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Debunking Princeton

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Re: Debunking Princeton

#51

Post by hkmurakami »

hooande wrote: post #13

I hope this becomes a bigger story than the original. I can't tell you how many times someone has thrown a junk science article in my face, thinking that the issue in question was now settled. A survey with a small sample size, outsized extrapolations and numbers that don't match the accompanying conjecture. There should be consequences for the people who publish these things. People have a tendency to believe anythi…

The worst part for me is that the two authors are Ph.D. candidates in MAE (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) [1]. They aren't even tenure track faculty at the school and aren't really in a position to carry the name of the school on their shoulders. Yet from what it seems, it will be the school itself that will be hit with most of the public shaming burden (ex: the FB post's headline).

As a Princeton alum, I'm a bit saddened at the course of events :(

[1] http://www.princeton.edu/~spikelab/people.html

Re: Debunking Princeton

#52

Post by ellyagg »

devindotcom wrote: post #39

Seems like Facebook is responding to the media interpretation of the Princeton paper rather than the paper itself. I saw no problems with the paper: it applied an epidemiologically-inspired statistical technique to Facebook using a defunct precursor as exemplar. The limitations of this technique are obvious, but it's an interesting idea. People do "research" like this all the time - you throw shit at the wall and see…

Well, sure. They have a right to explore it, just as Facebook has a right to make fun of it. Maybe it's not the original authors' fault it blew up, but that doesn't mean Facebook has to ignore the consequences.

Re: Debunking Princeton

#53

Post by dsugarman »

tomasien wrote: post #34
dsugarman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while I think the original wasn't close to real science, don't be surprised if they are somewhat right

You're probably basing your opinion that FB may die by 2018 on better insights than they were basing the study on honestly.

well not necessarily die by 2018, just the fact that social media is mostly moving fads. everyone wants to be the social network that high school and college girls post their vacation photos to, if you are that then you will likely be somewhat relevant for the lifetime of these girls.

Re: Debunking Princeton

#55

Post by 001sky »

lbrandy wrote: post #27
btown wrote: post #19

What drove Cannarella and Spechler, two mechanical engineering Ph.D. students, to prerelease a paper about network theory and epidemiology, without coauthoring/consulting with epidemiologists or people experienced in viral communications theories, is beyond me. But the title "Debunking Princeton" seems to suggest this should be considered representative of all of the quality of research Princeton outputs, which is ce…

Is this a clever meta-troll? Or are you actually taking the title seriously? It should be obvious that the title itself is part of the self-parody. The whole thing is a giant exercise in reductio ad absurdum. In fact, the 'joke' only works based on Princeton's reputation as an excellent university, if that makes you feel any better. [Full disclosure: I am a facebook employee]

TL;DR two doses of stupid aren't the way forward.

Re: Debunking Princeton

#56

Post by owenversteeg »

S4M wrote: post #23

Call yourself "Data Scientist" and publish graphics without units. Congrats!

It's clearly a satirical post. I'm sure that if he was publishing a nonsatirical article he would also not have implied that correlation is causation.

Re: Debunking Princeton

#57

Post by yuvadam »

ajju wrote: post #42
yuvadam wrote: post #36

Hey, Facebook, wanna prove Princeton wrong? How about publishing actual metrics proving that user engagement is at an all-time high? (Oh, you don't have metrics to prove that? Is that because users are jumping ship?)

You mean the actual metrics linked to in the 2nd sentence of the post? https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10101235005815241&se... (Oh, you missed that? Is that because you didn't actually read the post?)

Those look like numbers from Facebook's SEC filings, which says all there is to say about which metrics they're choosing to publish.

(Read the post, didn't miss it.)

Re: Debunking Princeton

#58

Post by jules »

md224 wrote: post #24

So, if this all snark, does that mean there's no "strong correlation between the undergraduate enrollment of an institution and its Google Trends index"? Because that would be a pretty interesting correlation. I'm also curious why Princeton's search volume seems to have declined. Obviously it doesn't mean Princeton is going to disappear, but what does it mean? Could be statistically insignificant, perhaps. EDIT: Here…

In other news: http://glengilchrist.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/pirate...

It is really easy to find something that correlates with your data, when your data follows a simple trend. Now if princeton enrollment was going up and down a lot, and the google trends followed the same shape, that would be something.

Re: Debunking Princeton

#59

Post by rogerbinns »

devindotcom wrote: post #39

Seems like Facebook is responding to the media interpretation of the Princeton paper rather than the paper itself. I saw no problems with the paper: it applied an epidemiologically-inspired statistical technique to Facebook using a defunct precursor as exemplar. The limitations of this technique are obvious, but it's an interesting idea. People do "research" like this all the time - you throw shit at the wall and see…

Alex St John has good details on why using existing epidemiologically formulas don't work: http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/2014/01/23/forecasting-demise-f...

Example: "The amount of time you spend sick with the flu is constant no matter how many of your friends ALSO contract the flu"

Re: Debunking Princeton

#60

Post by abus »

I see this as Facebook's willingness to use its unfair influence to discredit anyone who dares challenge it. In other words, "if you have a page here, we won't hesitate to use it against you".
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