Another scholarly scandal brewing - 1619

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Seems that someone was making up data to fit the narrative - again. From The College Fix:

Cornell scholar cited in NYT’s ‘1619’ series charged with fabricating quotes, evidence
A Cornell University scholar cited in a recent New York Times piece tying slavery to capitalism was previously found to have inflated statistics, invented facts, and altered quotes, according to fellow academics in his field.

In an October 2016 paper, scholars Alan Olmstead of the University of California Davis and Paul Rhode of the University of Michigan harshly criticized the research of Cornell’s Edward Baptist presented in Baptist’s 2014 book “The Half Has Never Been Told.” In the book, Baptist argues that modern capitalism still contains many of the remnants of slavery and America’s current economy is still influenced by the exploitation of slaves.

Among charges leveled by Olmstead and Rhode were accusations Baptist concocted numbers out of thin air and that Baptist fabricated research to fit his narrative. At a public event at Dartmouth University in 2016, Olmstead decried Baptist’s work as “hocus pocus” while he waved an imaginary wand in the air.

And of course, because this fit the political narrative, it was used without anyone checking the facts:

Baptist has also been cited by influential opinion journalists such as Ta-Nehisi Coates, who recently used the scholar’s figures to argue in favor of reparations for African-Americans.

“By 1836 more than $600 million, almost half of the economic activity in the United States, derived directly or indirectly from the cotton produced by the million-odd slaves,” Coates testified at a congressional hearing in June.

Yet according to Olmstead, Rhode, and others, the $600 million number appears to be fabricated, using double and even triple-counting to arrive at an inflated figure.

Shades of the Michael Bellesiles scandal,  Professor Stephen Ambrose,  fake indian Ward ChurchillThomas Piketty and I could go on. All of these people were respected in their field and published a book that was later thoroughly discredited. They published them because they fit the political liberal narrative. They made up the data to support their claims and were busted for it. Time to add Edward Baptist's name to the dustbin of history.

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This page contains a single entry by DaveH published on September 10, 2019 10:25 AM.

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