>I argue the burden of evidence is not on me to prove that something other people are advocating for is useful, it is on them.. When you make the first claim i

>I argue the burden of evidence is not on me to prove that something other people are advocating for is useful, it is on them.. When you make the first claim in a discussion, and your claim is counter to both economic theory (patents help) and the common arguments for a thing (patents help by adding disclosure and protecting small inventors), the burden on you is to prove why the economic theory or common understanding is wrong. >several of the papers you cite don't show that the patent system itself is better than no patent system All showed that the patent system provides benefits. I'm already familiar with the St. Louis Fed paper. It's from 2012, and their opening sentence "The case against patents can be summarized briefly: there is no empirical evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity, unless the latter is identified with the number of patents awarded – which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with measured productivity." is directly refuted by the evidence I posted in papers from, respectively, 2018 (references your paper), 2019 (revised 2022), 2013, 2016 (directly addresses your paper, starting on page 1, again on page 5 - provides clear evidence that your paper has been superseded in the literature), and 2017. So, 5 more recent papers against your favorite one? I think I'll choose the more recent work, especially since a few cite your work and provide direct and irrefutable evidence that there are benefits. Most interestingly, if you read the Levine & Boldrin paper carefully, they fill it with anecdotes, but nearly zero actual broad data, since the broad data do not support their story. The strongest citations in their paper are back to their own papers, which, if you read those, are similarly anecdote based. The proper way to do evidence is to take all evidence, not just the pieces and anecdotes one likes, and then analyze. Their paper simply doesn't do this. It's a collection of the stories they like, incredibly many, with extremely little other evidence, or new datasets, or new analysis, to make their case. For example, my line [3] above shows exactly how to do research: they list the datasets they used, which are all known data for the respective question. They explain their methodology for analysis. They show the numerical outcomes. They explain the relevance. There is not one anecdote in their paper. Now count how many anecdotes your paper makes to state their case (dozens? it's truly astounding). You're welcome to show me where in their paper they provide analysis for such large scale, all encompassing data. It's well known in the literature this paper does not do so - it's a collection of anecdotes with a popular title. It doesn't prove the case it claims to by a long shot. >One of my favorite references The thing about favorite references is you need to follow up on later work, otherwise your favorite reference may well be invalidated by later work when you decide to pull it out. I generally prefer more recent research, especially when it's numerous and they cite and address older research in question, to understand a topic.