andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2010 andrew_gelman_stats-2010-221 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: I’m just glad that universities don’t sanction professors for publishing false theorems. If the guy really is nailed by the feds for fraud, I hope they don’t throw him in prison. In general, prison time seems like a brutal, expensive, and inefficient way to punish people. I’d prefer if the government just took 95% of his salary for several years, made him do community service (cleaning equipment at the local sewage treatment plant, perhaps; a lab scientist should be good at this sort of thing, no?), etc. If restriction of this dude’s personal freedom is judged be part of the sentence, he could be given some sort of electronic tag that would send a message to the police if he were ever more than 3 miles from his home. But no need to bill the taxpayers for the cost of keeping him in prison.
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1 I’m just glad that universities don’t sanction professors for publishing false theorems. [sent-1, score-0.779]
2 If the guy really is nailed by the feds for fraud, I hope they don’t throw him in prison. [sent-2, score-0.282]
3 In general, prison time seems like a brutal, expensive, and inefficient way to punish people. [sent-3, score-0.694]
4 I’d prefer if the government just took 95% of his salary for several years, made him do community service (cleaning equipment at the local sewage treatment plant, perhaps; a lab scientist should be good at this sort of thing, no? [sent-4, score-1.618]
5 If restriction of this dude’s personal freedom is judged be part of the sentence, he could be given some sort of electronic tag that would send a message to the police if he were ever more than 3 miles from his home. [sent-6, score-1.634]
6 But no need to bill the taxpayers for the cost of keeping him in prison. [sent-7, score-0.507]
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same-blog 1 1.0 221 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-21-Busted!
Introduction: I’m just glad that universities don’t sanction professors for publishing false theorems. If the guy really is nailed by the feds for fraud, I hope they don’t throw him in prison. In general, prison time seems like a brutal, expensive, and inefficient way to punish people. I’d prefer if the government just took 95% of his salary for several years, made him do community service (cleaning equipment at the local sewage treatment plant, perhaps; a lab scientist should be good at this sort of thing, no?), etc. If restriction of this dude’s personal freedom is judged be part of the sentence, he could be given some sort of electronic tag that would send a message to the police if he were ever more than 3 miles from his home. But no need to bill the taxpayers for the cost of keeping him in prison.
2 0.32540014 420 andrew gelman stats-2010-11-18-Prison terms for financial fraud?
Introduction: My econ dept colleague Joseph Stiglitz suggests that financial fraudsters be sent to prison. He points out that the usual penalty–million-dollar fines–just isn’t enough for crimes whose rewards can be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That all makes sense, but why do the options have to be: 1. No punishment 2. A fine with little punishment or deterrent value 3. Prison. What’s the point of putting nonviolent criminals in prison? As I’ve said before , I’d prefer if the government just took all these convicted thieves’ assets along with 95% of their salary for several years, made them do community service (sorting bottles and cans at the local dump, perhaps; a financier should be good at this sort of thing, no?), etc. If restriction of personal freedom is judged be part of the sentence, they could be given some sort of electronic tag that would send a message to the police if you are ever more than 3 miles from your home. And a curfew so you have to stay home bet
3 0.10519055 333 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-10-Psychiatric drugs and the reduction in crime
Introduction: Cameron McKenzie writes: I ran into the attached paper [by Dave Marcotte and Sara Markowitz] on the social benefits of prescription of psychotropic drugs, relating a drop in crime rate to an increase in psychiatric drug prescriptions. It’s not my area (which is psychophysics) but I do find this kind of thing interesting. Either people know much more than I think they do, or they are pretending to, and either is interesting. My feeling is that it doesn’t pass the sniff test, but I wondered if you might (i) find the paper interesting and/or (ii) perhaps be interested in commenting on it on the blog. It seems to me that if we cumulated all econometric studies of crime rate we would be able to explain well over 100% of the variation therein, but perhaps my skepticism is unwarranted. My reply: I know what you mean. The story seems plausible but the statistical analysis seems like a stretch. I appreciate that the authors included scatterplots of their data, but the patterns they
4 0.0975518 424 andrew gelman stats-2010-11-21-Data cleaning tool!
Introduction: Hal Varian writes: You might find this a useful tool for cleaning data. I haven’t tried it out yet, but data cleaning is a hugely important topic and so this could be a big deal.
5 0.096027374 1621 andrew gelman stats-2012-12-13-Puzzles of criminal justice
Introduction: Four recent news stories about crime and punishment made me realize, yet again, how little I understand all this. 1. “HSBC to Pay $1.92 Billion to Settle Charges of Money Laundering” : State and federal authorities decided against indicting HSBC in a money-laundering case over concerns that criminal charges could jeopardize one of the world’s largest banks and ultimately destabilize the global financial system. Instead, HSBC announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to a record $1.92 billion settlement with authorities. . . . I don’t understand this idea of punishing the institution. I have the same problem when the NCAA punishes a college football program. These are individual people breaking the law (or the rules), right? So why not punish them directly? Giving 40 lashes to a bunch of HSBC executives and garnisheeing their salaries for life, say, that wouldn’t destabilize the global financial system would it? From the article: “A money-laundering indictment, or a guilt
6 0.088087939 663 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-15-Happy tax day!
