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A funny survey measurement problem La fussy jade laity requited

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Posted on March 18, 2008 8:48 AM by Andrew

Chris Paulse sends in this amusing advice which could be used as an example in teaching decision analysis.

This entry was posted in Decision Analysis by Andrew. Bookmark the permalink.

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Anonymous on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 7:27 PM
The argument that "plenty of good journals, e.g., Nature, charge publication fees" or "I've pais thousands of dollars in publication…
Russ Lyons on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 6:08 PM
Yes, I think "refuse to pay" means submit elsewhere. This is a boycott of that journal, although a true boycott…
Roger Schlafly on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 5:19 PM
I would agreed with you, until the recent Musk v OpenAI trial. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, but the…
Bob Carpenter on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 4:35 PM
Here are the last 20 or so journals in which Andrew has published (and this isn't even back to the…
Max Shepsi on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 4:29 PM
A decent number of society journals publish without fees in my field, though often with an embargo period before new…
Daniel Lakeland on Supplement that alphabetized display with another graph showing the states in a more informative order.July 10, 2026 4:17 PM
Joshua, A causes outcome B if when you do A then outcome B necessarily happens... regardless of whether you understand…
Raphael K on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 2:57 PM
@Raghu Parsarathy Regarding your second point, I think this refers to people like our host, Andrew Gelman. As I understand…
Ziggy on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 2:12 PM
Non-profits are a bit more complex than "directing the profit internally." The controlling parties of a non-profit--the members of the…
Anonymous on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 2:06 PM
Regular plug for the Science Post. Subjects: physics, astronomy, chemistry and the recently added political science. Free, open-source. No publication…
Bob Carpenter on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 1:51 PM
Does everyone know the story of the Machine Learning (Kluwer) editors quitting and starting the free and open-access Journal of…
Chris on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 1:41 PM
You might think so (charging fees deterring authors) but many scientists are quite excited about the prospect of paying nearly…
paul alper on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 1:41 PM
It seems very strange to me that Ghislaine Maxwell being the daughter of Robert Maxwell is rarely mentioned.
Chris on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 1:23 PM
Many journals have reduced or waived fees for low income countries. To use your example, an author from Mali doesn’t…
Raghu Parthasarathy on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 1:19 PM
That falls under "researchers who cannot afford to pay", which is fine, not "refuse to pay."
Anonymous on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 10, 2026 1:14 PM
"Instructions" is not singular, though. "While the instructions for authors for Paediatrics & Child Health *have* at times indicated the…
John Kane on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 10, 2026 1:03 PM
I disagree. The subject, "disclosure", is singular.
John Kane on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 12:46 PM
I am not sure about the "refuse" but if you are a researcher in, let's say, Bangladesh or Mali, a…
John Kane on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 12:17 PM
I’m a grad student asking this honestly: what do we pay the journals _for_? The imprimatur? You have passed some…
Anonymous on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 12:16 PM
There’s that old quote, “Universities are hedge funds with classrooms attached.”
Roger Schlafly on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 12:00 PM
I also think it is strange to talk about authors who cannot afford or refuse to pay. Charging fees will…
Raghu Parthasarathy on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 11:44 AM
I despise the current state of academic publishing, but there are things about this protest letter I find strange. 1…
Andrew on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 11:19 AM
Entomophagist, I don't know. I guess it's the coordination cost involved in setting up the reputation. JMLR and Bayesian Analysis…
Entomophagist on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 10:34 AM
I'm a grad student asking this honestly: what do we pay the journals _for_? It's not server costs, because articles…
AAAnonymous on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 10:33 AM
Two quotes from the letter: "The current academic publishing system is built upon vast quantities of unpaid labour and establishes…
Steve Sailer on 18 Associate Editors resign from Statistics and Computing editorial board: Problems with commercial scholarly publishing, and what does this all mean?July 10, 2026 10:29 AM
