andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-698 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Much-honored playwright Tony Kushner was set to receive one more honor–a degree from John Jay College–but it was suddenly taken away from him on an 11-1 vote of the trustees of the City University of New York. This was the first rejection of an honorary degree nomination since 1961. The news article focuses on one trustee, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, an investment adviser and onetime political aide, who opposed Kushner’s honorary degree, but to me the relevant point is that the committee as a whole voted 11-1 to ding him. Kusnher said, “I’m sickened,” he added, “that this is happening in New York City. Shocked, really.” I can see why he’s shocked, but perhaps it’s not so surprising that it’s happening in NYC. Recall the famous incident from 1940 in which Bertrand Russell was invited and then uninvited to teach at City College. The problem that time was Russell’s views on free love (as they called it back then). There seems to be a long tradition of city college officials being will
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1 Much-honored playwright Tony Kushner was set to receive one more honor–a degree from John Jay College–but it was suddenly taken away from him on an 11-1 vote of the trustees of the City University of New York. [sent-1, score-0.883]
2 This was the first rejection of an honorary degree nomination since 1961. [sent-2, score-0.73]
3 The news article focuses on one trustee, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, an investment adviser and onetime political aide, who opposed Kushner’s honorary degree, but to me the relevant point is that the committee as a whole voted 11-1 to ding him. [sent-3, score-0.83]
4 Kusnher said, “I’m sickened,” he added, “that this is happening in New York City. [sent-4, score-0.131]
5 ” I can see why he’s shocked, but perhaps it’s not so surprising that it’s happening in NYC. [sent-6, score-0.202]
6 Recall the famous incident from 1940 in which Bertrand Russell was invited and then uninvited to teach at City College. [sent-7, score-0.248]
7 There seems to be a long tradition of city college officials being willing to risk controversy to make a political point. [sent-9, score-0.633]
8 I was trying to imagine what these 11 trustees could’ve been thinking . [sent-12, score-0.275]
9 They started talking about it and convinced each other that the best thing to do would be to set Kushner’s nomination aside. [sent-16, score-0.34]
10 I bet if they’d had to decide separately most of them wouldn’t have come to this conclusion. [sent-17, score-0.233]
11 And I wouldn’t be surprised if, five minutes after walking away from that meeting, most of those board members suddenly thought, Uh oh–we screwed up on this one! [sent-18, score-0.536]
12 As cognitive psychologists have found, this is one of the problems with small-group deliberation: a group of people can be led to a decision which is not anywhere near the center of their positions considered separately. [sent-19, score-0.293]
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Introduction: Much-honored playwright Tony Kushner was set to receive one more honor–a degree from John Jay College–but it was suddenly taken away from him on an 11-1 vote of the trustees of the City University of New York. This was the first rejection of an honorary degree nomination since 1961. The news article focuses on one trustee, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, an investment adviser and onetime political aide, who opposed Kushner’s honorary degree, but to me the relevant point is that the committee as a whole voted 11-1 to ding him. Kusnher said, “I’m sickened,” he added, “that this is happening in New York City. Shocked, really.” I can see why he’s shocked, but perhaps it’s not so surprising that it’s happening in NYC. Recall the famous incident from 1940 in which Bertrand Russell was invited and then uninvited to teach at City College. The problem that time was Russell’s views on free love (as they called it back then). There seems to be a long tradition of city college officials being will
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Introduction: In a single day, New York City obtained two data analysis/statistics/machine learning organizations: Microsoft Research New York City with John Langford (machine learning), Duncan Watts (networks), and Dave Pennock (algorithmic economics). eBay technology center focusing on data – led by Chris Dixon , the co-founder of the recommendation engine company Hunch, which has recently been acquired by eBay. New York already has Facebook’s engineering unit , Twitter’s East Coast headquarters , and Google’s second-largest engineering office. The data community here is on an upswing, and it might be one of the best places to be if you’re into applied statistics, machine learning or data analysis. Post by Aleks Jakulin . P.S. (from Andrew): The formerly-Yahoo-now-Microsoft researchers have a more-or-less formal connection to Columbia, through the Applied Statistics Center, where some of them will be organizing occasional mini-conferences and workshops!
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Introduction: Much-honored playwright Tony Kushner was set to receive one more honor–a degree from John Jay College–but it was suddenly taken away from him on an 11-1 vote of the trustees of the City University of New York. This was the first rejection of an honorary degree nomination since 1961. The news article focuses on one trustee, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, an investment adviser and onetime political aide, who opposed Kushner’s honorary degree, but to me the relevant point is that the committee as a whole voted 11-1 to ding him. Kusnher said, “I’m sickened,” he added, “that this is happening in New York City. Shocked, really.” I can see why he’s shocked, but perhaps it’s not so surprising that it’s happening in NYC. Recall the famous incident from 1940 in which Bertrand Russell was invited and then uninvited to teach at City College. The problem that time was Russell’s views on free love (as they called it back then). There seems to be a long tradition of city college officials being will
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