of the articles are devoted to answering criticisms of Lott’s earlier work. Lott doesn’t run from his critics.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

*Originally posted by Avalonian *
**I suppose there’s no problem with political action groups writing letters to newspapers using the names of dead people either? **

I don’t know – do you have a problem with anonymous newspaper articles advocating political positions?

[minty_green]

Do sock puppets ever run from their critics?

[beagledave]

*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow *
**I don’t find it disingenuous in the slightest. Lott was posting to Usenet, which by comparison makes our own BBQ Pit look like a bastion of calm, rational, intelligent, emotion-free discourse. If Lott wants to play in the Usenet waters, I don’t begrudge him the use of anonymity.
**

Holy crap. Are you actually reading our replies? This (again) is NOT about anonymity. it’s about lying.

Even HE admits wrongdoing…

In a posting to the Web site maintained by Tim Lambert, an Australian professor who has relentlessly attacked Lott’s guns studies, “Mary Rosh” claims to be a former student of Lott at the University of Pennsylvania, where the economist taught between 1991 and 1995.

“I had him for a PhD level empirical methods class when he taught at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania back in the early 1990s, well before he gained national attention, and I have to say that he was the best professor that I ever had. You wouldn’t know that he was a ‘right-wing’ ideologue from the class. . . . There were a group of us students who would try to take any class that he taught. Lott finally had to tell us that it was best for us to try and take classes from other professors more to be exposed to other ways of teaching graduate material.”

When a reporter attempted to read the posting to him over the telephone, Lott stopped him after the first few words. "I’m sure I did that. I shouldn’t have done it."

He was not just anonymous…he was lying, providing a FALSE additional perspective about how great Lott’s academic credentials were. He pretended to be a ficticious former student of his…in order to provide a “what a great guy Lott is” viewpoint.

[wring]

well then, how do you explain that Lott himself admits (as quoted in the OP) that he ‘shouldn’t have done it’,
that his ‘supporting’ statements included lofty praise from his ‘former student’ etc. and please, oh please, if you will, demonstrate how beagledave has done anything remotely simliar (ie defending something from his real life but not admitting that it was indeed his).

or, of course you could just retract the pot/kettle bs.

your call.

[Ruby]

Crap. I came in here thinking that John Lott’s sock was our new poster, Mona.

<sigh>

carry on.

[minty_green]

Help me out here, Dewey . . . am I missing the part of the Federalist Papers where “Publius” claimed to be a student of Hamilton and Madison, and they were like the best teachers ever, and how good their pamphlets were, and how everybody should listen to what they have to say because they’re such smart, noble-minded people?

Anonymity is not the issue. The issue us falsely claiming to be somebody else for the sake of boosting the poster’s real life reputation.

[Avalonian]

*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow *
**I don’t know – do you have a problem with anonymous newspaper articles advocating political positions? **

Wow… I hope all your analogies aren’t that bad. The ones you’ve posted to this thread have missed their mark by a wide margin.

Note, as others have, that John Lott himself admits that he was lying. There is a difference between simple anonymity and outright falsehood.