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Debunking Princeton

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Re: Debunking Princeton

#71

Post by megablast »

STRiDEX wrote: post #62
hkmurakami wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The action of the two PH.D. candidates. The action of few employees. Yet they both represent the group to which they belong.

We should be blaming the human race then! Shame on us.

Re: Debunking Princeton

#73

Post by ogreyonder »

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #26
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…

" There should be consequences for the people who publish these things. " Many who are published deserve obscurity. And some who have obscurity deserve more funding. Can you give it to them? Do not be so eager to deal out censorship; for even institutional review boards cannot see all ends.

For a throwaway, you are remarkable.

Re: Debunking Princeton

#74

Post by devindotcom »

chaz wrote: post #65
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…

The problem is less about the technique, but about the flawed assumptions about the data that they used, and how they assumed that it was a valid basis for a paper. That undermines the whole thing, no matter the rigor of the analysis. The medium matters, too. I'm all for people discussing crazy ideas and seeing what sticks, but when they wrote a paper about it and submitted it to arXiv.org ("Submissions to arXiv shou…

I think it's important to add that "flawed" is not the same as "invalid." If their assumptions are incorrect, the conclusions of the paper are wrong. You have to start with some assumptions, otherwise your theory wouldn't be a theory, but rather data. Science is advanced by such assumptions and theories, even if the results are "wrong." It all goes on the pile.

As for why it's a paper and not a blog post - I think the conventions of academia are there to be questioned too. Why not form it into an abstract-methods-discussion format if that's what they think best suits it? Why does it have to be made into a more accessible and friendly blog format? Seems to me that open access will reduce the "scariness" of having a formal paper out there, as well as reduce the worth of same. Broadening access has that effect, and it looks like these guys are early adopters of a new, less formal process for describing the evaluation of theories like this one.

I guess what I'm asking is why this paper gets singled out for special derision when there are plenty of papers out there just as flawed (though no less "valid"). I think it's just a run-of-the-mill bit of science that, like many others, will simply be disproven in a positive way by experts. It seems ugly to submit it and its writers to such public pillorying.

Re: Debunking Princeton

#75

Post by bhouston »

chaz wrote: post #65
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…

The problem is less about the technique, but about the flawed assumptions about the data that they used, and how they assumed that it was a valid basis for a paper. That undermines the whole thing, no matter the rigor of the analysis. The medium matters, too. I'm all for people discussing crazy ideas and seeing what sticks, but when they wrote a paper about it and submitted it to arXiv.org ("Submissions to arXiv shou…

I think that discussing this in academia is worthy. One paper can start a discussion, another paper can improve on it or disprove it and so forth. I think that putting out a paper with a controversial conclusion is not wrong, it is merely provocative. I hope there is more study on this and that it is serious.

I also do not think they are completely wrong. I think there is general consensus that in North America we have likely reached peak Facebook engagement -- unless there is a game changer. The question is fairly open at this point in time as to whether it stays steady, decreases slowly or fast from this point.

Re: Debunking Princeton

#76

Post by adharmad »

Nice comeback by facebook. Instead of defending facebook against the claims in the paper (facebook is not dying! - a very hard-to-defend position) they turned it around and used the same techniques used in the paper to show that Princeton is dying. Offense is the best defense!

Re: Debunking Princeton

#77

Post by calroc »

megablast wrote: post #71
STRiDEX wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The action of the two PH.D. candidates. The action of few employees. Yet they both represent the group to which they belong.

We should be blaming the human race then! Shame on us.

Heck yeah blame the human race! If it wasn't for humans none of this would be happening! (heh.)

Re: Debunking Princeton

#78

Post by bhouston »

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…

md224 wrote: "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."

I have seen this in most nerdy topics associated with early internet adoption in Western English speaking countries -- or at least that is my theory. Basically as other countries come online and late adopters come online, they do not search for the same types of topics earlier adopters looked for.

This trend for academic or technical topics decreasing as a percentage of Google trends is universal, see here:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US&q=Science,+/m/...

Re: Debunking Princeton

#80

Post by jrs99 »

bhouston wrote: post #75
chaz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is less about the technique, but about the flawed assumptions about the data that they used, and how they assumed that it was a valid basis for a paper. That undermines the whole thing, no matter the rigor of the analysis. The medium matters, too. I'm all for people discussing crazy ideas and seeing what sticks, but when they wrote a paper about it and submitted it to arXiv.org ("Submissions to arXiv shou…

I think that discussing this in academia is worthy. One paper can start a discussion, another paper can improve on it or disprove it and so forth. I think that putting out a paper with a controversial conclusion is not wrong, it is merely provocative. I hope there is more study on this and that it is serious. I also do not think they are completely wrong. I think there is general consensus that in North America we ha…

writing can help you organize your thoughts and that can lead to new epiphanies. Writing helps you explore, helps you think, and helps you find ideas. Some people really hate that though. They don't like non-linear thinkers who use analogies and metaphors. They like to start with the proof. Other people enjoy surprising, sometimes ludicrous connections and analogies.

Some people also don't want facebook to fail. If you go deep into their comment history, many of them have argued that facebook cannot be the next myspace.

http://www.amazon.com/Surfaces-Essences-Analogy-Fuel-Thinkin...

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