Answering Ben Stein's Question

Posted byRandall 310 Comments on Answering Ben Stein's Question

Ben Stein published a pretty awful editorial defending Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF head arrested for sexual assault. Now, I don’t disagree with him about the presumption of innocence, but the rest of the article effectively argues that smart, rich people simply don’t commit crimes. In particular, he says this:

In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes?

On a whim, I just did a little research, and couldn’t believe what I found.  Guess who holds an economics degree?

Paul Bernardo.

For those not familiar with the case, Bernardo is one of the nastiest serial killers in history. He and his wife drugged, raped, and tortured to death a number of schoolgirls in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The story is the stuff of nightmares.

I’ll leave the debate over the rest of Mr. Stein’s article to others. But as for his suggestion that studying economics precludes becoming a violent sex criminal, it seems history provides one hell of a counterexample.

Edit: James Urbaniak has a list of some other economists involved in sex crimes.

310 replies on “Answering Ben Stein's Question”

  1. I like the tautology inherent in the statement “People who commit crimes tend to be criminals”. No kidding, Ben, that’s what the word “criminal” means. Unless he means prior criminals… which implies that crimes don’t happen at all because of bootstrapping issues.

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  2. People mention the presumption of innocence too often concerning public outrage and media attention. The presumption of innocence is a treasured legal principle, but there is no requirement that anyone but the courts have that presumption. So I find the argument pretty irrelevant.

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  3. Jim: The logical errors continue later in that paragraph, as Stein misuses probability just like the OJ Simpson defense team did:

    Dershowitz claimed that less than 1 in 1,000 women abused by their husbands are subsequently killed by their husbands and thus the fact that Simpson had abused his wife was not relevant to the murder case and should be excluded from the trial.

    (From here.)

    This is a terrible application of Bayesian statistics; the relevant question is “given that a woman abused by her husband was murdered, how often was her husband the murderer?” The answer to THAT question, rather than 1 in 1000, turns out to be at least four times out of five.

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  5. Also, according to the book “The Psychopath Test”, about 5% of business mangers are psychopaths, compared to 1% of the population as a whole.

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  8. The kinds of people who are naturally attracted to the top positions in companies as CxOs etc tend to have psychopathic tendencies. You need to be able to ignore other people’s feelings and not be afraid to step on a few people in the scramble to the top. You need to have a single-minded focus and be highly goal driven with little concern for abstract concepts such as how you’re making _other_ people feel. These people can then excel in their chosen profession.

    To suggest that these kinds of people are incapable of a sex crime is laughable.

    Add to this the fact that Strauss-Kahn is in the upper echelons of the giga-rich, and this tends to bring with itself a tendency to see yourself as better than everyone else, able to bend or break the rules at your whim (rules are what you use to control other people) and to see yourself as special, I have no trouble whatsoever believing this story is true.

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  9. An economics degree might keep one from being a sex criminal because economists are too busy butchering the economy, and by extension a few thousand people per year – those who die due to economic catastrophes around the world. So one might argue that they are more dangerous than regular killers who kill one person at a time…

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  10. While I’ll admit this is ripe material for conspiracy theorists, Stein’s point is laughable even before he starts to throw qualifier after qualifier upon this very, very unique class of criminal

    “Can anyone tell me of any heads of nonprofit international economic entities who have ever been charged and convicted of violent sexual crimes?”

    How many heads of nonprofit international economic entities are there in the world? What is the going rate for violent sexual crimes within an educated populace to begin with? It turns it into something akin to the anti-sabermetric stats that are periodically pepper atop baseball broadcasts. He has three home runs in domes during the month of May.

    People are people. How many current heads of nonprofit international economic entities was I actively aware of before this event? Pretty much none.

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  11. Ben Stein is an imbecile who has worked very hard throughout his life in the pursuit of externalizing justifications for the idiocies he believes.

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  12. I largely agree with you regarding Stein’s editorial. However, I think that his 5th point, about the Strauss-Khan being denied bail and put on Riker’s Island, is–extremely uncharacteristically for Ben Stein–quite reasonable.

