andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2012 andrew_gelman_stats-2012-1223 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Jonathan Cantor pointed me to a new blog post by Stephen Dubner in which he expresses disagreement with what Kaiser and I wrote in our American Scientist article , “Freakonomics: What Went Wrong?”. In response, I thought it would be interesting to go “meta” here by considering all the different ways ways that I could reply to Dubner’s criticism of our criticism of his writings. (In the same post, Dubner also slams Chris Blattman (or, as he calls him, “a man named Chris Blattman”), but I won’t get into that here.) In reacting to Dubner, I will give several perspectives, all of which I believe . Usually in writing a response, one would have to choose, but here I find it interesting to present all these different perspectives in one place. 1. Understand. I understand where Dubner is coming from. We say some positive things and some negative things about his work, but it’s natural for him to focus on the negative. I’m the same way myself, probably almost all autho
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1 Jonathan Cantor pointed me to a new blog post by Stephen Dubner in which he expresses disagreement with what Kaiser and I wrote in our American Scientist article , “Freakonomics: What Went Wrong? [sent-1, score-0.14]
2 (In the same post, Dubner also slams Chris Blattman (or, as he calls him, “a man named Chris Blattman”), but I won’t get into that here. [sent-4, score-0.082]
3 As I wrote to Dubner last week: Both Kaiser and I greatly admire Freakonomics, especially in the way that in your books and your blog you engage the reader in the struggles and excitement of discovery in the social sciences. [sent-16, score-0.259]
4 My disappointment at some of the low-quality items does not remove my appreciation of the good stuff, and I feel bad that we did not emphasize this more in our article. [sent-24, score-0.086]
5 And that’s the typical reaction I get: “Freakonomics” is a byword for sloppy science reporting, it’s a word you throw out there if you want an easy laugh. [sent-36, score-0.081]
6 There’s some good stuff there but seemingly no filter. [sent-45, score-0.064]
7 There are deeper problems, some clue of which might be found by reading all these critiques with an eye to learning rather than mere rebuttal. [sent-48, score-0.065]
8 Don’t get distracted by your fans on the blog—consider that room full of science writers! [sent-49, score-0.13]
9 We think Freakonomics has some great stuff but it also seems (to us) to lend an air of authority to some speculations and some outright mistakes. [sent-54, score-0.064]
10 In another confusion of motivation, Dubner describes it as “weaselly” when Kaiser and I wrote, “Although there’s no way we can be sure, perhaps, in some of the cases described above, there was a breakdown in the division of labor when it came to investigating technical points. [sent-60, score-0.235]
11 ” It looks weaselly to Dubner, but to a statistician such as myself, it’s caution. [sent-61, score-0.14]
12 Fair enough: he’s the professional writer, we are not. [sent-63, score-0.064]
13 I’ll just say that we do our best and that we would welcome the constructive suggestions of any professional writer who cares to give us advice. [sent-65, score-0.107]
14 To get back to the specific point, we suspect there were breakdowns in the division of labor, but we can’t be sure, so that’s what we wrote. [sent-67, score-0.117]
15 I’ve never met Steven Levitt but I’m pretty sure that he has the technical ability to, say, evaluate a statistically-flawed claim about beauty and sex ratios. [sent-68, score-0.238]
16 That’s an example of a breakdown in the division of labor. [sent-70, score-0.146]
17 Here are a few of the other things that have been presented uncritically on the Freakonomics blog over the past several years: - Casey Mulligan’s claim in October 2008 that the economy is not that bad: “The current unemployment rate of 6. [sent-71, score-0.098]
18 ” Any of these (along with the other examples that have come up on this blog and elsewhere) is understandable, but when you put it all together, the message is that you can’t trust what you see in Freakonomics. [sent-78, score-0.098]
19 Dubner is a professional journalist with a proven talent for inspiring millions of readers with the excitement of discovery; I am a sour statistician, trained to be skeptical. [sent-83, score-0.181]
20 I’m sure each of us could stand to be a bit more like the other. [sent-84, score-0.059]
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