Before I publish anything, here are the rules
You should be able to hold me to them
Every publication has rules. Most don’t tell you what they are, which means you find out what someone’s method is by watching it fail.
Mine are going up first, before there’s a body of work to judge them against. That’s deliberate. Rules stated in advance are a commitment. Rules stated afterward are a defense.
Six things I will do
Not every note or correction here is a full investigation. But every serious piece will do six things.
I will establish the documented record, from primary sources you can check yourself.
I will explain what the relevant research found, and what it didn’t. Population, method, effect size, limitations. Not “studies show.”
I will give you the strongest counterargument I can build, rather than the weakest one I can beat. If it explains part of the evidence better than my account does, I’ll say so.
I will separate my inference from the evidence and label it. Interpretation is unavoidable. Hiding it is a choice.
I will reach a conclusion. Being careful is not a reason to never answer the question.
And I will tell you what would change that conclusion. If nothing could, it isn’t a conclusion. It’s a belief I’m protecting.
Three things I won’t do
I won’t pretend I have no worldview. I do. When it materially affects a piece, I’ll disclose it before I show you the evidence, not after.
I won’t manufacture equivalence where the evidence doesn’t support it. The midpoint between a truth and a lie is not a more reasonable version of the truth.
And I won’t hide a correction. When I’m wrong, the correction will be visible, dated, specific, and clear about whether the conclusion changed.
Why I’m bothering
The honest answer is smaller than politics.
I’ve watched people who love each other argue for years about something neither of them could have stated in a single sentence. I’ve been one of those people. And at some point I noticed that the argument happening across a dinner table and the argument happening across a country share the same shape. Both sides certain. Both sides describing the other’s reasons in a form the other would never recognize. Nobody able to say what would settle it.
I find that more interesting than depressing, which is probably the only reason I’m able to attempt to do this week after week.
What I’d ask of you
Hold me to the list.
If you catch me labeling an inference as a fact, or citing a study without its limitations, or giving an opponent’s argument in a form they’d never recognize, say so. That isn’t hostility. That’s the whole point of doing it this way.
The first full piece publishes Tuesday September 8th. Subscribing is free and always will be for the weekly edition, the sources, and every correction.
The best answer the evidence supports. For now.