andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-539 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: This post is by Phil Price. We’re all used to distortions and misleading statements in political discourse — the use of these methods one thing on which politicians are fairly nonpartisan. But I think it’s rare to see an outright lie, especially about a really major issue. We had a doozy yesterday, when Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann presented a graphic that attributed the 2009 federal budget to the Obama administration. Oddly, most of the other facts and figures she presented were correct, although some of them seem calculatedly misleading. If you’re going to lie about something really big, why not just lie about everything?
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1 We’re all used to distortions and misleading statements in political discourse — the use of these methods one thing on which politicians are fairly nonpartisan. [sent-2, score-1.1]
2 But I think it’s rare to see an outright lie, especially about a really major issue. [sent-3, score-0.669]
3 We had a doozy yesterday, when Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann presented a graphic that attributed the 2009 federal budget to the Obama administration. [sent-4, score-1.122]
4 Oddly, most of the other facts and figures she presented were correct, although some of them seem calculatedly misleading. [sent-5, score-0.669]
5 If you’re going to lie about something really big, why not just lie about everything? [sent-6, score-1.232]
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same-blog 1 0.99999988 539 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-26-Lies, Damn Lies…that’s pretty much it.
Introduction: This post is by Phil Price. We’re all used to distortions and misleading statements in political discourse — the use of these methods one thing on which politicians are fairly nonpartisan. But I think it’s rare to see an outright lie, especially about a really major issue. We had a doozy yesterday, when Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann presented a graphic that attributed the 2009 federal budget to the Obama administration. Oddly, most of the other facts and figures she presented were correct, although some of them seem calculatedly misleading. If you’re going to lie about something really big, why not just lie about everything?
Introduction: Remember How to Lie With Statistics? It turns out that the author worked for the cigarette companies. John Mashey points to this, from Robert Proctor’s book, “Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition”: Darrell Huff, author of the wildly popular (and aptly named) How to Lie With Statistics, was paid to testify before Congress in the 1950s and then again in the 1960s, with the assigned task of ridiculing any notion of a cigarette-disease link. On March 22, 1965, Huff testified at hearings on cigarette labeling and advertising, accusing the recent Surgeon General’s report of myriad failures and “fallacies.” Huff peppered his attack with with amusing asides and anecdotes, lampooning spurious correlations like that between the size of Dutch families and the number of storks nesting on rooftops–which proves not that storks bring babies but rather that people with large families tend to have larger houses (which therefore attract more storks).
Introduction: This post is by Phil Price. A paper by Wood, Douglas, and Sutton looks at “Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories.” Unfortunately the subjects were 140 undergraduate psychology students, so one wonders how general the results are. I found this sort of arresting: In Study 1 (n=137), the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed she was murdered. In Study 2 (n=102), the more participants believed that Osama Bin Laden was already dead when U.S. Special Forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive. As the article says, “conspiracy advocates’ distrust of official narratives may be so strong that many alternative theories are simultaneously endorsed in spite of any contradictions between them.” But I think the authors overstate things when they say “One would think that there ought to be a negative correlation between beliefs in contradictory accounts of events — the more one believes in
4 0.10544872 645 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-04-Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?
Introduction: We all have opinions about the federal budget and how it should be spent. Infrequently, those opinions are informed by some knowledge about where the money actually goes. It turns out that most people don’t have a clue. What about you? Here, take this poll/quiz and then compare your answers to (1) what other people said, in a CNN poll that asked about these same items and (2) compare your answers to the real answers. Quiz is below the fold. The questions below are from a CNN poll. ======== Think about all the money that the federal government spent last year. I’m going to name a few federal programs and for each one, I’d like you to estimate what percentage of the federal government’s budget last year was spent on each of those programs. Medicare — the federal health program for the elderly Medicaid — the federal health program for the poor Social Security Military spending by the Department of Defense Aid to foreign countries for international development
5 0.098784618 81 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-12-Reputational Capital and Incentives in Organizations
Introduction: Rajiv Sethi offers a fascinating discussion of the incentives involved in paying people zillions of dollars to lie, cheat, and steal. I’d been aware for a long time of the general problem of the system of one-way bets in which purported risk-takers can make huge fortunes with little personal risks, but Rajiv and his commenters go further by getting into the specifics of management at financial firms.
