Andrew - If so, it says more about the prevailing group ideology than it does about their judgment as social scientists. Its hard to see the mechanism by which ethnic diversity would increase trust, since trust is presumably based on expectations that people will behave in various ways not inconsisent with one’s own interests, which requires knowledge of group norms and behaviour patterns (less likely to be the case with new migrant groups) and preferably enforcement mechanisms (more likely to develop in longer-standing communities where social sanctions can be applied).

Ethnic diversity probably does often increase tolerance, but in the sense that it creates greater need for it since people are confronted with views and behaviour of which they may not approve. But it does not necessarily create ‘comfort with diversity’ - the evidence on this is very mixed, as Putnam’s article says.

That’s the problem with his policy proposals - they assume that a little more mixing will make a big positive difference, despite the mixed evidence on this.

And isn’t it the very nature of policy proposals that they’re not grounded in evidence, since it’s harder to evaluate things we haven’t yet done than things we’ve already done?

“he had delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it would have been irresponsible to publish without that”

he need not have bothered with delay, because his ideas in this regard are just a few dot points with none of the evidence he supplies for the initial analysis.

On the charge of “intellectual concealment and spinning”, I’m curious to know whether you’d now acquit him, or convict him of a second offence?

Also, we are assuming that he went to the media with his research. That’s quite likely; but it’s also possible that he’s been quietly discussing it in academic circles, as he develops the ideas and their consequences (and is there anything wrong with that? I would want to workshop my ideas before making them broadly public), and a journalist got wind of it and knew he/she could beat a story out of it. And Putnam made the decision, for whatever reason (naivete, politeness, opportunism), to talk to the journalist.

So I can see why Putnam might want to ensure that he has a balanced view to present before going public with it.

So be specific, Eva.