andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-1003 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Felix Salmon relates the story of an economics Nobel Prize winner getting paid by a hedge fund. It would all seems pretty silly—sort of like Coca-Cola featuring Michael Jordan in their ads—except that hedge funds are disreputable nowadays and so it seems vaguely sleazy for a scholar to trade on his academic reputation to make free money in this way. It falls roughly in the same category as that notorious b-school prof in Inside Job who got $125K for writing a b.s. report about the financial stability of Iceland—and then, when they came back to him later and asked how he could’ve written it, he basically said: Hey, I don’t know anything about Iceland, I was just taking their money! That said, if a hedge fund offered me $125K to sit on their board, I’d probably take it! It’s hard to turn down free money. Or maybe not, I don’t really know. So far, when companies have paid me $, it’s been to do something for them, to consult or give a short course. I’d like to think that if
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 Felix Salmon relates the story of an economics Nobel Prize winner getting paid by a hedge fund. [sent-1, score-0.751]
2 It would all seems pretty silly—sort of like Coca-Cola featuring Michael Jordan in their ads—except that hedge funds are disreputable nowadays and so it seems vaguely sleazy for a scholar to trade on his academic reputation to make free money in this way. [sent-2, score-1.455]
3 It falls roughly in the same category as that notorious b-school prof in Inside Job who got $125K for writing a b. [sent-3, score-0.168]
4 report about the financial stability of Iceland—and then, when they came back to him later and asked how he could’ve written it, he basically said: Hey, I don’t know anything about Iceland, I was just taking their money! [sent-5, score-0.183]
5 That said, if a hedge fund offered me $125K to sit on their board, I’d probably take it! [sent-6, score-0.567]
6 So far, when companies have paid me $, it’s been to do something for them, to consult or give a short course. [sent-9, score-0.291]
7 I’d like to think that if someone were merely paying for my name, or paying me to write something on a topic I knew nothing about, that I’d think twice. [sent-10, score-0.306]
8 But I’m not sure: maybe it would be like when Larry Summers gets all that free money —these dudes might be using Summers as advertising, but they’re probably able to flatter him to believe that he is actually offering them $5. [sent-11, score-0.773]
9 Or, to put it another way, if there’s no reason Michael Jordan should feel guilty taking money from Coke and McDonald’s, then should a professor feel guilty for getting paid to inflate Iceland’s bubble? [sent-13, score-1.238]
10 To me it feels different, but, again, I’m not sure how I would behave in such a setting where free $ is being presented to me. [sent-14, score-0.279]
11 I don’t know any of the people mentioned above, nor do I know the stories of any of these consulting gigs. [sent-17, score-0.085]
12 I’m using this as an opportunity for some general speculation, not as any slam on Sargent etc. [sent-18, score-0.085]
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Introduction: Felix Salmon relates the story of an economics Nobel Prize winner getting paid by a hedge fund. It would all seems pretty silly—sort of like Coca-Cola featuring Michael Jordan in their ads—except that hedge funds are disreputable nowadays and so it seems vaguely sleazy for a scholar to trade on his academic reputation to make free money in this way. It falls roughly in the same category as that notorious b-school prof in Inside Job who got $125K for writing a b.s. report about the financial stability of Iceland—and then, when they came back to him later and asked how he could’ve written it, he basically said: Hey, I don’t know anything about Iceland, I was just taking their money! That said, if a hedge fund offered me $125K to sit on their board, I’d probably take it! It’s hard to turn down free money. Or maybe not, I don’t really know. So far, when companies have paid me $, it’s been to do something for them, to consult or give a short course. I’d like to think that if
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3 0.15105823 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
Introduction: There’s this idea called “domain specificity” that I learned from my sister many years ago: it’s the idea that a skill might work in some domains but not others. For example, knowing (some) Spanish helps a bit with my French but it doesn’t do anything for my Chinese. Traditionally in psychometrics, this sort of thing is studied using correlation–scores on various math tests are highly correlated with each other, and these are also correlated (but less so) with scores on English tests. Michael Jordan would probably be good at just about any sport he tried (even if he couldn’t quite hit the curveball). Top actors can typically sing, dance, do magic, etc.–they’re great all-around performers. And so on. I was reminded of domain specificity after reading a blog by Felix Salmon arguing that Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers made big mistakes when they served as Treasury Secretaries during the Clinton administration. Salmon writes: The connection here is a direct one: the singl
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Introduction: Felix Salmon relates the story of an economics Nobel Prize winner getting paid by a hedge fund. It would all seems pretty silly—sort of like Coca-Cola featuring Michael Jordan in their ads—except that hedge funds are disreputable nowadays and so it seems vaguely sleazy for a scholar to trade on his academic reputation to make free money in this way. It falls roughly in the same category as that notorious b-school prof in Inside Job who got $125K for writing a b.s. report about the financial stability of Iceland—and then, when they came back to him later and asked how he could’ve written it, he basically said: Hey, I don’t know anything about Iceland, I was just taking their money! That said, if a hedge fund offered me $125K to sit on their board, I’d probably take it! It’s hard to turn down free money. Or maybe not, I don’t really know. So far, when companies have paid me $, it’s been to do something for them, to consult or give a short course. I’d like to think that if
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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
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Introduction: “She was forty years old when she died. It is possible that her art might have developed to include a wider area of human experience, just as possible that the chilling climate of the thirties might have withered it altogether. But what she actually wrote was greatly talented. She deserves a place, although obviously not a foremost one, in any literary history of the years between the wars. The last letter she wrote, or rather dictated, to the printer of the Laforgue translations shows the invariable fastidiousness of her talent, a fastidiousness which is often infuriating but just as often impressive, and is in any case rare enough to be worth remembrance: To the Printer of Six Moral Tales This book is to be spelled and its words are to be hyphenated according to the usage of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Page introduction continuously with the tales. Do not put brackets around the numbers of the pages. All the ‘todays’ and all the ‘tomorrows’ should be spelled w
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Introduction: 1. We Bayesian statisticians like to say there are three kinds of statisticians: a. Bayesians; b. People who are Bayesians but don’t realize it (that is, they act in coherence with some unstated probability); c. Failed Bayesians (that is, people whose inference could be improved by some attention to coherence). So, if a statistician does great work, we are inclined to claim this person for the Bayesian cause, even if he or she vehemently denies any Bayesian leanings. 2. In his autobiography, Bertrand Russell tells the story of when he went to prison for opposing World War 1: I [Russell] was much cheered on my arrival by the warden at the gate, who had to take particulars about me. He asked my religion, and I replied ‘agnostic.’ He asked how to spell it, and remarked with a sigh: “Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.” This remark kept me cheerful for about a week. 3. In an op-ed today, Ross Douthat argues that celebrated a
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