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June 12, 2012

I'll Take "Lies Out Her Ass" For $400, Alex



From Breitbart Big Government:
In 1990, Rutgers Professor Philip Shuchman charged Elizabeth Warren, along with Teresa A. Sullivan (above), the President of University of Virginia who resigned unexpectedly yesterday, and Jay Westbrook, her two co-authors of the 1989 book, As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in America, with “scientific misconduct.” Within a few months, Warren’s friends and former colleagues at the University of Texas quickly completed an error-filled investigation.

This secret report was accepted by University of Texas President William Cunningham. For two decades, Warren and her co-authors have claimed in academic circles that this report--never before made public--exonerated them.
Not so fast. Princess Hidem Data and her war party have been hiding behind a lack of interest for over two decades. No longer.
Did the authors arrange matters so that they could not provide access to the computer printouts by case, with corresponding bankruptcy court file numbers, thus preventing any independent check of the raw data in the files from which they took their information?
Of course they did. How else can you expect a poor, oppressed Indian maiden to achieve academic success?
After they received their funding, they chose to apply “human subject safeguards” by removing identifying information (case number, petitioner name, and a subsequent “identifier” they added) from the raw data files used in the study--over 1,500 bankruptcy records, each one containing over 200 fields of information (such as assets, liabilities, homeownership, marital status, etc.) That change in methodology made their research data unverifiable.
And thus the book, "As We Forgive Our Debtors" has now been republished under a new title, "As We Plead The Fifth."

4 comments:

Criminologista said...

While it is sad that her data is now unverifiable, I will say that it's a standard (and important) practice in research to remove any identifying information upon drawing your conclusions. This is part of maintaining the trust and confidence of your subjects, and ensuring that their privacy is not violated.

It does stink in situations like this where we want to verify the findings, but it is a necessary evil. Without it, many people would not want to participate because of concerns over their information being shared with others.

Fradgan said...

Princess Dances-with-Truth will lose her election.

sig94 said...

Criminologista - it's not quite that simple I believe. I have also used confidential data in some studies (an appraisal of Project DARE in the school system) and still provide other references that satisfied verification criteria. She didn't bother to get the proper methodology that would have rendered her data verifiable. That is what frosted the Professor and caused him to blow the whistle on her. Even in the lax liberal world of college academics, something she did stunk.

sig94 said...

Fragdan - I certainly hope so. The people of MA deserve better.