andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-868 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: I was thinking a bit more about Jonathan Rauch’s lament about the fading of the buggy-whip industry print journalism, in which he mocks bloggers, analogizes blogging to scribbling with spray paint on the side of a building, and writes that the blogosphere is “the single worst medium for sustained, and therefore grown-up, reading and writing and argumentation ever invented.” Yup. Worse than talk radio. Worse than cave painting. Worse than smoke signals, rock ‘n’ roll lyrics, woodcuts, spray-paint graffiti, and every other medium of communication ever invented. OK, he didn’t really mean it. Rauch actually has an ironclad argument here. He’s claiming, in a blog, that blogging is crap. Therefore, if he fills his blog with unsupported exaggerations, that’s fine, as he’s demonstrating that blogging is . . . crap. Not to pile on, but, hey, why not? I was curious what Rauch has blogged on lately, so I googled Jonathan Rauch blog and ended up at this site , which most recently
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 He’s claiming, in a blog, that blogging is crap. [sent-8, score-0.133]
2 Therefore, if he fills his blog with unsupported exaggerations, that’s fine, as he’s demonstrating that blogging is . [sent-9, score-0.385]
3 I was curious what Rauch has blogged on lately, so I googled Jonathan Rauch blog and ended up at this site , which most recently (as of this writing) had this unsupported claim : [In 1980, George H. [sent-14, score-0.261]
4 In any case, I find it extremely implausible that Bush would’ve done so much worse as to actually lose the election. [sent-20, score-0.176]
5 If Rauch wants to make this claim, counter to all the political science I know, he can go for it, but it would be helpful if he would at least realize that he’s making an extremely strong claim in defiance of the literature. [sent-21, score-0.13]
6 Luckily for Rauch, the readers of his blog probably don’t know anything about politics anyway, so they won’t know how foolish his pronouncements are. [sent-27, score-0.158]
7 It’s not like he’s a political journalist writing for respected publications such as the National Journal or the Atlantic, or a scholar at a respected think tank such as the Brookings Institution. [sent-29, score-0.346]
8 It’s a scary day when mere bloggers such as Felix Salmon and Nate Silver garner more respect than credentialed credentialed journalists such as Rauch. [sent-31, score-0.569]
9 It works better when I maintain a cool, tolerant air of detachment and then let the commenters rip into it. [sent-40, score-0.216]
10 Print journalism is polite, online journalism is rude My real point here–which I seem to have inadvertently demonstrated already–is that in one sense I do think Rauch is on to something, a general difference between print and online journalism. [sent-42, score-0.67]
11 My impression is that a lot of online writing is just plain rude. [sent-43, score-0.212]
12 One form of rudeness is what you see above–a blogger heckling a journalist over some little mistake in his writing. [sent-44, score-0.406]
13 Another form of rudeness comes, I believe, from business writing. [sent-45, score-0.212]
14 You see it in various internet gurus such as Seth Godin, Clay Shirky, Philip Greenspun, and Jeff Jarvis–always getting in your face, telling you how everything you thought was true was wrong. [sent-46, score-0.105]
15 (A particularly irritating but readable example is the blogger The Last Psychiatrist . [sent-47, score-0.119]
16 ) I would distinguish this second kind of internet rudeness from mere ranting. [sent-48, score-0.403]
17 ) I vent on occasion, I pontificiate, and sometimes I even rant, but my usual mode of blogging is exploratory. [sent-52, score-0.133]
18 OK, now I think I have it: Journalists tell stories; bloggers rant, hector, and explore. [sent-56, score-0.126]
19 Professional journalism is closed; internet writing is open. [sent-57, score-0.359]
20 An online article can demonstrate certainty–and, when it does, you often get that obnoxious over-certainty of Jarvis/Greenspun/etc–but it can also reflect uncertainty and a search for truth, something you don’t find much in the professional press. [sent-59, score-0.244]
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Introduction: I was thinking a bit more about Jonathan Rauch’s lament about the fading of the buggy-whip industry print journalism, in which he mocks bloggers, analogizes blogging to scribbling with spray paint on the side of a building, and writes that the blogosphere is “the single worst medium for sustained, and therefore grown-up, reading and writing and argumentation ever invented.” Yup. Worse than talk radio. Worse than cave painting. Worse than smoke signals, rock ‘n’ roll lyrics, woodcuts, spray-paint graffiti, and every other medium of communication ever invented. OK, he didn’t really mean it. Rauch actually has an ironclad argument here. He’s claiming, in a blog, that blogging is crap. Therefore, if he fills his blog with unsupported exaggerations, that’s fine, as he’s demonstrating that blogging is . . . crap. Not to pile on, but, hey, why not? I was curious what Rauch has blogged on lately, so I googled Jonathan Rauch blog and ended up at this site , which most recently