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  13. “The kinds of people who are naturally attracted to the top positions in companies as CxOs etc tend to have psychopathic tendencies. ”

    There was an interview with a guy who has just written a book about psychopaths on The Daily Show just a couple days ago where he mentioned that it is around 4% of CEO-types that exhibit psychopathic behaviour. Good interview if you have time:

    http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-may-16-2011/jon-ronson?xrs=rss_tdsvids

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  14. To Andrew:

    It is my personal beleif that any rich enough guy should be denied bail even on softer evidence that any average citizen. If you can cough up a millon bucks in less that 24 hours, you can pretty much flee the country pretty easily, not to mention the possibilities of jeopardizing the investigation (i.e. bribes). Also remeber we are talking about a french citizen, Mr. Polanski actually pled guilty of unlawfull intercourse with a minor and is wanted for questioning about rape since about 1980 and as per french policy towards extradition has still avoided justice.

    In the case of mister Strauss-Khan the evidence seems pretty hard and I understand the judge needs time to decide on the risk of his investigation getting jeopardized by the accused.

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  18. Aside from Ben Stein’s views on politics and economics, he has appeared in a number of TV ads for one of those “free credit score” companies that practice extremely deceptive marketing: the score is not what lenders actually use, AND to get it you have to sign up for a credit monitoring service that is not free.

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  19. Ben Stein is an asshat. Exhibit A: “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”

    Move along.

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  20. It’s also true to say that smart, rich people, are statistically less likely to be suspected, investigated, brought to trial, or convicted. Solving crimes is really quite hard if the criminal isn’t either (a) an idiot or (b) someone already known to police, and police generally are about as good at it is as you’d expect any random person you know to be, given a bit of training and experience.

    If it’s of any help, statistically speaking, white educated males from higher socio-economic brackets are MORE likely per capita to be charged with sex offences, particularly pedophilia, than the poor and uneducated. Being rich and having a degree is a better reason to look at him askance in this context than if he’d had a record of housebreaking.

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  21. Let’s not forget that this is the guy who made a movie equating the theory of evolution with Nazi death camps.

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  22. I blame John Hughes for all of this. If Stein hadn’t been in Ferris Bueller, no one would know who the hell he is! 🙂

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  24. Ben Stein: “Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes?”

    To add another to the mix, there’s Clayton Weatherston who was recently jailed (in New Zealand) for 18 years. At the time he was working as a university economics tutor but he’d previously worked as an economist at New Zealand’s Treasury (staying on after a summer internship). It turned out he was a bit of a psycopath when he stabbed his girlfriend 216 times, and he came across as a total nutcase with how he acted during his trial.

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  25. Pingback: Randal Munroe, creator of XKCD, responds to Ben Stein’s comments about Dominique Strauss-Kahn at SatelliteHeadlines.com

  29. “Presumption of Lying, Anyone?” Stein’s imbicilic response has as its first premise that the victim is lying. Applying Occam’s Razor, which is more likely – that a hotel maid is making up her story and the head of the IMF just HAPPENED to abandon his property in the hotel and board the first available jet, or that the accusations have merit? Not that Strauss-Kahn will be CONVICTED, but that the accusation has sufficient merit to warrant the steps already taken – jailing the accused and conducting an investigation.

    Mr. Stein would have us withhold judgment until judgment is rendered. But that’s assuming we’re too stupid to believe the public information already available as well as any logical assessment of the known facts. Which in the end is probably what Stein in his profound arrogance believes to be the case.

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  32. Well, to be honest, I don’t think your example proved anything. That’s one data point. The only way either of you could prove your point is to figure out the percentage of criminals who have some sort of degree in economics, and to figure out the percentage of the population that has a degree in economics. And determine if they are significantly different. I’d be willing to bet money that there is quite a significant difference.
    A good example of this is race vs. criminals. I am not racist, but I have no qualms about saying that black people are more likely to be criminals than white people (if I remember correctly, they are about eight times more likely). So if all we are given about a person is that they are black, we should be more on guard than if they are a white person. That’s not racist, it’s a fact. It’s like if you see a bear in the street, you should be more scared than if you see a squirrel. Bears are more likely to attack people and cause large amounts of damage than squirrels.

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  33. When I was 16 I had an affair with an economics professor from a high-ranking university. I stopped seeing him because I found out he was also seeing a 13-year-old, and it was just too creepy and fucked-up for me to deal with. I never told anyone, so, while he hasn’t been convicted, I’d still like to answer Ben Stein’s question with an, “Ahahahaha…ha…fuck you.”

    Also, “People who commit crimes tend to be criminals”? Clearly he’s a member of the tautology club.

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  34. Mr. Stein would have us withhold judgment until judgment is rendered.

