Posted inStatistics
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…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
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.…
Posted inStatistics
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…
Posted inStatistics
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…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Sampling Variability Is A Screwy, Misleading Concept
https://twitter.com/Bigdatanalysis/status/573739862924353536 Because of travel and jet lag, exacerbated by "springing forward", we continue our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles next week. If you can't read the tweet above, it says…
Posted inStatistics
Uncertainty Is An Impossible Sell
I've never seen the show, but I've heard that the protagonist on the X Files used to have a desk sign which read, "I want to believe." That sentiment characterizes…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Resolved: Statisticians To Cease Using “Independence”, Change To “Irrelevance”
What's the difference between "independence" and "irrelevance" and why does that difference matter? This typical passage is from The First Course in Probability by Sheldon Ross (p. 87) is lovely…
Posted inStatistics
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…