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Introduction: Journalist Jonathan Rauch writes that the internet is Sturgeon squared: This is the blogosphere. I’m not getting paid to be here. I’m here to get incredibly famous (in my case, even more incredibly famous) so that I can get paid somewhere else. . . . The average quality of newspapers and (published) novels is far, far better than the average quality of blog posts (and–ugh!–comments). This is because people pay for newspapers and novels. What distinguishes newspapers and novels is how much does not get published in them, because people won’t pay for it. Payment is a filter, and a pretty good one. Imperfect, of course. But pointing out the defects of the old model is merely changing the subject if the new model is worse. . . . Yes, the new model is bringing a lot of new content into being. But most of it is bad. And it’s displacing a lot of better content, by destroying the business model for quality. Even in the information economy, there’s no free lunch. . . . Yes, there’s g
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Introduction: Having been annoyed for awhile at those in-your-face internet gurus such as Seth Godin, Clay Shirky, Philip Greenspun, Jeff Jarvis, I was happy to come across this bit of Godin-bashing from Tom Slee. I’m sure Godin has some valuable insights, but I hate that in-your-face style, and I’m glad to see someone go to the trouble of pointing out all the nonsensical bits.
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Introduction: Helen DeWitt links to an interview with Seth Godin, who makes some commonplace but useful observations on jobs and careers. It’s fine, but whenever I read this sort of thing, I get annoyed by the super-aggressive writing style. These internet guys–Seth Godin, Clay Shirky, Philip Greenspun, Jeff Jarvis, and so on–are always getting in your face, telling you how everything you thought was true was wrong. Some of the things these guys say are just silly (for example, Godin’s implication that Bob Dylan is more of a success than the Monkees because Dylan sells more tickets), other times they have interesting insights, but reading any of them for awhile just sets me on edge. I can’t take being shouted at, and I get a little tired of hearing over and over again that various people, industries, etc., are dinosaurs. Where does this aggressive style come from? My guess is that it’s coming from the vast supply of “business books” out there. These are books that are supposed to grab yo
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Introduction: Rajiv Sethi writes : I suspect that within a decade, blogs will be a cornerstone of research in economics. Many original and creative contributions to the discipline will first be communicated to the profession (and the world at large) in the form of blog posts, since the medium allows for material of arbitrary length, depth and complexity. Ideas first expressed in this form will make their way (with suitable attribution) into reading lists, doctoral dissertations and more conventionally refereed academic publications. And blogs will come to play a central role in the process of recruitment, promotion and reward at major research universities. This genie is not going back into its bottle. And he thinks this is a good thing: In fact, the refereeing process for blog posts is in some respects more rigorous than that for journal articles. Reports are numerous, non-anonymous, public, rapidly and efficiently produced, and collaboratively constructed. It is not obvious to me [Sethi]
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Introduction: Even within the realm of writing-about-statistics, there are things I can say in a blog that are much more difficult to include in an academic article. Blogging gives me freedom. But I want to distinguish between two different sorts of frankness. 1. Obnoxiousness: In a blog I can write, “I hate X” as rudely as I’d like without needing to justify myself. 2. Openness: In a blog I can write about the limitations of my work. It’s a real challenge to discuss limitations in a scholarly article, as we’re always looking over our shoulder at what referees might think. Sure, sometimes I can get away with writing “Survey weighting is a mess,” but my impression is that most scholarly articles are relentlessly upbeat. Sort of like how a magazine article typically will have a theme and just plug it over and over. In a blog we can more easily admit uncertainty. Overall, I think blogs are more celebrated for feature 1 above (the freedom to say what you really feel, to be rude, par
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3 0.93600076 651 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-06-My talk at Northwestern University tomorrow (Thursday)
Introduction: Of Beauty, Sex, and Power: Statistical Challenges in Estimating Small Effects. At the Institute of Policy Research, Thurs 7 Apr 2011, 3.30pm . Regular blog readers know all about this topic. ( Here are the slides.) But, rest assured, I don’t just mock. I also offer constructive suggestions. My last talk at Northwestern was fifteen years ago. Actually, I gave two lectures then, in the process of being turned down for a job enjoying their chilly Midwestern hospitality. P.S. I searched on the web and also found this announcement which gives the wrong title.
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