Meanwhile, Brad Delong makes with the Jonah-smacking about my last G-File. He makes a fair enough point about the inconsistency in my column. He exploits my honesty about not having the data to back up one of my points to maximum effect. Rather than get into a to and fro about it, I’m just going to chalk ‘em up to the perils of writing a column within hours of the original column coming out. Occupational hazard of the blogosphere and all that. Frankly I’m too tired of these ping pong debates (I just wrote three-frickin’-thousand words about Chait, for pete’s sake). And while I realize that union requirements demand that DeLong be as snarky to me as physically possible, truth be told, I’ve always kinda respected the guy and the stuff he writes (what I’ve seen of it), even if I don’t always agree with him.

That said, he says I should talk to a lot of engineers and scientists. For the record, I do talk to a lot of engineers and scientists — if by talk you mean email. I also know a few personally. As I’ve mentioned before, we have a huge readership among engineers in particular and academics in general. Obviously, there’s a selection bias in that our readers are going to tend to be more conservative, but if DeLong thinks there aren’t any engineers or scientists in academia who don’t agree with my general points he’s flat out wrong. Of course, this isn’t the full extent of my exposure to academia. But since all he wants me to do is talk with engineers and scientists, I thought I’d mention it.