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11 0.080685735 832 andrew gelman stats-2011-07-31-Even a good data display can sometimes be improved
12 0.077523112 681 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-26-Worst statistical graphic I have seen this year
13 0.076143481 1667 andrew gelman stats-2013-01-10-When you SHARE poorly researched infographics…
14 0.074625678 588 andrew gelman stats-2011-02-24-In case you were wondering, here’s the price of milk
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16 0.071429484 2111 andrew gelman stats-2013-11-23-Tables > figures yet again
17 0.070011623 1884 andrew gelman stats-2013-06-05-A story of fake-data checking being used to shoot down a flawed analysis at the Farm Credit Agency
18 0.06991826 219 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-20-Some things are just really hard to believe: more on choosing your facts.
19 0.06918972 545 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-30-New innovations in spam
20 0.069016263 1562 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-05-Let’s try this: Instead of saying, “The probability is 75%,” say “There’s a 25% chance I’m wrong”
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same-blog 1 0.92377466 539 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-26-Lies, Damn Lies…that’s pretty much it.
Introduction: This post is by Phil Price. We’re all used to distortions and misleading statements in political discourse — the use of these methods one thing on which politicians are fairly nonpartisan. But I think it’s rare to see an outright lie, especially about a really major issue. We had a doozy yesterday, when Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann presented a graphic that attributed the 2009 federal budget to the Obama administration. Oddly, most of the other facts and figures she presented were correct, although some of them seem calculatedly misleading. If you’re going to lie about something really big, why not just lie about everything?
2 0.74252325 130 andrew gelman stats-2010-07-07-A False Consensus about Public Opinion on Torture
Introduction: John Sides reports on this finding by Paul Gronke, Darius Rejali, Dustin Drenguis, James Hicks, Peter Miller, and Bryan Nakayama, from a survey in 2008:: Gronke et al. write (as excerpted by Sides): Many journalists and politicians believe that during the Bush administration, a majority of Americans supported torture if they were assured that it would prevent a terrorist attack….But this view was a misperception…we show here that a majority of Americans were opposed to torture throughout the Bush presidency…even when respondents were asked about an imminent terrorist attack, even when enhanced interrogation techniques were not called torture, and even when Americans were assured that torture would work to get crucial information. Opposition to torture remained stable and consistent during the entire Bush presidency. Gronke et al. attribute confusion of beliefs to the so-called false consensus effect studied by cognitive psychologists, in which people tend to assume th
3 0.71409005 521 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-17-“the Tea Party’s ire, directed at Democrats and Republicans alike”
Introduction: Mark Lilla recalls some recent Barack Obama quotes and then writes : If this is the way the president and his party think about human psychology, it’s little wonder they’ve taken such a beating. In the spirit of that old line, “That and $4.95 will get you a tall latte,” let me agree with Lilla and attribute the Democrats’ losses in 2010 to the following three factors: 1. A poor understanding of human psychology; 2. The Democrats holding unified control of the presidency and congress with a large majority in both houses (factors that are historically associated with big midterm losses); and 3. A terrible economy. I will let you, the readers, make your best guesses as to the relative importance of factors 1, 2, and 3 above. Don’t get me wrong: I think psychology is important, as is the history of ideas (the main subject of Lilla’s article), and I’d hope that Obama (and also his colleagues in both parties in congress) can become better acquainted with psychology, moti
4 0.70893842 84 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-14-Is it 1930?
Introduction: Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute reports: Goldman Sachs’ latest forecast (and they’ve been pretty accurate so far) is that unemployment will rise to 9.9% by early 2011 and trend down to 9.7% for the last quarter of 2011. Obviously, this is a simply awful scenario but it seems one that is being accepted. That is, we seem to be in the process of accepting the unacceptable. Note that this scenario probably assumes the passage of the limited efforts now being considered in Congress. One might be surprised that Obama and congressional Democrats are not doing more to try to bring unemployment down. On the other hand, just to speak in generalities (not knowing any of the people involved), I would think that Obama would be much much more worried about the economy doing well in 2010 and then crashing in 2012. A crappy economy through 2011 and then improvement in 2012–that would be his ideal, no? Not that he would have the ability to time this sort of thing. But perhap
Introduction: Dear Reuters editor: Thanks for reading my blog and correcting the erroneous numbers in Easterbrook’s column from the other day. I’m pretty sure you got the corrections from my blog because in your corrections you used the exact same links that I posted. I think your readers will like that you gave links to the sources of your numbers. But I’d appreciate if you cite me! It’s considered polite to credit your sources rather than just copying over numbers and links with no mention of where they came from. Unlike Easterbrook, I’m not expecting to be paid for this material but I’d still like to be thanked. (See the last paragraph of this post by Felix Salmon for more on the desirability of linking to your sources.) Also, since you’re correcting the article anyway, maybe you could go back and change this sentence too: But don’t sell Huntsman short because he is low in the polls – Obama had been at that point, too. As I noted earlier, As of 14 Oct 2011, Gallup gi
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11 0.67486233 967 andrew gelman stats-2011-10-20-Picking on Gregg Easterbrook
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14 0.65701914 551 andrew gelman stats-2011-02-02-Obama and Reagan, sitting in a tree, etc.
