Why data isn’t enough
By a data enthusiast, Felix Salmon, writing at Wired
After disruption, though, there comes at least some version of stage three: overshoot. The most common problem is that all these new systems—metrics, algorithms, automated decisionmaking processes—result in humans gaming the system in rational but often unpredictable ways. Sociologist Donald T. Campbell noted this dynamic back in the ’70s, when he articulated what’s come to be known as Campbell’s law: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making,” he wrote, “the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
After reading the article, the impression that struck me was that he seemed to be advocating Bayesian Analysis with informed priors but not realising it.
11 years ago
As a former student, colleague, co-author, and collaborator with Donald T. Campbell, I wish everyone would get it straight: he was a psychologist.
11 years ago
Noted for the future, but really you’re complaining on the wrong blog — that’s a direct quotation.
11 years ago