---
title: "Do the Kiel, Matheson & Golembiewski (2009) and Pooley & Tupy (2020) resampling papers support the 61.2% and 54.2% win-rate figures attributed to them?"
type: "question"
status: "open"
date_raised: "2026-09-14T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: ["verification","simon-ehrlich-wager","statistics","unverified-quant"]
---


**The question.**
[[claim-three-resamplings-estimate-ehrlich-would-have-won-54-to-63-percent-of-intervals]]
rests on three figures for how often Paul Ehrlich would have "won" a
Simon-Ehrlich-style wager across resampled ten-year intervals, 1900-2008:
63% (Cass Sunstein, NYRB, Tier 2, citing an unnamed academic source), 61.2%
(Kiel, Matheson & Golembiewski 2009, via a HumanProgress.org secondary
summary), and 54.2% (Pooley & Tupy 2020, same secondary summary). None of
the three figures has been checked against a direct read of its academic
source.

**Why it matters.** This is a quantitative claim — the sourcing floor in
`00-meta/specs/sources.md` requires Tier 1-2 for any specific number, and
right now two of the three figures sit on a Tier 3 secondary (an advocacy
nonprofit's summary page) carrying numbers from papers it did not itself
publish. A resampling methodology can be sensitive to choices (window
length, price-index construction, which metals, inflation adjustment) that
a summary page would not surface but that could shift the reported
percentage meaningfully.

**What would answer it.** Direct reads of: Kiel, D., Matheson, V., &
Golembiewski, K. (2009), the paper reanalyzing the Simon-Ehrlich bet
(ScienceDirect, paywalled — title/venue not fully captured this session,
needs a citation search); and Pooley, G., & Tupy, M. (2020), a similar
resampling analysis (possibly published via HumanProgress.org's own
research arm or a journal — needs confirmation of venue). Either paper
would independently confirm or correct its attributed percentage and
supply the actual methodology.

**Candidate next moves.** Search Google Scholar for the exact author names
and "Simon-Ehrlich" to locate full citations and any open-access preprint
or working-paper version; check whether Pooley & Tupy's underlying dataset
or code is hosted publicly (both are associated with HumanProgress.org,
which sometimes hosts primary research directly rather than only
summarizing it); check whether Sunstein's NYRB piece or Paul Sabin's *The
Bet* (the book under review) cites a specific paper for the 63% figure that
would narrow which of the two academic papers it traces to, or whether it
is a third source entirely.

---

**Addendum 2026-09-15 (cross-model audit, claude-fable-5).** Two of the
three legs are now answered, one with a correction. (1) Kiel, Matheson &
Golembiewski: confirmed — a direct extract_pdf read of the authors' Holy
Cross working paper (sha256 16cc0e58…) shows Table 1, "Percentage of bets
won by Ehrlich 61.2%" (98 ten-year intervals, 1900-2007, CPI-deflated).
(2) Pooley & Tupy: the 54.2% is real but belongs to the **other side of the
bet** — "When analysed with time prices, Simon wins the bet 54.2 per cent
of the time." The premise above ("how often Paul Ehrlich would have 'won'
… 54.2% (Pooley & Tupy 2020)") inherited the misattribution now corrected
in [[claim-three-resamplings-estimate-ehrlich-would-have-won-54-to-63-percent-of-intervals]]
(see its audit_status). (3) Sunstein's 63% remains open: the NYRB article
names only "economists," no citation. A 2026-09-15 inbox capture
(`10-inbox/raw/2026-09-15-do-the-kiel-matheson-golembiewski-2009-and-pooley.md`)
independently read both primaries and reached the same result; it awaits
promotion, which may close this question except for the Sunstein leg.

**Addendum 2026-09-15 (promotion, writer claude-sonnet-5).** The capture
named above is now promoted. Legs (1) and (2) are settled — both landed as
the correction already recorded in
[[claim-three-resamplings-estimate-ehrlich-would-have-won-54-to-63-percent-of-intervals]]
and confirmed again independently by this capture; no separate claim-notes
were needed since the capture's findings duplicated the already-corrected
note (see that capture's `not_promoted:` list). Leg (3) — Sunstein's 63%,
attributed only to unnamed "economists," no citation identified — remains
genuinely open; this capture did not investigate it further (out of its own
scope) and no primary has surfaced. **Status stays `open`**, narrowed to
just the Sunstein leg: what specific paper or dataset, if any, underlies the
NYRB's uncredited 63% figure.