andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2013 andrew_gelman_stats-2013-1830 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Gregg Easterbrook may not always be on the ball, but I 100% endorse the last section of his recent column (scroll down to “Absurd Specificity Watch”). Earlier in the column, Easterbrook has a plug for Tim Tebow. I’d forgotten about Tim Tebow.
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1 Gregg Easterbrook may not always be on the ball, but I 100% endorse the last section of his recent column (scroll down to “Absurd Specificity Watch”). [sent-1, score-0.946]
2 Earlier in the column, Easterbrook has a plug for Tim Tebow. [sent-2, score-0.242]
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same-blog 1 0.99999988 1830 andrew gelman stats-2013-04-29-Giving credit where due
Introduction: Gregg Easterbrook may not always be on the ball, but I 100% endorse the last section of his recent column (scroll down to “Absurd Specificity Watch”). Earlier in the column, Easterbrook has a plug for Tim Tebow. I’d forgotten about Tim Tebow.
Introduction: I don’t know when I’ve seen political writing quote so misinformed as this. It’s a bizarre mixture of cliches, non-sequitors, and outright mistakes. The author is Gregg Easterbrook and he’s writing for Reuters . First, the cliches: Right now Romney seems to be the frontrunner, which, of course, is a mixed blessing. His aura of experience and reasonableness could prove quite appealing to voters. Perry continues to have the potential to light a populist fire. . . . Of all the 2012 candidates, Huntsman is the one who is Not Just Another Politician. And now the errors. At this point in the 1992 election cycle, the elder George Bush held an 89 percent approval rating. . . . Clinton beat a popular incumbent with a fantastic approval rating. For the 2012 election, Barack Obama is just as vulnerable as the elder Bush, if not even more so. Obama currently has an approval rating of 23 percent. This is all fine, except that: 1. It’s not true that at this point in the 1992 elec
3 0.26156873 1075 andrew gelman stats-2011-12-20-This guy has a regular column at Reuters
Introduction: Gregg Easterbrook : Gingrich is a wild card. He probably would end up a flaming wreckage in electoral terms, but there’s a chance he could become seen as the man unafraid to bring sweeping change to an ossified Washington, D.C. There’s perhaps a 90 percent likelihood Obama would wipe the floor with Gingrich, versus a 10 percent likelihood Gingrich would stage an historic upset. This is the dumbest thing I’ve seen since . . . ummm, I dunno, how bout this ? It actually gets worse because Easterbrook then invokes game theory. What next? Catastrophe theory? Intelligent design? P.S. Maybe I should explain for readers without an education in probability theory. Let’s suppose “wipe the floor” means that Obama gets 55%+ of the two-party vote, and let’s suppose that “an historic upset” means that Obama gets less than 50% of the vote. Now try to draw a forecast distribution that has 90% of its probability above 0.55 and 10% of it’s probability below 0.50. It’s a pretty weird-loo
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Introduction: After I recently criticized Gregg Easterbrook for assigning Obama an implausible 90+% chance of beating Mitt Romney, some commenters thought I was being too critical, that I should cut Easterbrook some slack because he just was speaking metaphorically. In other words, Easterbrook is a “qual.” He uses numbers in his writing because that’s what everyone is supposed to do nowadays, but he doesn’t intend those numbers to be meant literally. Similarly, he presumably didn’t really mean it when he wrote that Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren “couldn’t be more different — personally or politically.” And he had no problem typing that Obama’s approval rating was 23% because, to him, “23%” is just another word for “low.” He’s a qual, that’s all. Similarly, when Samantha Power was just being a qual when she wrote the meaningful-sounding but actually empty statement, “Since 1968, with the single exception of the election of George W. Bush in 2000, Americans have chosen Republican pres
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Introduction: Jonathan Cantor points to this poll estimating rifle-armed QB Tim Tebow as America’s favorite pro athlete: In an ESPN survey of 1,502 Americans age 12 or older, three percent identified Tebow as their favorite professional athlete. Tebow finished in front of Kobe Bryant (2 percent), Aaron Rodgers (1.9 percent), Peyton Manning (1.8 percent), and Tom Brady (1.5 percent). Amusing. What this survey says to me is that there are no super-popular athletes who are active in America today. Which actually sounds about right. No Tiger Woods, no Magic Johnson, Muhammed Ali, John Elway, Pete Rose, Billie Jean King, etc etc. Tebow is an amusing choice, people might as well pick him now while he’s still on top. As a sports celeb, he’s like Bill Lee or the Refrigerator: colorful and a solid pro athlete, but no superstar. When you think about all the colorful superstar athletes of times gone by, it’s perhaps surprising that there’s nobody out there right now to play the role. I supp
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same-blog 1 0.97839344 1830 andrew gelman stats-2013-04-29-Giving credit where due
Introduction: Gregg Easterbrook may not always be on the ball, but I 100% endorse the last section of his recent column (scroll down to “Absurd Specificity Watch”). Earlier in the column, Easterbrook has a plug for Tim Tebow. I’d forgotten about Tim Tebow.
