101–110 of 231 posts
While the State has handled this case wrong, she is not innocent in this. She made a bunch of drama about her interpretation of the data, which was, at best, no better than the State's method, and more likely, she was flat-out wrong. She is mostly a drama queen making a crazy mess.
This weekend I heard directly from a current DOT employee, formerly Dept Of Health, in the FL capitol: "We were just following the WHO recommendations." "She's just a web developer and doesn't understand anything about the numbers."
>>with dual degrees in earth science and journalism in 2012 >>received a dual master's degree in geography and mass communication >>where she completed course work with an emphasis on data science and was working on a doctoral dissertation titled Using Native American Sitescapes to Extend the North American Paleotempestological Record Through Coupled Remote Sensing and Climatological Analysis https://en.wikipedia.org…
Nevertheless, Ms. Jones was paid as a web developer by the state, not as a data scientist, and if she was publishing data she thought was important at the expense of data the state's paid data-scientists thought were important, she had to be fired.
What if Ms. Jones was taking advantage of her position as a web developer and publishing her work as a hobbyist data scientist that showed masks are ineffective at the expense of the data science work of official state data scientists who were saying they are likely to be helpful? I'd still consider her a data scientist, I just would want the state to be able to fire her.
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Statistics is one field in particular where it's easy for non-experts to reach completely false conclusions.
True with complex stuff, but we talk about covid-cases/day/region...that's really something everyone should interpret correctly.
In the US, that’s first or second year undergrad territory. Overseas, it’s often covered in high school.
It’s particularly depressing that science reporters regularly get these things wrong.
I can’t imagine what (lack of) credentials are necessary to land such a job, but I often wonder if a basic understanding of statistics is a disqualifying credential.
If a judge issued a warrant for her arrest there must be something there. So idk. Suppose it could still be selective enforcement.
this is way too optimistic for the US criminal justice system. police and prosecutors regularly lie on warrant applications, and judges regularly grant the flimsiest of justifications for search and arrest warrants. there is no legal accountability whatsoever: the most that defense attorneys can usually do in the case of illegal search warrants is to have the illegally seized evidence excluded; there is no punishment…
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Is this case all they have when they accuse Florida of falsifying covid data? I assumed there was more but never looked into it.
Her “data” that she publishes on her website was always within 5% of what my Florida county publishes, and within the same margin of what I see on NYT or any other website. I say it’s close enough, so she didn’t expose diddly squat. What she did do is access a state computer system without authorization. That’s a crime, and her guilt or innocence will play out in court... like with other crimes. There’s no story here…
It makes me glad I did bureaucratic rebellion then. I learned quickly that the powers that be will never concede to you, people quickly disperse or disown you the moment you need help fighting something, and ideals are worthless things fighting for short of endless mass mobs demanding it.
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True with complex stuff, but we talk about covid-cases/day/region...that's really something everyone should interpret correctly.
Yeah; some sibling comments here say Covid stats are difficult to interpret, but cite phenomena (non random samples, false positives, conflation of population and sample statistics, etc) that should be covered by any reasonable introductory statistics course. In the US, that’s first or second year undergrad territory. Overseas, it’s often covered in high school. It’s particularly depressing that science reporters reg…
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Don't Americans have the right for their lawyer or a trusted witness to be present during search warrants? If they do, why would police ever expect to enter without delay?
Are there other countries where it works that way? It's hard for me to see how a standard where you don't even have to come outside until your lawyer gets there would work; what would stop people from using the waiting time to destroy all the evidence the police came for?
This weekend I heard directly from a current DOT employee, formerly Dept Of Health, in the FL capitol: "We were just following the WHO recommendations." "She's just a web developer and doesn't understand anything about the numbers."
The web developer part is character assassination at its finest. "Just a web developer...what could she know"
I'm open to the idea she was and is a data scientist, nevertheless the state was not paying her for that. It was paying her to publish on official state website(s) data and analysis provided by the state's official, paid data scientists.
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>>with dual degrees in earth science and journalism in 2012 >>received a dual master's degree in geography and mass communication >>where she completed course work with an emphasis on data science and was working on a doctoral dissertation titled Using Native American Sitescapes to Extend the North American Paleotempestological Record Through Coupled Remote Sensing and Climatological Analysis https://en.wikipedia.org…
I don't think the degrees you've cited necessarily make one a data scientist. I think doing data scientist work makes you a data scientist. So it may well be best to consider her a data scientist based on her current work or even if it is more of a hobby, even if your degree argument isn't the one I'd use. Nevertheless, Ms. Jones was paid as a web developer by the state, not as a data scientist, and if she was publis…
Then we just hope you Surgeon is not like that, and has at least a degree in Medicine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
this is way too optimistic for the US criminal justice system. police and prosecutors regularly lie on warrant applications, and judges regularly grant the flimsiest of justifications for search and arrest warrants. there is no legal accountability whatsoever: the most that defense attorneys can usually do in the case of illegal search warrants is to have the illegally seized evidence excluded; there is no punishment…
If a cop willfully lies on a warrant they are generally civilly liable. I am by no means saying that no one in the criminal justice systems acts unethically. But if a judge signs a warrant for someone's arrest there is almost always good reason to suspect they committed a crime.