"Yet , tehre seem to be people who remember taking the poll . Regardless , in his report it was a minor point . From a realistic standpoint , it took nothing away from the report when he removed it . Lott was investigated for this , just like Bellisiles . He was not found guilty of any academic misconduct ( unlike Bellesiles ) . When you consider the thousands fo data sets that he compiled to put that report together , the folks investigating him did n't think it was at all unbelieveable that he scoudn ; t remeber the details of where that number came from . Again , though , he ended up removing that number from his report ( the single place that it appeared ) and apologised for using it since he could not provide the raw data or a good cite for it . Here is how he responded to the article you link to : http : //johnrlott.tripod.com/malkinsoped.html It is rather interesting , and well documented . It addresses a couple of inacuracies in the article , such as the misconseption that he had attributed the disputed numner to Kleck . This is not nearly as uncommon as people seem to think . i am guilty of it myself . My company offers a high end software product and we provide a support forum for users to discuss problems , techniques , etc ... I often log on under a false persona in order to interact with customers without getting swamped . It is no big deal . If anybody asked if our software is good or sucks , I always say it is excellent and easy to use . If they ask about our support , i always tell them `` top notch `` . I have spoken with a couple of college professors I know about this very topic ( I live in a college town ) and they have both said this is far from unusual in the academic community , especially when publishing controversial work ."
"Ok . So Lott is flakey . Then Bellesiles is OK ? Riiiiight . I though a person 's reputation stood on thier own behavior and achivements , not based on someone else . Besides the debate weather Lott is dishonest or not is debatable and still going on . The debate weather Bellesiles is dishonest is over , he is most definately a liar , and this was decided by his boss and the Banqcroft prize commitee ."
"Lott was investigated for this , just like Bellisiles . He was not found guilty of any academic misconduct ( unlike Bellesiles ) ``"
"So Lott is flakey . Then Bellesiles is OK ? Riiiiight . The debate weather Bellesiles is dishonest is over , he is most definately a liar"