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1201 andrew gelman stats-2012-03-07-Inference = data + model


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Introduction: A recent article on global warming reminded me of the difficulty of letting the data speak. William Nordhaus shows the following graph: And then he writes: One of the reasons that drawing conclusions on temperature trends is tricky is that the historical temperature series is highly volatile, as can be seen in the figure. The presence of short-term volatility requires looking at long-term trends. A useful analogy is the stock market. Suppose an analyst says that because real stock prices have declined over the last decade (which is true), it follows that there is no upward trend. Here again, an examination of the long-term data would quickly show this to be incorrect. The last decade of temperature and stock market data is not representative of the longer-term trends. The finding that global temperatures are rising over the last century-plus is one of the most robust findings of climate science and statistics. I see what he’s saying, but first, I don’t find the st


Summary: the most important sentenses genereted by tfidf model

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1 A recent article on global warming reminded me of the difficulty of letting the data speak. [sent-1, score-0.353]

2 William Nordhaus shows the following graph: And then he writes: One of the reasons that drawing conclusions on temperature trends is tricky is that the historical temperature series is highly volatile, as can be seen in the figure. [sent-2, score-0.794]

3 Suppose an analyst says that because real stock prices have declined over the last decade (which is true), it follows that there is no upward trend. [sent-5, score-0.425]

4 The last decade of temperature and stock market data is not representative of the longer-term trends. [sent-7, score-0.706]

5 The finding that global temperatures are rising over the last century-plus is one of the most robust findings of climate science and statistics. [sent-8, score-0.593]

6 Second, the debate over this particular claim is not about what was happening over the last century, it’s about what’s been happening over the past ten years or so. [sent-10, score-0.451]

7 The (uncomfortable, perhaps) take-home message from the above graph is that it is consistent with a continuing rise in temperature, and it’s also consistent with a leveling-off since the year 2000. [sent-11, score-0.81]

8 Nearly 25 years ago, Gary King and I came up with an improved estimate of the incumbency advantage in U. [sent-13, score-0.674]

9 Incumbency advantage was around 1 percentage point for the first half of the twentieth century, then it steadily rose, with no end in sight as of 1988. [sent-17, score-0.431]

10 Or maybe it rose until 1984 and then flattened out. [sent-19, score-0.268]

11 It’s the climate change story all over again, but this time with a lot less data and no physics to help us out. [sent-20, score-0.56]

12 Fortunately for our discussion, I returned to estimate the incumbency advantage a few years later, using a better statistical model and more data, going all the way to the year 2000. [sent-21, score-0.752]

13 ) Incumbency advantage doesn’t have anything to do with climate change—but the example illustrates the general difficulty of inferring trends from data alone. [sent-24, score-0.837]

14 To get back to the climate series: the data shown above are consistent with a continuing rise or a flattening of the curve. [sent-25, score-0.806]

15 “Over the past several years, the average global temperature during that time has in fact decreased. [sent-28, score-0.509]

16 Future trends are “virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling. [sent-32, score-0.493]

17 The time trend is consistent with an increase, no trend, or even a future decrease. [sent-34, score-0.479]

18 Everybody knows this—scientists don’t study these climate time series in isolation—but then there can be a tendency to oversimplify as in Nordhaus’s discussion quoted above, which implies that the graph tells the story all by itself. [sent-36, score-0.757]

19 The graph is consistent with the story, which counts for something. [sent-37, score-0.337]

20 If you’re interested in the incumbency advantage in itself and not merely as an example of a difficult time series, see here for further discussion. [sent-40, score-0.573]


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Introduction: A recent article on global warming reminded me of the difficulty of letting the data speak. William Nordhaus shows the following graph: And then he writes: One of the reasons that drawing conclusions on temperature trends is tricky is that the historical temperature series is highly volatile, as can be seen in the figure. The presence of short-term volatility requires looking at long-term trends. A useful analogy is the stock market. Suppose an analyst says that because real stock prices have declined over the last decade (which is true), it follows that there is no upward trend. Here again, an examination of the long-term data would quickly show this to be incorrect. The last decade of temperature and stock market data is not representative of the longer-term trends. The finding that global temperatures are rising over the last century-plus is one of the most robust findings of climate science and statistics. I see what he’s saying, but first, I don’t find the st

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