andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2010 andrew_gelman_stats-2010-209 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
Source: html
Introduction: According to Kaiser : EdLab at Teachers’ College does a lot of interesting things, like creating technologies for the classroom and libraries, blogging, and analyzing data sets in the education sector. They’re 2 blocks from my office and I’ve never heard of them! And I even work with people at Teachers College. Columbia’s a big place. P.S. Kaiser also makes an excellent point: The most intriguing and unexpected question was: to do well in this business, do you have to read a lot? This is where I stumbled into a spaghetti carbonara analogy while mixing metaphors with the gray flannel, with which I have already been associated. Basically, statistics is not pure mathematics, there is not one correct way of doing things, there are many different methodologies, like there are hundreds of recipes for making carbonara. What statisticians do is to try many different recipes (methods), and based on tasting the food (evaluating the outcomes), we determine which recipe to use. Be
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1 According to Kaiser : EdLab at Teachers’ College does a lot of interesting things, like creating technologies for the classroom and libraries, blogging, and analyzing data sets in the education sector. [sent-1, score-0.803]
2 They’re 2 blocks from my office and I’ve never heard of them! [sent-2, score-0.332]
3 Kaiser also makes an excellent point: The most intriguing and unexpected question was: to do well in this business, do you have to read a lot? [sent-7, score-0.369]
4 This is where I stumbled into a spaghetti carbonara analogy while mixing metaphors with the gray flannel, with which I have already been associated. [sent-8, score-0.894]
5 Basically, statistics is not pure mathematics, there is not one correct way of doing things, there are many different methodologies, like there are hundreds of recipes for making carbonara. [sent-9, score-0.814]
6 What statisticians do is to try many different recipes (methods), and based on tasting the food (evaluating the outcomes), we determine which recipe to use. [sent-10, score-1.265]
7 Because of this, statisticians need to be well-read, to keep up with what are the new methods being developed. [sent-11, score-0.277]
8 This is actually the kind of thing that I say–complete with a cooking example! [sent-12, score-0.242]
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same-blog 1 0.99999994 209 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-16-EdLab at Columbia’s Teachers’ College
Introduction: According to Kaiser : EdLab at Teachers’ College does a lot of interesting things, like creating technologies for the classroom and libraries, blogging, and analyzing data sets in the education sector. They’re 2 blocks from my office and I’ve never heard of them! And I even work with people at Teachers College. Columbia’s a big place. P.S. Kaiser also makes an excellent point: The most intriguing and unexpected question was: to do well in this business, do you have to read a lot? This is where I stumbled into a spaghetti carbonara analogy while mixing metaphors with the gray flannel, with which I have already been associated. Basically, statistics is not pure mathematics, there is not one correct way of doing things, there are many different methodologies, like there are hundreds of recipes for making carbonara. What statisticians do is to try many different recipes (methods), and based on tasting the food (evaluating the outcomes), we determine which recipe to use. Be
2 0.15083747 361 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-21-Tenure-track statistics job at Teachers College, here at Columbia!
Introduction: See below for the job announcement. It’s for Teachers College, which is about 2 blocks from the statistics department and 2 blocks from the political science department. So even though I don’t have any official connection with Teachers College (besides occasionally working with them on research projects), I very much would like to have another exciting young applied researcher here, to complement all the people we currently have in stat, poli sci, engineering, etc. In particular, we have zillions of interesting and important social science research projects going on here, and they all need statistics work. A lot of social scientists do statistics, but it’s not so easy to find a statistician who does serious social science research. All this is to say that I hope this job gets some applicants from some people who are serious about applied statistics and the development of new models and methods. Teachers College, Columbia University Department of Human Development APPLIE
Introduction: Alex Tabarrok reports on an analysis from the Los Angeles Times of teacher performance (as measured by so-called value-added analysis, which is basically compares teachers based on their students’ average test scores at the end of the year, after controlling for pre-test scores. It’s well known that some teachers are much better than others, but, as Alex points out, what’s striking about the L.A. Times study is that they are publishing the estimates for individual teachers . For example, this: Nice graphics, too. To me, this illustrates one of the big advantages of research in a non-academic environment. If you’re writing an article for the L.A. Times, you can do what you want (within the limits of the law). If you’re doing the same research study at a university, there are a million restrictions. For example, from an official documen t, “The primary purpose of an Institutional Review Board (IRB) is to protect the rights and welfare of human subjects participati
4 0.11878312 388 andrew gelman stats-2010-11-01-The placebo effect in pharma
Introduction: Bruce McCullough writes: The Sept 2009 issue of Wired had a big article on the increase in the placebo effect, and why it’s been getting bigger. Kaiser Fung has a synopsis . As if you don’t have enough to do, I thought you might be interested in blogging on this. My reply: I thought Kaiser’s discussion was good, especially this point: Effect on treatment group = Effect of the drug + effect of belief in being treated Effect on placebo group = Effect of belief in being treated Thus, the difference between the two groups = effect of the drug, since the effect of belief in being treated affects both groups of patients. Thus, as Kaiser puts it, if the treatment isn’t doing better than placebo, it doesn’t say that the placebo effect is big (let alone “too big”) but that the treatment isn’t showing any additional effect. It’s “treatment + placebo” vs. placebo, not treatment vs. placebo. That said, I’d prefer for Kaiser to make it clear that the additivity he’s assu
5 0.11736339 648 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-04-The Case for More False Positives in Anti-doping Testing
Introduction: No joke. See here (from Kaiser Fung). At the Statistics Forum.