2 0.6993258 1075 andrew gelman stats-2011-12-20-This guy has a regular column at Reuters
Introduction: Gregg Easterbrook : Gingrich is a wild card. He probably would end up a flaming wreckage in electoral terms, but there’s a chance he could become seen as the man unafraid to bring sweeping change to an ossified Washington, D.C. There’s perhaps a 90 percent likelihood Obama would wipe the floor with Gingrich, versus a 10 percent likelihood Gingrich would stage an historic upset. This is the dumbest thing I’ve seen since . . . ummm, I dunno, how bout this ? It actually gets worse because Easterbrook then invokes game theory. What next? Catastrophe theory? Intelligent design? P.S. Maybe I should explain for readers without an education in probability theory. Let’s suppose “wipe the floor” means that Obama gets 55%+ of the two-party vote, and let’s suppose that “an historic upset” means that Obama gets less than 50% of the vote. Now try to draw a forecast distribution that has 90% of its probability above 0.55 and 10% of it’s probability below 0.50. It’s a pretty weird-loo
Introduction: I don’t know when I’ve seen political writing quote so misinformed as this. It’s a bizarre mixture of cliches, non-sequitors, and outright mistakes. The author is Gregg Easterbrook and he’s writing for Reuters . First, the cliches: Right now Romney seems to be the frontrunner, which, of course, is a mixed blessing. His aura of experience and reasonableness could prove quite appealing to voters. Perry continues to have the potential to light a populist fire. . . . Of all the 2012 candidates, Huntsman is the one who is Not Just Another Politician. And now the errors. At this point in the 1992 election cycle, the elder George Bush held an 89 percent approval rating. . . . Clinton beat a popular incumbent with a fantastic approval rating. For the 2012 election, Barack Obama is just as vulnerable as the elder Bush, if not even more so. Obama currently has an approval rating of 23 percent. This is all fine, except that: 1. It’s not true that at this point in the 1992 elec
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Introduction: My new Chance ethics column (cowritten with Eric Loken). Click through and take a look. It’s a short article and I really like it. And here’s more Chance.
5 0.66942304 1083 andrew gelman stats-2011-12-26-The quals and the quants
Introduction: After I recently criticized Gregg Easterbrook for assigning Obama an implausible 90+% chance of beating Mitt Romney, some commenters thought I was being too critical, that I should cut Easterbrook some slack because he just was speaking metaphorically. In other words, Easterbrook is a “qual.” He uses numbers in his writing because that’s what everyone is supposed to do nowadays, but he doesn’t intend those numbers to be meant literally. Similarly, he presumably didn’t really mean it when he wrote that Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren “couldn’t be more different — personally or politically.” And he had no problem typing that Obama’s approval rating was 23% because, to him, “23%” is just another word for “low.” He’s a qual, that’s all. Similarly, when Samantha Power was just being a qual when she wrote the meaningful-sounding but actually empty statement, “Since 1968, with the single exception of the election of George W. Bush in 2000, Americans have chosen Republican pres
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same-blog 1 0.95964527 1830 andrew gelman stats-2013-04-29-Giving credit where due
Introduction: Gregg Easterbrook may not always be on the ball, but I 100% endorse the last section of his recent column (scroll down to “Absurd Specificity Watch”). Earlier in the column, Easterbrook has a plug for Tim Tebow. I’d forgotten about Tim Tebow.
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Introduction: Maurizio Pisati sends along this presentation of work with Valeria Glorioso. He writes: “Our major problem, now, is uncertainty estimation — we’re still struggling to find a solution appropriate to the Stata environment.”
3 0.61163616 435 andrew gelman stats-2010-11-29-Panel Thurs 2 Dec on politics and deficit reduction in NYC
Introduction: See below. W. D. Burnham is a former professor of mine, T. Ferguson does important work on money and politics, and J. Stiglitz is a colleague at Columbia (whom I’ve never actually met). Could be interesting. Join the Roosevelt Institute on December 2nd, from 8-11am at NYC’s Harvard Club 27 West 44th St. for a panel discussion of the Bipartisan Deficit Commission Report, the future of the U.S. Economy, and the prospects for policy change in the wake of the midterm elections. The conversation will be framed by the release of three new Roosevelt Institute White Papers: Democracy in Peril: The American Turnout Problem and the Path to Plutocracy (Walter Dean Burnham) A World Upside Down: Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession (Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson) Principles and Guidelines For Deficit Reduction (Joseph Stiglitz) Because space is limited, please RSVP to Madeleine Ehrlich at mehrlich@rooseveltinstitute.org or 212.444.9138.
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Introduction: On this blog I’ve occasionally written about the problems that arise when economists act as amateur psychologists. But the problem can go the other way, too. For example, consider this blog by Berit Brogaard and Kristian Marlow ( link from Abbas Raza). Brogaard and Marlow give several amusing stories about ripoffs (a restaurant that scams customers into buying expensive bottles of wine, a hairdresser that sucks customers into unnecessary treatments, a ghostwriter who takes thousands of dollars in payments and doesn’t do the job, etc.). Then they ask, “How did it happen? Why did you act in this impulsive way? Why didn’t you learn your lesson the first time around? Do you have some kind of brain damage?” They continue with some discussion of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the anterior insula, etc etc etc., and then conclude with the following advice: Is there anything we can do to avoid these moments of crazy decision-making? Yes but only by intentionally turning on our
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Introduction: Interesting discussion here by Mark Palko on the difficulty of comparing charter schools to regular schools, even if the slots in the charter schools have been assigned by lottery. Beyond the direct importance of the topic, I found the discussion interesting because I always face a challenge in my own teaching to assign the right amount of homework, given that if I assign too much, students will simply rebel and not do it. To get back to the school-choice issue . . . Mark discussed selection effects: if a charter school is popular, it can require parents to sign a contract agreeing they will supervise their students to do lots of homework. Mark points out that there is a selection issue here, that the sort of parents who would sign that form are different from parents in general. But it seems to me there’s one more twist: These charter schools are popular, right? So that would imply that there is some reservoir of parents who would like to sign the form but don’t have the opp
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