Time for the two-week teaching sojourn. In order to grasp cause, we need a brief, a very brief, introduction to the Aristotelian metaphysics of change. These are ancient views, largely abandoned in […]
Please Don’t Smooth Your (Social Media) Data!
Don’t Don’t smooth your data and then use that smoothed data as input to other analysis. You will fool yourself. You will make over-confident decisions. It is the wrong thing to do. […]
Don’t Use Statistics Unless You Have To
We’re finally getting it, as evinced by the responses to the article “Netherlands Temperature Controversy: Or, Yet Again, How Not To Do Time Series.” Let’s return to the Screaming Willies. Quoting myself […]
Can We Predict The Unpredictable?
The most intriguing thing about the new peer-reviewed paper of the same name as today’s post in Nature: Scientific Reports by Abbas Golestani and Robin Gras is that it is longer than […]
Time Series And Causality: Global Warming Example
Temperature causes Here is an atmospheric monthly average temperature series: T = (61, 69, 69, 70, 72, 65, 63) (all F). What caused the temperature to take the value T1 = 61? […]
Time Series Aren’t Easy: Tornado Deaths Example
Time series are the most abused statistics in the physical sciences. (It’s an endless, raucous, peer-reviewed contest for the worst in the “soft sciences.”) The Mann problem (is that a typo?) is […]
Paper Claims Surprisingly Strong Link Between Climate Change And Violence. Nonsense.
When does more crime happen, in winter or summer? Why? Too easy. How about this one: according to the FBI, what was the violent crime rate over time? No need to guess. […]
Sampling Variability Is A Screwy, Misleading Concept
@freakonometrics @DiegoKuonen @mattstat Pure data analysis cannot kill inference. Sampling variability cannot be hidden!!! — Paolo Giudici (@stateconomist) March 6, 2015 Because of travel and jet lag, exacerbated by “springing forward”, we […]
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