6 0.11189863 1620 andrew gelman stats-2012-12-12-“Teaching effectiveness” as another dimension in cognitive ability
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8 0.10730749 344 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-15-Story time
9 0.10463578 1678 andrew gelman stats-2013-01-17-Wanted: 365 stories of statistics
10 0.10347621 2186 andrew gelman stats-2014-01-26-Infoviz on top of stat graphic on top of spreadsheet
11 0.10175109 1350 andrew gelman stats-2012-05-28-Value-added assessment: What went wrong?
12 0.10042382 543 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-28-NYT shills for personal DNA tests
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15 0.09681315 2031 andrew gelman stats-2013-09-19-What makes a statistician look like a hero?
16 0.095660225 461 andrew gelman stats-2010-12-09-“‘Why work?’”
17 0.094519071 1001 andrew gelman stats-2011-11-10-Three hours in the life of a statistician
18 0.087549239 1132 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-21-A counterfeit data graphic
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20 0.082832195 855 andrew gelman stats-2011-08-16-Infovis and statgraphics update update
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same-blog 1 0.93139768 209 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-16-EdLab at Columbia’s Teachers’ College
Introduction: According to Kaiser : EdLab at Teachers’ College does a lot of interesting things, like creating technologies for the classroom and libraries, blogging, and analyzing data sets in the education sector. They’re 2 blocks from my office and I’ve never heard of them! And I even work with people at Teachers College. Columbia’s a big place. P.S. Kaiser also makes an excellent point: The most intriguing and unexpected question was: to do well in this business, do you have to read a lot? This is where I stumbled into a spaghetti carbonara analogy while mixing metaphors with the gray flannel, with which I have already been associated. Basically, statistics is not pure mathematics, there is not one correct way of doing things, there are many different methodologies, like there are hundreds of recipes for making carbonara. What statisticians do is to try many different recipes (methods), and based on tasting the food (evaluating the outcomes), we determine which recipe to use. Be
2 0.77289677 344 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-15-Story time
Introduction: This one belongs in the statistical lexicon. Kaiser Fung nails it : In reading [news] articles, we must look out for the moment(s) when the reporters announce story time. Much of the article is great propaganda for the statistics lobby, describing an attempt to use observational data to address a practical question, sort of a Freakonomics-style application. We have no problems when they say things like: “There is a substantial gap at year’s end between students whose teachers were in the top 10% in effectiveness and the bottom 10%. The fortunate students ranked 17 percentile points higher in English and 25 points higher in math.” Or this: “On average, Smith’s students slide under his instruction, losing 14 percentile points in math during the school year relative to their peers districtwide, The Times found. Overall, he ranked among the least effective of the district’s elementary school teachers.” Midway through the article (right before the section called “Study in contras
3 0.7474823 461 andrew gelman stats-2010-12-09-“‘Why work?’”
Introduction: Tyler Cowen links to a “scary comparison” that claims that “a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year.” Kaiser Fung looks into this comparison in more detail. As Kaiser puts it: If we concede that the middle-income person would end up with less disposable income than the lower-income person, then we’d expect that the middle-income people will take lower-paying jobs so as to increase their disposable income. But I have not seen reports of such reverse social mobility. Theory needs to fit reality. This hole in the theory needs to be covered. This argument sounds convincing at first, but I’m not completely sure it’s right. I’d just like to expand on one of Kaiser’s other points, which is that people don’t usually have a choice between a minimum-wage job and a $60,000 job. Also, my impression is that higher-paying jobs are more pleasant than lower-paying jobs. Let me put it another w
4 0.74612784 742 andrew gelman stats-2011-06-02-Grouponomics, counterfactuals, and opportunity cost
Introduction: I keep encountering the word “Groupon”–I think it’s some sort of pets.com-style commercial endeavor where people can buy coupons? I don’t really care, and I’ve avoided googling the word out of a general animosity toward our society’s current glorification of get-rich-quick schemes. (As you can tell, I’m still bitter about that whole stock market thing.) Anyway, even without knowing what Groupon actually is, I enjoyed this blog by Kaiser Fung in which he tries to work out some of its economic consequences. He connects the statistical notion of counterfactuals to the concept of opportunity cost from economics. The comments are interesting too.
