October 2, 2016

Briefly

By
  • There has been some … free and frank exchange of views… this week on the question of criticising published research. The phrase “methodological terrorism” was used. Rather than linking to the combatants, I’ll give you Hilda Bastian and Jeff Leek (who have themselves had strongly-worded exchanges here and elsewhere)
  • “Before analytics, businesses often had policies that every customer should be treated like they’re the best customer – because absent the data, the assumption was that every customer had that potential. But in the data age, there is no more benefit of the doubt.” Cathy Carleton. Some people (mostly economists) will probably feel that this is all good. That’s  a defensible position, but poor service for the poor wasn’t a goal of the analytics system.
  • There are people here and in the US claiming that self-selected (‘bogus’) internet polls with no reweighting or modelling give useful information. Those people are wrong. Do not be those people.
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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 »

Comments

  • avatar
    Richard Penny

    Regarding Cathy Carleton’s article it again highlights some issues that the statistics community has not managed to get recognised.

    All models have an uncertainty, but people use the model estimates as firm predictors. And obviously once you do that you often end up get the prediction you expect.

    Secondly, it may be statistically significant but is it practically significant?

    Thirdly, does anyone know what the model is? If I am in the junk group can I find out why? It may because of some prejudice already “baked-in” to the data

    It also is lazy to let the statistical tool direct one’s action. As one of my early mentors used to say “statistical modelling is an aid to thinking, but not a substitute for it.

    8 years ago

  • avatar
    gwynn sturdevant

    I love the isochrone!! But I’d argue that it’s not travel time but distance, as travel time is dependent on traffic.

    I keep wondering how you could incorporate public transport. I believe trains are quite extensive in Japan, and suspect that they reduce travel time significantly. I’d love to see them used to compare travel time with public transport and without.

    8 years ago