“Sometimes all we have left are pictures and fear”: Dan Simpson talk in Columbia stat dept, 4pm Monday

4:10pm Monday, April 22 in Social Work Bldg room 903:

Data is getting weirder. Statistical models and techniques are more complex than they have ever been. No one understand what code does. But at the same time, statistical tools are being used by a wider range of people than at any time in the past. And they are not just using our well-trodden, classical tools. They are working at the bleeding edge of what is possible. With this in mind, this talk will look at how much we can trust our tools. Do we ever really compute the thing we think we do? Can we ever be sure our code worked? Are there ways that it’s not safe to use the output? While “reproducibility” may be the watchword of the new scientific era, if we also want to ensure safety maybe all we have to lean on are pictures and fear.

Important stuff.

7 thoughts on ““Sometimes all we have left are pictures and fear”: Dan Simpson talk in Columbia stat dept, 4pm Monday

  1. Your thoughts above are what some of have speculated and skeptical. I believe that only the smallest % discerns the extent of hubristic expertise. In the international relations field, I thought that David Kennedy, Harvard Law, lays out the epistemic environment quite well in The World of Struggle We would like to return to the state of ‘unknowingness’ and reflective equilibrium.

    It will be refreshing. In some areas, we drift.

  2. “With this in mind, this talk will look at how much we can trust our tools. Do we ever really compute the thing we think we do? Can we ever be sure our code worked? Are there ways that it’s not safe to use the output?”

    Just use Stata?

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