you can look at the original (3rd paragraph) and then at Johnson’s comments about my incorrect proportions that I’ve quoted here. I’m curious–how precise and quantitative a statement do you think I originally made?

“Roughly half” speaks for itself, no? The inaccuracy of your estimate was no big deal in its context; whether the fraction of KC’s Duke-centric DIW posts was roughly 25% or roughly half was immaterial to the point you were making about the tendentiousness of his commentary on the Duke faculty and administration. On the other hand, I don’t think that his rendition of your “roughly half” as “fifty percent” was worth making a fuss about, either, if (as you now say) the actual fraction was something like 25%.

BTW and FWIW, I haven’t read much of DIW, but I have read Until Proven Innocent, and my take on that is similar, though not completely analogous, to your overall assessment of Johnson’s DIW commentary: cogent when focussing on the main subject, “prosecutorial” and question-begging when discussing Brodhead’s actions and statements.

This particular point is nothing to fuss about, for sure. It’s part of a pattern that I find revealing and amusing, and maybe someday I’ll try to lay it out in more detail. Thanks for the feedback, in any case.

Johnson takes what I would call an overestimate and construes it as a false claim. It’s not obvious when it’s downright false to say that “roughly half of [DIW] is devoted to the way the case played out at Duke,” but it’s definitely false to say that “50 percent of DIW’s posts were about the Duke professoriate”–it can be checked numerically.

Depends on the magnitude of the error, doesn’t it? If, say, the actual proportion of DIW posts about the professoriate is 48%, then, yeah, Johnson’s transmutation of “roughly half” to “50 percent” was sly and unfair. If, on the other hand, the actual proportion of “professiorate” posts is something like 25%, you’ve got no legitimate beef. I don’t think you’ve told us what the actual % is.

This isn’t really a beef, from my perspective. When Johnson first corrected my guesstimate, he had a legitimate beef with me, for sure—it seems that the best round figure would be that about a quarter of posts are about Duke. I didn’t restrict it to the “professoriate” or frame it as a fraction of posts, though, and all I really wanted to say was that DIW can be divided into two big pieces—one focusing on campus culture at Duke and academic culture in general, the other about the investigation and legal proceedings. After reading his response to Perkinson I can see why it bothers him to have the proportion devoted to academic culture overstated, since that seems to go hand-in-hand with criticism that he’s overplaying the “Group of 88” stuff.

Anyway, you can look at the original (3rd paragraph) and then at Johnson’s comments about my incorrect proportions that I’ve quoted here. I’m curious—how precise and quantitative a statement do you think I originally made?

Joan Foster (“A Reader”) posted a couple of comments here that were really part of an earlier thread, so I moved them there. It’s an interesting exchange.

You’re right—there’s nothing much at stake, so I’m not talking about a crucial distinction. But I find it funny and revealing that Johnson takes what I would call an overestimate and construes it as a false claim. It’s not obvious when it’s downright false to say that “roughly half of [DIW] is devoted to the way the case played out at Duke,” but it’s definitely false to say that “50 percent of DIW’s posts were about the Duke professoriate”—it can be checked numerically.

This describes our host perfectly. We’ve provided him with hours of free entertainment. He’s not worth our time.

There was no href in that link, but it seemed like a safe bet that you meant the Chronicle of Higher Education article with that title. As far as I can tell the title is your whole point, anyways.

You did invest a good bit of time writing comments, it’s true—it didn’t seem like a waste to me, though. You’re briefer under this name, no doubt about that.

As a regular reader of DIW (I have also read UPI, It’s Not About The Truth, watched the Nifong bar hearing, and so on) I do “know quite well” what kind of cog I think you are but I also know you would not agree.

I suspect you are a nice guy. Perhaps a fine muscian but…

I get the impression you think of yourself as reasonable (per your own tag line), fair-minded, in short the arbiter elegantiarum. Certainly you object to being labeled a “group apologist.”

But I see you as an apologist for the gang of 88 and their/your ilk. You have struck me as arrogant, pretentious, full of pomp and circumstance. You refuse to acknowledge facts that are clearly established. You make excuses for inexcusable behavior. You defend the indefensible. You make straw man arguments, weak arguments, and unfounded allegations.

I had personally decided you were just wrong and doggedly so. That you were unable to be reasoned with and there was no point in trying. You were just a gnat to be ignored. Someone not to be “dignified” with my attention or my time.

But you are a persistent little gnat and since you choose to remain in the discussion and Professor Johnson continues to acknowledge you, I decided to at least take the time to read one more post and to comment.

I have read several of your posts, considered your opinions and I find you to be the one in a rut, unable to see out of it. You strick me as the slave to the metanarrative. I think you would be wise to reconsider your position. I hope, for the sake of your children, you will.

Just my opinion, you are free to ignore. Sad, that I feel certain you do ignore those who simply think you are wrong.