When academics go ballistic

miscellaneous ▪

My friend once wrote: "Criticism is an integral part of scholarly culture." One feature of any culture (including, it seems, the scholarly one), however, is a propensity to war. Two days, two stories of scholarly battles getting out of hand: one, brought upon by (or is it to? -- you decide!) James Heckman, Noble-Prize economist (for the other side's point of view, click here then scroll down to the Sociological Methodology journal) and another to Steven Levitt, author of the immensely popular Freakonomics

As they say in Indonesia, "Ekonom juga manusia...!" (Economists are human too...)