THE MERITS…OR MERETRICIOUSNESS…OF “STUDIES”

9/10/17

I wrote the following letter to the Wall Street Journal last month in response to an Andy Kessler piece on the value of studies.    While the letter was not published, my readers will enjoy it and my students will nod knowingly as they repeat, perhaps to themselves but hopefully to others, “Yeah, I remember Quinn telling us that.  And he was right…as usual.”

8/14/17

I will have to keep a copy of Andy Kessler’s Opinion piece (“Studies Are Usually Bunk, Study Shows,” 8/14/17) for use when my Fall classes start in a few weeks.  Mr. Kessler’s observations lend credence to my long held, and oft-stated, contention to my students that I can tell them the conclusion of any study without so much as reading the executive summary; all I have to know is who paid for the study.

My students need a dose of realism, which some insist on calling cynicism, to counter the nonsense that permeates all of the political world, much of academia, and, especially sadly, growing segments of the business world.   I would be doing my students a disservice were I not to administer this antidote to the silliness that would otherwise go unchallenged.