andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-565 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Devah Pager points me to this article by Uri Simonsohn, which begins: Three articles published [by Brett Pelham et al.] have shown that a disproportionate share of people choose spouses, places to live, and occupations with names similar to their own. These findings, interpreted as evidence of implicit egotism, are included in most modern social psychology textbooks and many university courses. The current article successfully replicates the original findings but shows that they are most likely caused by a combination of cohort, geographic, and ethnic confounds as well as reverse causality. From Simonsohn’s article, here’s a handy summary of the claims and the evidence (click on it to enlarge): The Pelham et al. articles have come up several times on the blog, starting with this discussion and this estimate and then more recently here . I’m curious what Pelham and his collaborators think of Simonsohn’s claims.
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1 Devah Pager points me to this article by Uri Simonsohn, which begins: Three articles published [by Brett Pelham et al. [sent-1, score-0.386]
2 ] have shown that a disproportionate share of people choose spouses, places to live, and occupations with names similar to their own. [sent-2, score-0.777]
3 These findings, interpreted as evidence of implicit egotism, are included in most modern social psychology textbooks and many university courses. [sent-3, score-0.725]
4 The current article successfully replicates the original findings but shows that they are most likely caused by a combination of cohort, geographic, and ethnic confounds as well as reverse causality. [sent-4, score-1.292]
5 From Simonsohn’s article, here’s a handy summary of the claims and the evidence (click on it to enlarge): The Pelham et al. [sent-5, score-0.607]
6 articles have come up several times on the blog, starting with this discussion and this estimate and then more recently here . [sent-6, score-0.215]
7 I’m curious what Pelham and his collaborators think of Simonsohn’s claims. [sent-7, score-0.2]
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same-blog 1 0.99999988 565 andrew gelman stats-2011-02-09-Dennis the dentist, debunked?
Introduction: Devah Pager points me to this article by Uri Simonsohn, which begins: Three articles published [by Brett Pelham et al.] have shown that a disproportionate share of people choose spouses, places to live, and occupations with names similar to their own. These findings, interpreted as evidence of implicit egotism, are included in most modern social psychology textbooks and many university courses. The current article successfully replicates the original findings but shows that they are most likely caused by a combination of cohort, geographic, and ethnic confounds as well as reverse causality. From Simonsohn’s article, here’s a handy summary of the claims and the evidence (click on it to enlarge): The Pelham et al. articles have come up several times on the blog, starting with this discussion and this estimate and then more recently here . I’m curious what Pelham and his collaborators think of Simonsohn’s claims.
2 0.78529006 2166 andrew gelman stats-2014-01-10-3 years out of date on the whole Dennis the dentist thing!
Introduction: Paging Uri Simonsohn . . . January 2014: Alice Robb writes , completely uncritically: “If Your Name is Dennis, You’re More Likely to Become a Dentist The strange science of how names shape careers.” But look what you can learn from a quick google: Hmmmm, maybe worth following up on that second link . . . More details here , from 2011: Devah Pager points me to this article by Uri Simonsohn, which begins: Three articles published [by Brett Pelham et al.] have shown that a disproportionate share of people choose spouses, places to live, and occupations with names similar to their own. These findings, interpreted as evidence of implicit egotism, are included in most modern social psychology textbooks and many university courses. The current article successfully replicates the original findings but shows that they are most likely caused by a combination of cohort, geographic, and ethnic confounds as well as reverse causality. From Simonsohn’s article, here’s a han
3 0.15616733 629 andrew gelman stats-2011-03-26-Is it plausible that 1% of people pick a career based on their first name?
Introduction: In my discussion of dentists-named-Dennis study, I referred to my back-of-the-envelope calculation that the effect (if it indeed exists) corresponds to an approximate 1% aggregate chance that you’ll pick a profession based on your first name. Even if there are nearly twice as many dentist Dennises as would be expected from chance alone, the base rate is so low that a shift of 1% of all Dennises would be enough to do this. My point was that (a) even a small effect could show up when looking at low-frequency events such as the choice to pick a particular career or live in a particular city, and (b) any small effects will inherently be difficult to detect in any direct way. Uri Simonsohn (the author of the recent rebuttal of the original name-choice article by Brett Pelham et al.) wrote: In terms of the effect size. I [Simonsohn] think of it differently and see it as too big to be believable. I don’t find it plausible that I can double the odds that my daughter will marry an
4 0.13413174 797 andrew gelman stats-2011-07-11-How do we evaluate a new and wacky claim?
