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?
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.
xkcd 
Why exactly was my comment delted?
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Many politicians are also economists and some of them vote for war, slashing funding to Planned Parenthood and other anti-social goverment policies and fundings which results in all kinds of crime
so that puts paid to Mr. Stien too.
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1) How many groups of people can we think of that have NOT had one of their own convicted of a violent sex crime?
2) My first point is practically nullified anyway when you realize that not only does it start somewhere (so even IF there we no economics convicted of a any kind of sex crime, that does NOT mean it won’t ever happen), but there is a difference between how often a person commits a crime, and how often they are actually convicted of it. Not all violent sex crimes result in a conviction.
3) This is an un-researched question, but how many womanizers/violent people ARE actually brought into the light right away?
4) Some people may not be strong enough to actually do it, but I’m pretty sure that if I’m ever intimidated into something, as soon as I’m away from that person, I WILL alert authorities immediately.
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I think Ben Stein has been reading A Million Open Doors by John Barnes, in which the economist’s colony has a much lower rape rate than the poet’s colony.
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I also could fail to spot the following:
“Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu”
Two places? Beverly Hills? Malibu? Sounds like his connection to the real work is only tenuous anyway.
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Actually I think Ben read a bit of Ayn Rand as a kid.
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I have a similiar point. I said (with the support of my third world colleagues) That It is irrational to defend an author just because of his/her ideas and even more to claim that every work holds the same value. I got a good reception in the humanities departments where I knew profesors and teachers, so I keep encouraging the investigation in cultural studies and french philosophy.
Going to the states I couldnt belive the low critique profile on what they read and write. They practically forced on me an obscure and unnecessary lenguage, a cult of personality and a cult of isolation in the deep of academisism. I think any undergraduated in my third world country knows more about the so called “post modern theories” (a group of heterogeneous studies united and decontextualized just for the sake of anoy) that any teacher up there. Its a shame how many of the scholars flee from their countries into a monastery made to alienate the intelectuals from their surroundings. Many Latinamerican teachers go to USA to study latin america! nonsense!
In short, there is a tendency of:
“My field is better, and no one that has studied what I studied can do any harm, cause we are better than you and we dont have any flaws!”
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Dominique’s guilt wouldn’t be good at all for his career. He’d have to be really stupid to do such a thing as he is accused of.
The point is not that economists are superhuman, and that crime is above them, the point is that if he got that high in life, he VERY PROBABLY knows what he’s doing.
And sex scandals are so easy and cheap to set up.
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Ben Stein is a man who believes that the theory of evolution equals Nazi ideologies and genocide. This fact alone pretty much makes his opinion on anything irrelevant.
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The alt text on comic 903 is incorrect. The Wikipedia page for Thoroughfare loops to Road and back.
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../ˉ
……..(‘(…′…′….ˉ~ /’)
……………………..’../
………………………./
……………………..(
…….
Google in the input: = tntn.us ==you can find many brand names, even more surprising is that he will sell you the unexpected o(∩_∩)o
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Another example on incorrectness in 903’s alt text is Heraldry -> Arms (coat of arms) ->Heraldic (Heraldry)
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I also explored the wikis today and I found that if you continue the clicking past philosophy using the same method for long enough you eventually end up at dementia. Appropriate.
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Started the wiki philosophy thing from Apple Inc wikipedia page and yes…ended up at philosophy.
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Totally unrelated to Pepe Le Peu,,, I tried the wikipedia trick, started with “Rome” and got to philosophy after a number of clicks. Then I tried a random article, got some australian indie band, and again, got to philosophy. The third random article, however, “sources of honeydew” brought to “mathematics” which loops back onto itself. Somehow mathematics refuses to arrive at philosophy. Perhaps Kurt Godel has something to do with that-
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“Dylan says:
I also explored the wikis today and I found that if you continue the clicking past philosophy using the same method for long enough you eventually end up at dementia. Appropriate”
But then, dementia loops back to philosophy
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In the same unrelated topic:
Just… WOW. Started on “Mouse Guard” (the comic I was reading about yesterday) and after going through awards, biology and math, indeed ended up in philosophy… Just… wow.