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17 0.64792365 1574 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-12-How to Lie With Statistics example number 12,498,122
18 0.64762396 654 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-09-There’s no evidence that voters choose presidential candidates based on their looks
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20 0.64339858 1083 andrew gelman stats-2011-12-26-The quals and the quants
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1 0.93481266 1778 andrew gelman stats-2013-03-27-My talk at the University of Michigan today 4pm
Introduction: Causality and Statistical Learning Andrew Gelman, Statistics and Political Science, Columbia University Wed 27 Mar, 4pm, Betty Ford Auditorium, Ford School of Public Policy Causal inference is central to the social and biomedical sciences. There are unresolved debates about the meaning of causality and the methods that should be used to measure it. As a statistician, I am trained to say that randomized experiments are a gold standard, yet I have spent almost all my applied career analyzing observational data. In this talk we shall consider various approaches to causal reasoning from the perspective of an applied statistician who recognizes the importance of causal identification yet must learn from available information. Two relevant papers are here and here .
2 0.92020285 1127 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-18-The Fixie Bike Index
Introduction: Where are the fixed-gear bike riders? Rohin Dhar explains : At Priceonomics, in order to build our bicycle price guide, we measure what kind of used bikes people are trying to sell and the quantity sold in any city. By mining our database of 1.3 million bicycle listings, we can tell what are the largest markets for used bicycles, how the prices vary by region, and where people who prize fixed gear bikes live. Fixies (fixed gear bikes) are considered to be a strong indicator of hipsterness. For those unfamiliar, a fixed gear bike requires riding in a single gear and the only way to stop the bike is to pedal backwards to help skid the bike to a halt. You can’t “coast” on a fixie; when you are biking downhill, your pedals will keep moving so you better keep pedaling too. Because of the minimalism of this fixed gear system, the bikes tend to be aesthetically pleasing but somewhat challenging to ride. . . . In short, fixed gear bikes = hipsters, and New York boroug
3 0.88274455 1391 andrew gelman stats-2012-06-25-A question about the Tiger Mom: what if she’d had boys instead of girls?
Introduction: I was just thinking about that Yale professor who wrote that book, remember , she screamed at her daughters all the time and didn’t let them go the bathroom while they were practicing piano (violin?), Asian parenting-style etc etc. I was just wondering . . . what if she’d had sons rather than daughters? What are the rules? Would bringing up boys be the job of mellow white dad rather than intense Asian mom? If mom were still in charge, would the boys be doing piano, or something else like hockey? Tiger Mom seems to be into traditional values so I’m assuming she’d want her kids doing something sex-stereotyped? But sports would be tough, her (hypothetical) boys would have to compete with big strong athletes and would be less likely to be winners so then she couldn’t brag about her amazing parenting skills. I really don’t know the answer to this one. Maybe some of our readers who are Yale law professors can enlighten us?
Introduction: Xian pointed me to this recycling of a classic probability error. It’s too bad it was in the New York Times, but at least it was in the Opinion Pages, so I guess that’s not so bad. And, on the plus side, several of the blog commenters got the point. What I was wondering, though, was who was this “Yitzhak Melechson, a statistics professor at the University of Tel Aviv”? This is such a standard problem, I’m surprised to find a statistics professor making this mistake. I was curious what his area of research is and where he was trained. I started by googling Yitzhak Melechson but all I could find was this news story, over and over and over and over again. Then I found Tel Aviv University and navigated to its statistics department but couldn’t find any Melechson in the faculty list. Next stop: entering Melechson in the search engine at the Tel Aviv University website. It came up blank. One last try: I entered the Yitzhak Melechson into Google Scholar. Here’s what came up:
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Introduction: This post is by Phil Price. We’re all used to distortions and misleading statements in political discourse — the use of these methods one thing on which politicians are fairly nonpartisan. But I think it’s rare to see an outright lie, especially about a really major issue. We had a doozy yesterday, when Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann presented a graphic that attributed the 2009 federal budget to the Obama administration. Oddly, most of the other facts and figures she presented were correct, although some of them seem calculatedly misleading. If you’re going to lie about something really big, why not just lie about everything?
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