Introduction: Around these parts we see a continuing flow of unusual claims supported by some statistical evidence. The claims are varyingly plausible a priori. Some examples (I won’t bother to supply the links; regular readers will remember these examples and newcomers can find them by searching): - Obesity is contagious - People’s names affect where they live, what jobs they take, etc. - Beautiful people are more likely to have girl babies - More attractive instructors have higher teaching evaluations - In a basketball game, it’s better to be behind by a point at halftime than to be ahead by a point - Praying for someone without their knowledge improves their recovery from heart attacks - A variety of claims about ESP How should we think about these claims? The usual approach is to evaluate the statistical evidence–in particular, to look for reasons that the claimed results are not really statistically significant. If nobody can shoot down a claim, it survives. The other part of th
5 0.12538873 1603 andrew gelman stats-2012-12-03-Somebody listened to me!
Introduction: Several months ago, I wrote : One challenge, though, is that uncovering the problem [of scientific fraud] and forcing the retraction is a near-thankless job. That’s one reason I don’t mind if Uri Simonsohn is treated as some sort of hero or superstar for uncovering multiple cases of research fraud. Some people might feel there’s something unseemly about Simonsohn doing this . . . OK, fine, but let’s talk incentives. If retractions are a good thing, and fraudsters and plagiarists are not generally going to retract on their own, then somebody’s going to have to do the hard work of discovering, exposing, and confronting scholarly misconduct. If these discoverers, exposers, and confronters are going to be attacked back by their targets (which would be natural enough) and they’re going to be attacked by the fraudsters’ friends and colleagues (also natural) and even have their work disparaged by outsiders who think they’re going too far, then, hey, they need some incentives in the othe
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same-blog 1 0.96496457 565 andrew gelman stats-2011-02-09-Dennis the dentist, debunked?
Introduction: Devah Pager points me to this article by Uri Simonsohn, which begins: Three articles published [by Brett Pelham et al.] have shown that a disproportionate share of people choose spouses, places to live, and occupations with names similar to their own. These findings, interpreted as evidence of implicit egotism, are included in most modern social psychology textbooks and many university courses. The current article successfully replicates the original findings but shows that they are most likely caused by a combination of cohort, geographic, and ethnic confounds as well as reverse causality. From Simonsohn’s article, here’s a handy summary of the claims and the evidence (click on it to enlarge): The Pelham et al. articles have come up several times on the blog, starting with this discussion and this estimate and then more recently here . I’m curious what Pelham and his collaborators think of Simonsohn’s claims.
2 0.91207331 2166 andrew gelman stats-2014-01-10-3 years out of date on the whole Dennis the dentist thing!
Introduction: Paging Uri Simonsohn . . . January 2014: Alice Robb writes , completely uncritically: “If Your Name is Dennis, You’re More Likely to Become a Dentist The strange science of how names shape careers.” But look what you can learn from a quick google: Hmmmm, maybe worth following up on that second link . . . More details here , from 2011: Devah Pager points me to this article by Uri Simonsohn, which begins: Three articles published [by Brett Pelham et al.] have shown that a disproportionate share of people choose spouses, places to live, and occupations with names similar to their own. These findings, interpreted as evidence of implicit egotism, are included in most modern social psychology textbooks and many university courses. The current article successfully replicates the original findings but shows that they are most likely caused by a combination of cohort, geographic, and ethnic confounds as well as reverse causality. From Simonsohn’s article, here’s a han
Introduction: Are women three times more likely to wear red or pink when they are most fertile? No, probably not. But here’s how hardworking researchers, prestigious scientific journals, and gullible journalists have been fooled into believing so. The paper I’ll be talking about appeared online this month in Psychological Science, the flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science, which represents the serious, research-focused (as opposed to therapeutic) end of the psychology profession. . . . In focusing on this (literally) colorful example, I don’t mean to be singling out this particular research team for following what are, unfortunately, standard practices in experimental research. Indeed, that this article was published in a leading journal is evidence that its statistical methods were considered acceptable. Statistics textbooks do warn against multiple comparisons, but there is a tendency for researchers to consider any given comparison alone without considering it as one o
4 0.59905899 762 andrew gelman stats-2011-06-13-How should journals handle replication studies?