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8 0.076103449 1271 andrew gelman stats-2012-04-20-Education could use some systematic evaluation
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10 0.07407587 1236 andrew gelman stats-2012-03-29-Resolution of Diederik Stapel case
11 0.07257127 740 andrew gelman stats-2011-06-01-The “cushy life” of a University of Illinois sociology professor
13 0.067010954 1310 andrew gelman stats-2012-05-09-Varying treatment effects, again
14 0.064978041 1484 andrew gelman stats-2012-09-05-Two exciting movie ideas: “Second Chance U” and “The New Dirty Dozen”
15 0.063373372 2093 andrew gelman stats-2013-11-07-I’m negative on the expression “false positives”
16 0.062811315 1139 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-26-Suggested resolution of the Bem paradox
17 0.061777875 1982 andrew gelman stats-2013-08-15-Blaming scientific fraud on the Kuhnians
18 0.060780287 2172 andrew gelman stats-2014-01-14-Advice on writing research articles
19 0.059812702 989 andrew gelman stats-2011-11-03-This post does not mention Wegman
20 0.059808411 2070 andrew gelman stats-2013-10-20-The institution of tenure
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same-blog 1 0.9578588 221 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-21-Busted!
Introduction: I’m just glad that universities don’t sanction professors for publishing false theorems. If the guy really is nailed by the feds for fraud, I hope they don’t throw him in prison. In general, prison time seems like a brutal, expensive, and inefficient way to punish people. I’d prefer if the government just took 95% of his salary for several years, made him do community service (cleaning equipment at the local sewage treatment plant, perhaps; a lab scientist should be good at this sort of thing, no?), etc. If restriction of this dude’s personal freedom is judged be part of the sentence, he could be given some sort of electronic tag that would send a message to the police if he were ever more than 3 miles from his home. But no need to bill the taxpayers for the cost of keeping him in prison.
2 0.8364765 420 andrew gelman stats-2010-11-18-Prison terms for financial fraud?
Introduction: My econ dept colleague Joseph Stiglitz suggests that financial fraudsters be sent to prison. He points out that the usual penalty–million-dollar fines–just isn’t enough for crimes whose rewards can be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That all makes sense, but why do the options have to be: 1. No punishment 2. A fine with little punishment or deterrent value 3. Prison. What’s the point of putting nonviolent criminals in prison? As I’ve said before , I’d prefer if the government just took all these convicted thieves’ assets along with 95% of their salary for several years, made them do community service (sorting bottles and cans at the local dump, perhaps; a financier should be good at this sort of thing, no?), etc. If restriction of personal freedom is judged be part of the sentence, they could be given some sort of electronic tag that would send a message to the police if you are ever more than 3 miles from your home. And a curfew so you have to stay home bet
3 0.74392742 2338 andrew gelman stats-2014-05-19-My short career as a Freud expert
Introduction: I received the following email the other day (well, actually it was the other month, as we’re still on blog-delay): Dear Prof. Andrew Gelman, The ** Broadcasting Authority, together with ** – a well-established production company, are producing a documentary about Freud. The documentary presents different points of view regarding Freud’s personality and theories. At this stage of the production we are mainly interested in views regarding the influence Freud / Freudism / Psychoanalysis have on our culture – whether positive or negative. We are addressing the effect Freud and/or analysis left on the culture regarding morality, the law system, therapy, art, consumerism, films, etc. We would like to interview you on your point of view regarding Freud’s mark on humanity in regard to the Economy. Once you respond favorably we can proceed and precisely define the topics of the talk. The shooting in NYC is on May 27th and should not demand more than one hour of your time. We’ll app
4 0.73521221 668 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-19-The free cup and the extra dollar: A speculation in philosophy
Introduction: The following is an essay into a topic I know next to nothing about. As part of our endless discussion of Dilbert and Charlie Sheen, commenter Fraac linked to a blog by philosopher Edouard Machery, who tells a fascinating story : How do we think about the intentional nature of actions? And how do people with an impaired mindreading capacity think about it? Consider the following probes: The Free-Cup Case Joe was feeling quite dehydrated, so he stopped by the local smoothie shop to buy the largest sized drink available. Before ordering, the cashier told him that if he bought a Mega-Sized Smoothie he would get it in a special commemorative cup. Joe replied, ‘I don’t care about a commemorative cup, I just want the biggest smoothie you have.’ Sure enough, Joe received the Mega-Sized Smoothie in a commemorative cup. Did Joe intentionally obtain the commemorative cup? The Extra-Dollar Case Joe was feeling quite dehydrated, so he stopped by the local smoothie shop to buy
5 0.72261125 713 andrew gelman stats-2011-05-15-1-2 social scientist + 1-2 politician = ???