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Yeah also on that topic, I decided to start at Meme:
Meme > Richard Dawkins > FRS > Learned Society > Social Group > Interest > Asset > Financial Accountancy > Accountancy > Business > Not-for-profit corporation > Organization > American and British English spelling differences > American and British differences > American English > Dialect > Greek language > Indo-European languages > Genetic relationship (linguistics) > Language family > Language > Human > Taxonomy > Science > Knowledge > Fact > Information > Finite set > Mathematics > Quantity > Property (Philosophy) > Modern Philosophy > Philosophy
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oxytocin > Mammal > Class (biology) > Biological classification > Biologist > Scientist > System > Element (mathematics) > Mathematics > Quantity > Property (Philosophy) > Modern Philosophy > Philosophy
wow 🙂 I’m impressed.
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counterexample to the wiki trivia: soviet union -> constitution of the soviet union -> soviet union. If you specifically use text after the table of contents, if it exists, middle english still provides a counterexample, middle english -> katherine group -> early english text society -> middle english
science, however, leads to philosophy, and probably all fields of science lead to science, which eventually covers nearly anything physical that is interesting (and hence in an encyclopedia).
My first try was krytron, which did end up in philosophy via electronics -> science.
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Hmm… My test of the wiki-philosophy rule also led to Philosophy eventually turning up, and as with the other two examples here it was directly via the Modern Philosophy wikipage.
One addendum to the rules needs to be made though: if the first non-italic non-bracketed link is one you’ve already clicked on you must click on the second one – if that rule is followed along with the other ones you ALWAYS end up at Modern Philosophy and then to Philosophy. If you ignore that you seem to end up stuck in a loop within the first 5 or 10 links about 50% of the time.
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as an economist, I am worried about what I’ve been doing in my sleep. (boo! Not funny, me)
Also: except for the soviet union example above- if it’s not science leading to philosophy it’s Latin which shows up, understandably, quite a bit. I wonder if it’s the same in different language wikis…
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sorry,correction, you need to click on the next link that you haven’t previously clicked on, not just the second non-italic, non-bracketed link. Obviously.
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“People who commit crimes tend to be criminals”
…
What do you call a criminal that hasn’t committed a crime?
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I love you. The way that you can so easily laugh in the face of bad politics is quite enviable, but you are one of the few people who can back it up.
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Not to mention that Paul Bernardo was released after his initial arrest because he seemed too intelligent and well-mannered to be the Scarborough Rapist. After that initial release he went on to murder quite a few young girls.
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It bothers me a bit that no one is trying to bring some sense to this…
I mean, a presidential candidate gets out of the race by a single allegation – as Ben Stein said, it might be true but one must be a fool to take it too seriously… and just try to imagine the kind of whores a man that pays $3,000 per day for accommodation can get, he must be a complete fool to mess with the hotel maid, and his career so far just hints that he is not one.
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Tried the wiki thing in spanish, which 1) got me to “latin” but not to philosophy but to a loop back to itself, and 2) brought me to a date, which doesn’t seem to happen in english. Whereas in english one says “such and such happened in 1919”, the construction “In 1919, such and such happened” is quite common in formal (encyclopedia) spanish.
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@Vroomfundel: the fact that he can get sex elsewhere has no bearing on whether or not he is inclined towards rape; I don’t think rape has all that much to do with sex, really
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@George: this is not about a ‘sex scandal’ the man is accused of *rape*. Infidelity and *rape* are two very different things. Get it straight: we’re talking about *rape*.
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Got another cycle: Henry Kissinger > Germany > Western Europe > Low context culture > High context culture > Low context culture
The rule also works pretty well with the German Wikipedia. The French Wikipedia however often leads into a very, very long cycle starting with “langage” (which means, you probably guessed it, “language”).
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“The subprime problem is a problem, but it’s a tiny problem in the context of this economy… Subprime is a tiny, tiny blip.”
– Ben Stein August 18, 2007, on the Fox program ‘Cavuto on Business’
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You email this info to him, right? I think I’m about to. 🙂
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So, in the long run, we find a man about to do time, who is well aware that time is money, but unaware that money won’t buy me love.
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That an intelligent design groupie have opinions that are divorced from reality isnt that surprising.
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It’s much harder to get the Wikirule to work am die Deutschen Enzyklopaedia
got stuck in a “Wissen” loop, had to click down to three words eventually
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Randall —
Paul Bernardo *studied* economics. DSK is an extremely accomplished economist. Stein’s argument isn’t that economists don’t commit crimes, it’s that individuals in DSK’s position have a great deal more to lose by these acts than less accomplished individuals.
It’s also true that others would have a GREAT DEAL to gain by removing this man from his position; it would NOT be hard to find someone willing to make these accusations. Occam’s Razor applies here.