Introduction: Sanjay Srivastava reports : Recently Ben Goldacre wrote about a group of researchers (Stuart Ritchie, Chris French, and Richard Wiseman) whose null replication of 3 experiments from the infamous Bem ESP paper was rejected by JPSP – the same journal that published Bem’s paper. Srivastava recognizes that JPSP does not usually publish replications but this is a different story because it’s an anti-replication. Here’s the paradox: - From a scientific point of view, the Ritchie et al. results are boring. To find out that there’s no evidence for ESP . . . that adds essentially zero to our scientific understanding. What next, a paper demonstrating that pigeons can fly higher than chickens? Maybe an article in the Journal of the Materials Research Society demonstrating that diamonds can scratch marble but not the reverse?? - But from a science-communication perspective, the null replication is a big deal because it adds credence to my hypothesis that the earlier ESP claims
5 0.59525728 2196 andrew gelman stats-2014-02-03-One-way street fallacy again! in reporting of research on brothers and sisters
Introduction: There’s something satisfying about seeing the same error being made by commentators on the left and the right. In this case, we’re talking about the one-way street fallacy , which is the implicit assumption of unidirectionality in a setting that actually has underlying symmetry. 1. A month or so ago we reported on an op-ed by conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who was discussing recent research exemplified by the headline, “Study: Having daughters makes parents more likely to be Republican.” Douthat wrote all about different effects of having girls, without realizing that the study was comparing parents of girls to parents of boys. He just as well could have talked about the effects of having sons, and how that is associated with voting for Democrats (according to the study). But he did not do so; he was implicitly considering boy children to be the default. 2. A couple days ago, liberal NYT columnist Charles Blow ( link from commenter Steve Sailer) repo
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same-blog 1 0.93723023 565 andrew gelman stats-2011-02-09-Dennis the dentist, debunked?
Introduction: Devah Pager points me to this article by Uri Simonsohn, which begins: Three articles published [by Brett Pelham et al.] have shown that a disproportionate share of people choose spouses, places to live, and occupations with names similar to their own. These findings, interpreted as evidence of implicit egotism, are included in most modern social psychology textbooks and many university courses. The current article successfully replicates the original findings but shows that they are most likely caused by a combination of cohort, geographic, and ethnic confounds as well as reverse causality. From Simonsohn’s article, here’s a handy summary of the claims and the evidence (click on it to enlarge): The Pelham et al. articles have come up several times on the blog, starting with this discussion and this estimate and then more recently here . I’m curious what Pelham and his collaborators think of Simonsohn’s claims.
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Introduction: 1. New Italian production of Life on Mars . 2. Psychological essentialism in everyday thought .
3 0.8327257 2166 andrew gelman stats-2014-01-10-3 years out of date on the whole Dennis the dentist thing!
Introduction: Paging Uri Simonsohn . . . January 2014: Alice Robb writes , completely uncritically: “If Your Name is Dennis, You’re More Likely to Become a Dentist The strange science of how names shape careers.” But look what you can learn from a quick google: Hmmmm, maybe worth following up on that second link . . . More details here , from 2011: Devah Pager points me to this article by Uri Simonsohn, which begins: Three articles published [by Brett Pelham et al.] have shown that a disproportionate share of people choose spouses, places to live, and occupations with names similar to their own. These findings, interpreted as evidence of implicit egotism, are included in most modern social psychology textbooks and many university courses. The current article successfully replicates the original findings but shows that they are most likely caused by a combination of cohort, geographic, and ethnic confounds as well as reverse causality. From Simonsohn’s article, here’s a han
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Introduction: Join Dirk Eddelbuettel for six hours of detailed and hands-on instructions and discussions around Rcpp, RInside, RcppArmadillo, RcppGSL and other packages . . . Rcpp has become the most widely-used language extension for R. Currently deployed by 103 CRAN packages and a further 10 BioConductor packages, it permits users and developers to pass “whole R objects” with ease between R and C++ . . . Morning session: “A Hands-on Introduction to R and C++” . . . Afternoon session: “Advanced R and C++ Topics” . . .
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Introduction: Peter Woit links to Steve Hsu linking to a 1977 interview by Katherine Sopka of physics professor Sidney Coleman. I don’t know anything about Coleman’s research but the interview caught my eye because one of my roommates in grad school was one of Coleman’s advisees. Anyway, here’s the key bit from the interview: Sopka: But you do enjoy working with students or do you? Coleman: No. I hate it. You do it as part of the job. Well, that’s of course false…or maybe more true than false when I say I hate it. Occasionally there’s a student who is a joy to work with. But I certainly would be just as happy if I had no graduate students… Sopka: I guess your remark means then that you would like to avoid teaching undergraduate courses or even required graduate courses… Coleman: Or even special topics courses. Teaching is unpleasant work. No question about it. It has its rewards. One feels happy about having a job well done. Washing the dishes, waxing the floors (things I also
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