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I love the recent one on piketty.

Step 1: Decide on ideological argument and proposed policy remedies; Step 2: Manipulate data as needed to justify; Step 3: Publish book... Step 4: Ideological allies receive book rapturously, say it cannot be challenged due to quantitative rigor of underlying data analysis... Step 5: Data analysis carved up by outside analysts; Step 6: Response from allies = "Data & analysis don't matter -- we KNOW the truth."

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If that comment were originally posted on HN, it would deservedly be downvoted as a mischaracterization.

Does anyone have a link for Step 5? Or step 6, for that matter? I don't know what he's referring to here.

#5 is likely the FT independent analysis here, which found math errors, cherry-picking of data (to meet manufactured-in-advance conclusions), etc.: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e1f343ca-e281-11e3-89fd-00144feabd...

Though over at MR, they noted there "were already several major problems" with Piketty even before the FT debunking, including that if you adjust for the housing bubble a few years ago, his results disappear: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/05/wha...

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