Nice example of 'correlation does not imply causation' and if you submit this kinda thing to me in my data analysis class I'll fail you.
But if you submit that to scientifical journal it will be published. ;)
Is watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie killing people?
91–100 of 248 posts
Re: Is watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie killing people?
#92Another Spurious Correlations [0]. The message will always bear repeating. [0] https://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
No, most of those are "actually spurious" in the sense of the two time series having nothing to do with each other. A lot of them are pretty short series as well, so it's easy for them to be correlated. What we are looking at is Simpson's Paradox, where the true causal relationship is obscured by information that isn't obvious from the plot. Now before you correlation != causation, there is actually a causation here…
Simpson’s paradox is when a trend or correlation is observable in each of the sub-populations, but vanishes when the data is aggregated. For example, a drug that has a strong effect on men and women when analyzed separately, but shows little effect at the population level.
This example is not Simpson’s paradox, it is simply the misuse of statistics. Statistics, being mechanical transformations of data, only have semantics within a causal model. Simply picking variables randomly and then assuming causality when the statistics behave that way is inverting the process of knowledge formation.
EDIT: Thanks for the corrections—the real data that this fictional example is based on does show Simpson’s paradox, as the dependent variable (death rates) appears to show a positive correlation with vaccination status when aggregating the population, but a negative correlation for every age group individually.
Re: Is watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie killing people?
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh come on. Everyone else saying it's an obvious joke and now here you are claiming it's obviously a legitimate claim. Even though you can imagine a way that this information might have been collected, it obviously wasn't.
Really? This was able to be read without a tounge being firmly planted in cheek?
Sorry. Lil shell shocked at the moment by the responses.
Re: Is watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie killing people?
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to me that Berenson didn't "fall" for Simpson's paradox. He's a smart person. He peddles inflammatory rhetoric to build an audience. For example, he portrayed New Zealand's 2-week quarantine requirements for incoming travellers to New Zealand as "indefinite confinement for New Zealanders". When people pointed out the gulf between what he was saying and what the law was, he doubled down. I'd share the exact t…
I mean, from outside of New Zealand that country does look like a "reverse" open-air prison, so to speak. Granted, the policies put in place have resulted in almost no covid-related deaths, but the reality it is what is, that country is very, very difficult to come back into (or to return), and because of that most of the New Zealanders looked trapped in their own country (at leats that's how it looks to a person lik…
That sounds to me like a reasonable criticism and discussion to have.
That wasn't the argument Berenson was putting forth. He was saying that some large number of New Zealanders would be detained indefinitely in congregate settings purpose-built by the government.
Again, I wish I could cite the specific things, but I cannot. I was left with the very strong impression that Berenson did not care about facts.
Re: Is watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie killing people?
#95Re: Is watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie killing people?
#96This reminds me of the sort of light poking of common "correlation is not the same as causation" and "beware of confounding factors" statistical failures behind the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster "clearly reduction in pirates has caused global warming!" [0]. But it's a major in modern public discourse, and one for once that I'm quite willing to lay heavily at the feet of the public education system. Easily on…
I agree that people could have a more effective BS filter, but I think there’s also some obligation to not publish BS in the first place at the risk of your trustworthiness reputation. People intentionally or repeatedly inadvertently publishing BS should be called out and their opinions down-weighted heavily. People having a good BS filter is one step in the chain towards this down-weighting, but isn’t the whole chai…
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Re: Is watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie killing people?
#97[deleted]
Re: Is watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie killing people?
#98As just discussed on the wonderful BBC radio show more or less - available as a podcast and also published online at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0b6j20n
Re: Is watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie killing people?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure. “An average human has one breast and one testicle” - N.N. Taleb
Also, most humans have more fingers than the average.
Actually, with the prelevance of polydactyly (about 1 in 1000 people have 6 or more fingers), and less accidents happening, most people might have a bellow average number of fingers in the future.
Re: Is watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie killing people?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to me that Berenson didn't "fall" for Simpson's paradox. He's a smart person. He peddles inflammatory rhetoric to build an audience. For example, he portrayed New Zealand's 2-week quarantine requirements for incoming travellers to New Zealand as "indefinite confinement for New Zealanders". When people pointed out the gulf between what he was saying and what the law was, he doubled down. I'd share the exact t…
I mean, from outside of New Zealand that country does look like a "reverse" open-air prison, so to speak. Granted, the policies put in place have resulted in almost no covid-related deaths, but the reality it is what is, that country is very, very difficult to come back into (or to return), and because of that most of the New Zealanders looked trapped in their own country (at leats that's how it looks to a person lik…
Beautiful country to be “trapped” in. Lots of amazing parks and mountains and caves and beaches and volcanos everywhere. I’ve been tempted to “trap” myself there for a couple of decades now.
It’s such a prison that billionaires are voluntarily securing land and building mansions in case the whole world goes tits up. Such a terrible place. /s
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val...
(Note: I’m aware it’s not some perfect utopia and one of its issues is things can be expensive to live there, especially housing)