5 0.74294019 543 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-28-NYT shills for personal DNA tests
Introduction: Kaiser nails it . The offending article , by John Tierney, somehow ended up in the Science section rather than the Opinion section. As an opinion piece (or, for that matter, a blog), Tierney’s article would be nothing special. But I agree with Kaiser that it doesn’t work as a newspaper article. As Kaiser notes, this story involves a bunch of statistical and empirical claims that are not well resolved by P.R. and rhetoric.
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10 0.66450113 2121 andrew gelman stats-2013-12-02-Should personal genetic testing be regulated? Battle of the blogroll
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19 0.63583887 236 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-26-Teaching yourself mathematics
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1 0.96777296 655 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-10-“Versatile, affordable chicken has grown in popularity”
Introduction: Awhile ago I was cleaning out the closet and found some old unread magazines. Good stuff. As we’ve discussed before , lots of things are better read a few years late. Today I was reading the 18 Nov 2004 issue of the London Review of Books, which contained (among other things) the following: - A review by Jenny Diski of a biography of Stanley Milgram. Diski appears to want to debunk: Milgram was a whiz at devising sexy experiments, but barely interested in any theoretical basis for them. They all have the same instant attractiveness of style, and then an underlying emptiness. Huh? Michael Jordan couldn’t hit the curveball and he was reportedly an easy mark for golf hustlers but that doesn’t diminish his greatness on the basketball court. She also criticizes Milgram for being “no help at all” for solving international disputes. OK, fine. I haven’t solved any international disputes either. Milgram, though, . . . he conducted an imaginative experiment whose results stu
2 0.96769446 1925 andrew gelman stats-2013-07-04-“Versatile, affordable chicken has grown in popularity”
Introduction: From two years ago : Awhile ago I was cleaning out the closet and found some old unread magazines. Good stuff. As we’ve discussed before , lots of things are better read a few years late. Today I was reading the 18 Nov 2004 issue of the London Review of Books, which contained (among other things) the following: - A review by Jenny Diski of a biography of Stanley Milgram. Diski appears to want to debunk: Milgram was a whiz at devising sexy experiments, but barely interested in any theoretical basis for them. They all have the same instant attractiveness of style, and then an underlying emptiness. Huh? Michael Jordan couldn’t hit the curveball and he was reportedly an easy mark for golf hustlers but that doesn’t diminish his greatness on the basketball court. She also criticizes Milgram for being “no help at all” for solving international disputes. OK, fine. I haven’t solved any international disputes either. Milgram, though, . . . he conducted an imaginative exp
3 0.96086782 497 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-02-Hipmunk update
Introduction: Florence from customer support at Hipmunk writes: Hipmunk now includes American Airlines in our search results. Please note that users will be taken directly to AA.com to complete the booking/transaction. . . . we are steadily increasing the number of flights that we offer on Hipmunk. As you may recall, Hipmunk is a really cool flight-finder that didn’t actually work (as of 16 Sept 2010). At the time, I was a bit annoyed at the NYT columnist who plugged Hipmunk without actually telling his readers that the site didn’t actually do the job. (I discovered the problem myself because I couldn’t believe that my flight options to Raleigh-Durham were really so meager, so I checked on Expedia and found a good flight.) I do think Hipmunk’s graphics are beautiful, though, so I’m rooting for them to catch up. P.S. Apparently they include Amtrak Northeast Corridor trains, so I’ll give them a try, next time I travel. The regular Amtrak website is about as horrible as you’d expect.
4 0.95368797 2238 andrew gelman stats-2014-03-09-Hipmunk worked
Introduction: In the past I’ve categorized Hipmunk as a really cool flight-finder that doesn’t actually work , as worse than Expedia , and as graphics without content . So, I thought it would be only fair to tell you that I bought a flight the other day using Hipmunk and it gave me the same flight as Expedia but at a lower cost (by linking to something called CheapOair, which I hope is legit). So score one for Hipmunk.
5 0.95195305 1099 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-05-Approaching harmonic convergence
Introduction: Check out comment #9 here . All we need is for Steven Levitt, David Runciman, and some Reader in Management somewhere to weigh in and we’ll be all set.
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18 0.88238519 1846 andrew gelman stats-2013-05-07-Like Casper the ghost, Niall Ferguson is not only white. He is also very, very adorable.
19 0.88084602 894 andrew gelman stats-2011-09-07-Hipmunk FAIL: Graphics without content is not enough
20 0.87900656 2325 andrew gelman stats-2014-05-07-Stan users meetup next week