My vague impression is that Robert Maxwell, the closest thing to a Bond Movie villain I've ever interacted with, was…
Joshua on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 9:56 PM
Excellent.
Joshua on Supplement that alphabetized display with another graph showing the states in a more informative order.July 9, 2026 8:39 PM
Daniel – I appreciate the time you took to dig into the math. My understanding of your analysis - without…
Andrew on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 7:40 PM
Paul: Your father should've responded, "We didn't turn on the AC because that would've made it even hotter on the…
paul alper on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 6:13 PM
Oncodoc just alluded to the film, Rashomon, which, to my continual surprise, many people have never heard of so that…
Roger Schlafly on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 6:12 PM
This excuse is particularly bad: "a single case report would not generate any interest or ever be cited." So why…
David Ricardo on Guess who’s getting the big-money donations in the Maine U.S. Senate race?July 9, 2026 5:28 PM
Point taken
ROLAND E KUHN on Is fabricating data worse than fabricating results? Is failing to correct a known false report more or less serious than making the false report in the first place?July 9, 2026 4:26 PM
I have a funny story about this. My very first published paper in computational linguistics had an interesting idea in…
Michael Murphy on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 2:36 PM
This is just using the genre of a case study to impart information that could be imparted differently. Of course…
oncodoc on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 2:11 PM
I agree that the truth shouldn’t be compromised. However, in real life every “true” clinical story is heavily edited by…
Daniel Lakeland on Supplement that alphabetized display with another graph showing the states in a more informative order.July 9, 2026 1:44 PM
I'm going to look carefully at the graphs and things in the paper and try to explain what I think…
Robert on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 1:36 PM
I am not a medical researcher, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. The one reason I…
Joshua on Supplement that alphabetized display with another graph showing the states in a more informative order.July 9, 2026 1:32 PM
Anonymous— Thank you. I do now see the methodological principle you're articulating, and I appreciate that because it makes the…
paul alper on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 11:56 AM
"While the instructions for authors for Paediatrics & Child Health has at times indicated the case reports are fictional, that…
Andrew on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 10:31 AM
Proxomitron, Oh, I see, good catch. I guess my take on all this is that there's a value to real…
Proxomitron on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 10:14 AM
I absolutely agree, but in the post you said " I think there’s a bigger problem with these fabricated case…
Andrew on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 10:11 AM
Proxomitron, I have no problem with made-up stories. In statistics research and education we sometimes call these "simulation experiments" or…
Proxomitron on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 10:08 AM
If made-up stories, even when labelled as fictional, are bad, then does that mean novels are bad? Judging by your…
Hao Ye on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 10:00 AM
To me, the boundary on using synthetic data for learning depends greatly on the specific learning goal. Are you teaching…
Andrew on Is fabricating data worse than fabricating results? Is failing to correct a known false report more or less serious than making the false report in the first place?July 9, 2026 9:51 AM
Elin: He's not my colleague any more! I stopped working with him many years ago. He's had a very successful…
Dale Lehman on “A medical journal says the case reports it has published for 25 years are, in fact, fiction”July 9, 2026 9:47 AM
I agree and think the idea applies more broadly. I've written several textbooks and am working on another now. One…
Robert on Structural equation modeling (SEM) and positive definitenessJuly 9, 2026 5:57 AM
I think the biggest questions arise from the Bayesian approach to SEM (especially when moving a bit more into IRT-land…
Robert on Structural equation modeling (SEM) and positive definitenessJuly 9, 2026 5:36 AM
1. You asked what (b)lavaan do to handle structural zeroes in the covariance matrices. As of a few years ago,…
AAAnonymous on Is fabricating data worse than fabricating results? Is failing to correct a known false report more or less serious than making the false report in the first place?July 9, 2026 2:50 AM
Quote from above: "I am unfamiliar with the problems with the p-curve analysis. Can someone point me to the reading?…
AAAnonymous on A new episode in the Francesca Gino caseJuly 9, 2026 2:34 AM
I always find it hard to understand the phrasing of lawyers and texts in things like court documents. I also…
Anonymous on Supplement that alphabetized display with another graph showing the states in a more informative order.July 8, 2026 11:32 PM
Joshua: Okay, one last comment. I can't resist. I think this is the third time I said this. Someone is…

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