Introduction: A couple things in this interview by Andrew Goldman of Larry Summers currently irritated me. I’ll give the quotes and then explain my annoyance. 1. Goldman: What would the economy look like now if $1.2 trillion had been spent? Summers: I think it’s an artificial question because there would have been all kinds of problems in actually moving $1.2 trillion dollars through the system — finding enough bridge projects that were ready to go and the like. But the recovery probably would have proceeded more rapidly if the fiscal program had been larger. . . . 2. Goldman: You’re aware of — and were making light of — the fact that you occasionally rub people the wrong way. Summers: In meetings, I’m more focused on trying to figure out what the right answer is than making everybody feel validated. In Washington and at Harvard, that sometimes rubs people the wrong way. OK, now my reactions: 1. Not enough bridge projects, huh? I don’t believe it. We’ve been hearing fo
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Introduction: Marc Tanguay writes in with a specific question that has a very general answer. First, the question: I [Tanguay] am currently running a MCMC for which I have 3 parameters that are restricted to a specific space. 2 are bounded between 0 and 1 while the third is binary and updated by a Beta-Binomial. Since my priors are also bounded, I notice that, conditional on All the rest (which covers both data and other parameters), the density was not varying a lot within the space of the parameters. As a result, the acceptance rate is high, about 85%, and this despite the fact that all the parameter’s space is explore. Since in your book, the optimal acceptance rates prescribed are lower that 50% (in case of multiple parameters), do you think I should worry about getting 85%. Or is this normal given the restrictions on the parameters? First off: Yes, my guess is that you should be taking bigger jumps. 85% seems like too high an acceptance rate for Metropolis jumping. More generally, t
same-blog 2 0.89408302 221 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-21-Busted!
Introduction: I’m just glad that universities don’t sanction professors for publishing false theorems. If the guy really is nailed by the feds for fraud, I hope they don’t throw him in prison. In general, prison time seems like a brutal, expensive, and inefficient way to punish people. I’d prefer if the government just took 95% of his salary for several years, made him do community service (cleaning equipment at the local sewage treatment plant, perhaps; a lab scientist should be good at this sort of thing, no?), etc. If restriction of this dude’s personal freedom is judged be part of the sentence, he could be given some sort of electronic tag that would send a message to the police if he were ever more than 3 miles from his home. But no need to bill the taxpayers for the cost of keeping him in prison.
3 0.86393249 1710 andrew gelman stats-2013-02-06-The new Stan 1.1.1, featuring Gaussian processes!
Introduction: We just released Stan 1.1.1 and RStan 1.1.1 As usual, you can find download and install instructions at: http://mc-stan.org/ This is a patch release and is fully backward compatible with Stan and RStan 1.1.0. The main thing you should notice is that the multivariate models should be much faster and all the bugs reported for 1.1.0 have been fixed. We’ve also added a bit more functionality. The substantial changes are listed in the following release notes. v1.1.1 (5 February 2012) ====================================================================== Bug Fixes ———————————- * fixed bug in comparison operators, which swapped operator< with operator<= and swapped operator> with operator>= semantics * auto-initialize all variables to prevent segfaults * atan2 gradient propagation fixed * fixed off-by-one in NUTS treedepth bound so NUTS goes at most to specified tree depth rather than specified depth + 1 * various compiler compatibility and minor consistency issues * f
4 0.84752691 1638 andrew gelman stats-2012-12-25-Diving chess
Introduction: Knowing of my interest in Turing run-around-the-house chess , David Lockhart points me to this : Diving Chess is a chess variant, which is played in a swimming pool. Instead of using chess clocks, each player must submerge themselves underwater during their turn, only to resurface when they are ready to make a move. Players must make a move within 5 seconds of resurfacing (they will receive a warning if not, and three warnings will result in a forfeit). Diving Chess was invented by American Chess Master Etan Ilfeld; the very first exhibition game took place between Ilfeld and former British Chess Champion William Hartston at the Thirdspace gym in Soho on August 2nd, 2011. Hartston won the match which lasted almost two hours such that each player was underwater for an entire hour.
Introduction: Paul Alper writes: You recently posted on graphs and how to convey information. I don’t believe you have ever posted anything on this dynamite randomized clinical trial of 90,000 (!!) 40-59 year-old women over a 25-year period (also !!). The graphs below are figures 2, 3 and 4 respectively, of http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g366 The control was physical exam only and the treatment was physical exam plus mammography. The graph clearly shows that mammography adds virtually nothing to survival and if anything, decreases survival (and increases cost and provides unnecessary treatment). Note the superfluousness of the p-values. There is an accompanying editorial in the BMJ http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g1403 which refers to “vested interests” which can override any statistics, no matter how striking: We agree with Miller and colleagues that “the rationale for screening by mammography be urgently reassessed by policy makers.” As time goes
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