    No, Mr. Stein would have us pass judgment… on the accuser. It’s only the accused who deserves the benefit of the doubt, where “benefit of the doubt” is defined as “not confined in one of those nasty prisons like the little people because it is clearly beneath him.”

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  35. A good example of this is race vs. criminals. I am not racist, but I have no qualms about saying that black people are more likely to be criminals than white people (if I remember correctly, they are about eight times more likely). So if all we are given about a person is that they are black, we should be more on guard than if they are a white person. That’s not racist, it’s a fact.

    Nice try.

    Black people are more likely to be CONVICTED OF CRIMES than white people.

    White people are more likely to use drugs, carry drugs, and sell drugs than black people. A young black male picked up with a small amount of marijuana is, IIRC, 35 times more likely to be convicted of a drug offense than a similarly-aged young white male with the same amount of marijuana.

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  36. xkcd’s post makes several non sequiturs.

    (1) Stein asked “Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes.” In response, xkcd gives the example of Paul Bernardo, who is not an economist and therefore is not a response to Stein’s question.

    (2) xkcd writes: “[Stein’s] suggestion that studying economics precludes becoming a violent sex criminal, it seems history provides one hell of a counterexample.”

    But Stein never made a suggestion that studying economics precluded becoming a violent sex criminal. (In fact, Stein concedes it is “maybe even likely” that Strauss-Kahn is guilty). I don’t even know where xkcd gets this claim, but it’s not what Stein wrote.

    (3) xkcd links to a list of other economists convicted of sex crimes, but again, this isn’t responsive to Stein’s question, which had to do with violent sex crimes, and those crimes were either non-violent or there was insufficient information in the linked list to determine if they were violent.

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  37. Looking at Stein’s response, it seems to me that the Just-world Phenomenon is playing out along textbook lines.
    Stein sees Strauss-Kahn is rich and powerful –> Stein therefore assumes (consciously or not) that Strauss-Kahn must deserve to be rich and powerful –> Stein therefore assumes that Strauss-Kahn couldn’t possibly be a criminal.
    Seems nuts, but most folks (>70%, I think I read) do it.
    See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_phenomenon

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  38. I don’t think him being an economist is meaningful in this debate. He is in a position of power, and people in power absolutely have a history of this type of behavior. If we want to talk about circumspect connections, Jon Ronson was just on The Daily Show the other night discussing his new book and talked about the fact that psychopaths are more prevalent in positions of power then other types of work.

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  40. Ben Stein clearly hasn’t watched American Psycho enough.

    Strass-KHAAAAAAAAAN might not be Patrick Bateman, but we’re starting to send a message to wealth criminals: Wealth can not buy you immunity.

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  41. Is Ben Stein an enemy propaganda agent?

    Looking at his record, one has to wonder.

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  42. To Daniel: THANK YOU!!!
    Why is it that people think that anyone other than the judge and jury must presume innocence. The press or anyone else has no requirement to presume anything about the case.

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  43. No, economists just destroy the world economy, costing trillions, ending millions of jobs, and killing millions. Thats what the economists do for you.

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  45. @ Andrew, regarding denial of bail: You honestly don’t believe he’s a flight risk? For Christ’s sake, when apprehended he was on an airplane trying to flee the country. He left in a hurry too, leaving most of his stuff behind.

    Denying bail was the only reasonable thing to do.

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  46. It seems like half the readers here are interpreting Stein’s argument as something like ”Strauss-Kahn could not have done this crime, so he should get bail”.

    That’s not his argument.

    Stein’s argument is that Strauss-Kahn might be telling the truth. So might the maid. Until a trial occurs, it is unfair to punish Strauss-Kahn by denying him bail.

    If Strauss-Kahn is convicted, then he can be punished. The insistence of 99% of bloggers, and the mayor of New York, that Strauss-Kahn should punished before he is convicted is what Stein objects to.

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  47. My prediction is that if Strauss-Kahn is granted bail, he will not remain in the US. Even if he’s wearing an ankle bracelet, even if he’s ordered to be confined to one address, he will board a private jet, flee to France without his passport and he’ll be home free.

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  48. Pingback: List of economists involved in violent sex crimes, for Ben Stein | Battery and Charger Forum
  49. Pingback: List of economists involved in violent sex crimes, for Ben Stein | Sinting Link

  50. I lost all respect for ben stein when he made that bogus anti evolution movie. Fuck ben stein

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