Thomas Sowell has a three part series on what “Studies prove…” in his syndicated column. [I, II, III] His experience with this is interesting, in light of, for example, the Pew Study discussed below. Sowell writes

My late mentor, Nobel Prize-winning economist George Stigler, used to say that it could be very instructive to spend a few hours in a library checking up on studies that had been cited. When I began doing that, I found it not only instructive but disillusioning.

A footnote in a textbook on labor economics cited six studies to back up a conclusion it reached. But, after I went to the library and looked at those six studies, it turned out that they each cited some other study — the same other study in all six cases.

Now that the six studies had shrunk to one, I got that one study — and found that it was a study of a very different situation from the one discussed in the labor economics textbook.

We’ve exposed a number of studies like that, starting with the National Research Council’s 1997 report, The New Americans, which didn’t say what their press release said it said.

Then there was the one about how immigration decreases crime, and the Freakonomics scandal. (I don’t even count the Bellesiles thing; he was just flat-out lying, which is too crude for the “studies prove” people.)

Later Sowell writes

Once a minister was explaining to me the structure of his funeral orations. He said, “At this point, you are expected to say something good about the deceased. Now, Tom, if I were preaching your funeral, what would I say good about you at that point?”

He thought and thought — for an embarrassingly long time. Finally, he said gravely: “In his research, he always used original sources.”

I’ll take that.

Here at Vdare.com, we’ll take that too.

The Congressional hearings are coming to Georgiafornia:

U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Augusta, is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, which will hold a hearing at 11 a.m. Monday at the federal courthouse in Gainesville.Hearings set to focus on immigration Gainesville Times

D. A. King will be there, and if you’re in the area, you can be there too. 11:00 AM at the Gainesville Federal Courthouse, 121 Spring St.

I suspect the writer of the blog Your Lying Eyes works with statistics. His remarks on the recent Pew Hispanic Center Employment Study on which I commented earlier today positively seeth with professional indignation:

Piss-Poor Study Finds No Effect of Immigration on Employment (Scroll down.)

it does suggest that a “study,” no matter how infantile its design, can gain national exposure…if it sounds the right theme…The paper is something you might expect from a precocious high-schooler who doesn’t have the necessary background in statistics to design a more robust study.

This post contains more intellectual activity than do the fifteen or so immigration enthusiast blogs I have seen commenting on the study combined. Not one seemed concerned with the wage level issue. This outrages some of those posting comments - as for example the first comment here.

National Public Radio (!) now admits that Hispanic drunk driving is a growing problem [Drinking and Driving Plagues Latino Immigrants, 7/21/06]. (Link leads to a 4-minute sound clip.)

Latino advocacy groups and law enforcement agencies have launched campaigns to reduce drunk driving among immigrants. In many states, Latinos are responsible for a disproportionate number of DWI arrests and alcohol-related car accidents.

That’s the good news — a small acceptance of the truth that culture has a lot to do with behavior, including the anti-social and criminal kind. The bad news is that the report was dry and wonkish, with no mention that drunk driving can lead to the deaths of innocent individuals, or that many of the perps are illegal aliens.

For the personal stories of open borders’ victims, you have to read VDARE.com and Immigrations Human Cost: for example the young paramedic Ryan Ostendorf, mandolin expert Charlie Derrington, Tennessee married couple Donna and Sean Wilson and nursing student Natalie Housand.

All were killed by drunk driving illegal aliens.

Sometimes the other side has bad luck, too. The Pew Hispanic Center’s latest piece of tendentious pro-immigration propaganda Growth in the Foreign-Born Workforce and Employment of the Native Born was published on August 10. But with the MSM obsessively focused on events on some barren hillsides half way round the world - rather than the fate of America - attention paid, though extensive, was limited in scope.

This must have disappointed Messsrs. Kochbar, Suro, Fry, Tafoya and Benavides, who wrote the report, because the spin they put on the introduction certainly generated the headlines intended:

Immigrants not hurting US worker – Associated Press August 11 2006

Study Finds Immigrants Don’t Hurt US Jobs – Washington Post August 10 2006

Exploding a myth – Orlando Sentinel –August 12 2006

In fact, as an interesting new blog Old Atlantic Lighthouse points out here and here, not only are these headlines quite untrue, but the actual main report does not claim this. Only considering employment rates amongst native-born compared to immigrant work force growth in the different states, it suggests states with rapid immigrant workforce expansion are slightly more likely to have higher employment rates amongst the native born, but with plenty of exceptions. States with slower immigrant growth are somewhat more likely to have lower native-born employment rates, also with substantial exceptions.

Since the study did not consider the impact on wages, it is essentially useless for assessing the effect of mass immigration on the American worker.

The Orlando Sentinel explicitly misrepresents this:

One of the recurring accusations made in the debate over immigration reform is that immigrants depress wages and take jobs away from Americans:

But a new, credible study argues otherwise.

Complain to The Orlando Sentinel

Employment rates are tricky things. As Steve Sailer recently pointed out, immigrants with no US ties or roots are highly likely to head for the most prosperous and dynamic regions. At a glance, this might well account for much of the effect Pew notes. Furthermore, there is the question of drop-outs from the labor force, an option the native-born have to some degree when discouraged.

Another aspect the report neglects is the differential impact of different groups, such as America’s blacks.

The real question, however, is why the Pew Hispanic Center, with all its resources, chose to launch such a poorly designed and meaningless study. The nebulousness of the data is well known, as they themselves note on P 46, citing George Borjas. That is why the debate has moved on to wages.

Alas, it looks like the prospect of those headlines was too tempting!

Complain to Pew.