Hurricanes/himmicanes extra: Again with the problematic nature of the scientific publication process

Jeremy Freese has the story. To me, the sad thing is not that people who don’t understand statistics are doing research. After all, statistics is hard, and to require statistical understanding of all quantitative researchers would be impossible to enforce … Continue reading

This empirical paper has been cited 1616 times but I don’t find it convincing. There’s no single fatal flaw, but the evidence does not seem so clear. How to think about this sort of thing? What to do? First, accept that evidence might not all go in one direction. Second, make lots of graphs. Also, an amusing story about how this paper is getting cited nowadays.

1. When can we trust? How can we navigate social science with skepticism? 2. Why I’m not convinced by that Quebec child-care study 3. 20 years on 1. When can we trust? How can we navigate social science with skepticism? … Continue reading

Debate over effect of reduced prosecutions on urban homicides; also larger questions about synthetic control methods in causal inference.

Andy Wheeler writes: I think this back and forth may be of interest to you and your readers. There was a published paper attributing very large increases in homicides in Philadelphia to the policies by progressive prosecutor Larry Krasner (+70 … Continue reading

The connection between junk science and sloppy data handling: Why do they go together?

Nick Brown pointed me to a new paper, “The Impact of Incidental Environmental Factors on Vote Choice: Wind Speed is Related to More Prevention-Focused Voting,” to which his reaction was, “It makes himmicanes look plausible.” Indeed, one of the authors … Continue reading

They came in through the window: The migration of tech hype from the fringes to the media and academic mainstream

Palko points to a ten-year-old post on 3-D printing. Here he is back in 2013: We’re talking about people (particularly journalists) who have an emotional, gee-whiz reaction to technology without really thinking seriously about the functionality. [They] can be spotted … Continue reading

Does the existence of widespread belief in political disinformation demonstrate that humans are not Bayesians?

Paul Alper writes: Here is sparkling evidence that Bayes theorem needs revision. The link points to a news article pointing to prominent figures in the Republican party and right-wing media circulating misinformation regarding the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of … Continue reading