I don't have a great deal of time to spare, so instead of responding over at Cobb, or at Baldilocks, or at Prometheus6, where we're continuing an interesting discussion about Sowell, I'm going to post something here in response to some of the comments brought up by others.
Ed: (and I'm paraphrasing) No one has really cut Sowell other than calling him names. The peer review process for books is the same as that for journal articles.
Chap: If one wanted to make a change and was in Sowell's position what would one do?
Jeff Foxworthy: When do you know you're a redneck?
No.
In order:
Critiques of Sowell aren't that hard to find. Prometheus does a good job in a sentence or two. And no. Getting a book in print vs. an article are two different animals. The social science peer review process for articles goes something like this. You send an article out, three people review it through a double blind process...and they cut it to shreads.
The editor rejects it. You send it out to another journal.
The three reviewers take their knives to it again. The editor rejects it.
You send it out yet again. To another journal. With another set of editors, and another set of reviewers.
This time? You get a revise and resubmit.
So you make changes...if the editor (and the blind reviewers) think the changes are ok? You get it published. You get "a hit." The process I just detailed to you takes about 3 years on average to get a single article placed. I've gone through this process successfully between 7-10 times. It's like running a marathon each time.
The book process? The book process for ACADEMIC presses is not a TENTH as rigorous. But even IT is much harder than the regular press--which is more interested in bottom line profit margins than anything else. I recall John McWhorter talking about...I forget the title of his first major book after he'd made a name for himself as a racial conservative. He was talking about how the pieces in there were so raw most of them barely were a month old before he sent them out (and got them all accepted).
Now does this sound like the process is the same?
Chap: I am not in Sowell's position, but am on that path. I plan to do three things: publish rigorous work in academic journals and academic presses, rigorous work in popular presses, and pop culture type stuff (like what I'm doing over at Black Voices and on NPR). And help organizers organize. But every step of the way my effort is going to be driven by RIGOR rather than ideology.
Jeff: You know what? It's late. I think my last post will suffice for now on the problems with the "culture" vs. "race" thing.