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@ Mark: They might have a great deal to lose but that doesn’t seem to stop them. CF CEO of HP, CEO of David Jones…
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The average rich rapist has never been held to account for his sexual attacks on women. DSK has probably done the same thing before many times and not gotten in trouble.
Rape is not a taste only “low class” men have. It’s just that the low class man is more likely to be reported, arrested, jailed, convicted. Smart rapists learn ways to rape without getting caught.
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I just came across this article today and am again disappointed by this Stein character. First he makes a ridiculous movie against evolution and basically concludes that all atheists are nazis. Now he comes out with this article.
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@Michael
“It’s also true that others would have a GREAT DEAL to gain by removing this man from his position; it would NOT be hard to find someone willing to make these accusations. Occam’s Razor applies here.”
Ok, let’s do Occam’s Razor. Two things that could have happened:
1) All of DSK’s enemies (currently unidentified) got together and came up with a scheme to wait until he made a trip to America, find out what hotel he was staying in, pick out one maid who worked at said hotel, then paid her to make sure she was the only one who went to his room, accuse him of rape, and pick him out of a lineup. Now all they have to do is wait for the trail process, and wait for whatever process it would take for him to lose his position, and as long as it all goes without a hitch, someone might gain something.
or
2) DSK raped a hotel maid.
Which seems like the simpler explanation?
Not saying he’s guilty or innocent, just seemed odd to me that you would bring up a possible complicated set-up (there has to be easier ways to try to get a guy removed from his position) and say that Occam’s Razor applies.
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Even -if- nobody knew of any economists who had been convicted for a sex crime, this point is pretty ridiculous. It goes along the lines of “we do not know of one person with profession X who has ever done Y previously, ergo, person A with profession X cannot have done Y”.
…If ever Stein accuses me after I have been peeing on someone’s head , have kicked them in the balls and have been poisoning his (or her) coffee with pepper spray (which is practically impossible, by the way: pepper spray is not soluble in water), I’m going to ask them if he knows any physicists who have been convicted for said crime. By his logic, I will walk free.
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not to be a dick, but who gives a shit if economists commit crimes or not? the original argument is invalid, so why waste time humoring it? by doing so, we’re adding credibility to that kind of fallacy.
what if next week some biologists commits a crime and some guy says “yeah, but biologists never commit crimes!” and we couldn’t find any examples of biologist serial killers? will the biologist get off?
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This topic has been pretty well covered but I’d like to make a few points real quick.First: sexual deviance is universal and is found in all classes, genders, stations etc. Second: if he is guilty then we are all lightly discussing a very terrible crime committed on a woman who could not possibly have done anything to deserve it. Third: As someone who deals with victims of sexual assault on a regular basis it pains me to say this but in America a person is innocent until proven guilty. It makes me sick to think that his money and privilege will save him, but the same ideal of presumed innocence has saved quite a few of the rest of us who don’t have the luxury of million dollar lawyers. Just some food for thought.
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Hi, I’ve translated your post in Italian and posted the translation on my blog (obviously giving you full credit)… I hope it’s ok with you, Here there is the translation… I was quite sure I had already commented this post telling you this, but it seems something didn’t work.
Obviously if you don’t like having your post translated on my site I’ll remove it as soon as you tell me so. I’ll check here.
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Ben Stein’s comment is almost too idiotic to merit a real response.
As a legal point, a comment like Ben Stein’s would be inadmissible at trial to prove that DSK actually committed the crime. This is “propensity” evidence. The reasoning goes like this:
1) Rapes are committed by persons with a propensity to commit them.
2) Defendant has no propensity to rape.
3) Therefore, Defendant did not commit rape.
From a legal perspective, this is troublesome, because it confuses the issue. Defendant is on trial to answer the question: “did Defendant commit THIS rape at THIS time against THIS victim?”–not “is Defendant the kind of evil person that would commit a terrible crime like rape?”
Likewise, a prosecutor cannot offer evidence of a defendant’s prior bad acts to show that he acted in the same way on this one particular occasion.
That’s the general rule, at least. There are a few exceptions–but the key idea is that the justice demands that the defendant be proven to have committed a crime–not just that he is an evil person, or even a good person incapable of crime.
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Jon Stewart also did a segment on this, and he listed off some economists who have committed sex crimes, including one nearly identical to the one allegedly committed by Strauss-Kahn. (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-may-19-2011/la-cage-aux-fools)
But yeah, I don’t understand how “Economist” translates to “above human instincts and desires”
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