The Most Remarkable Sentence I Have Read Today Comes from Scott Winship of the Manhattan Institute: Live from La Farine
It comes from Scott Winship of the Manhattan Institute:
...even those who regularly disagree with me and who don’t like me, I think–know that I value integrity above nearly all else...
It is remarkable because of the context, which includes things like:
It deals with the descriptive relationship across countries between inequality and the degree to which individual adult income is related to parental income during childhood, the so-called Great Gatsby Curve about which I, among others, have written. Scott Winship of the Manhattan Institute has been a persistent critic of this relationship. I bring this up, in part, because I also want to go on the record and note that when he says my:
most recent paper highlights serious problems [with the Great Gatsby Curve and my] previous research...
it should be clear that this is Mr. Winship’s interpretation of my research, and not my understanding of my own research.
Grateful as I am to have a reader, I don’t feel my more recent work involving a three country comparison contradicts previous papers I have written. I certainly don’t have any reason to question Mr. Winship’s sincerity, he must believe what he says. But he’s never checked with me before he has written or spoken on the subject, we’ve never had a conversation about the issue, not even on one occasion when we sat across the very same dinner table together...
And:
: Has Rising Inequality Really Been a Problem Over the Past Generation?: "This completes my tour of [Winship's] best arguments...
...against the belief that rising inequality has been a serious problem over the past generation, and is a serious problem now. I conclude that the arguments are statistically self-serving--have to work hard to cherry-pick the data--and possess a ridiculous double standard in their allocation of the burden of proof. Good evidence linking equality and mobility, backed by unimpeachable theory, is thrown out with little more than Latin quotes. And we are asked to accept contrived links between household wealth effects and consumption of the rich as solid...
I am prone to agree with Corak and Rao: In my reading of Winship's work I have found him to consistently engage in what we now call Sealioning--a long series of quibbles, rarely on central points, often simply wrong.
Integrity is working hard to make sure that your intellectual adversaries' arguments are accurately summarized in your descriptions of them, and in a willingness to mark your beliefs to market and let the evidence speak.
