Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

False claims in a widely-cited paper

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 181 posts

Re: False claims in a widely-cited paper

#161

Post by shrubby »

tovej wrote: post #149
shrubby wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Finland and more aligned to the left I guess. I'm trying to distance myself from though as I'm currently seeing everything as merely corrupt (by power) elite vs. normal people. But yes, perhaps the thing I'm looking after is something like the real equality side, which to me doesn't seem to exist as even the left here in Finland seems to disregard the laws of physics and nature in terms of the impossible ete…

What a coincidence, I'm also Finnish. Vas. definitely has degrowth as a part of their platform, and is often speaking against eternal growth and trying to get climate laws passed. They're only one party, and the last govt's more left-leaning SD was the best partner they could have had here, but Kesk. dragged down their efforts. Of course now, with Antti Lindtman, we have a right-wing SD, I agree that they aren't very…

Okay, I'm seeing a lot of old industrial/growth speech in the established left too, and the economic talk doesn't differ that drastically from the greens eternal growth vision.

I guess I'm thinking anything that doesn't hilight the tax free global narcissist pedi meta-zillionaire class tax evasion scheme to be one (or THE) root causes and also the easy fixes.

I talked to a lot of candidates from different parties during last spring campaigning and what I drew from proposing a "global fix the zillionaire-issue" was that new candidates saw this as a, perhaps unlikely, but a mandatory step in gaining a future for normal people.

And I talked to few front line politicians from the left and sdp and they didn't see any need for fixing the issue with individuals who've accumulated enough power.

Perhaps some of the top politicians also think this way but haven't realized that this is what the actual human beings want.

Or wanted a year ago, things are significantly worse for the normal people on both sides of the aisle.

Re: False claims in a widely-cited paper

#162

Post by shrubby »

tovej wrote: post #149
shrubby wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Finland and more aligned to the left I guess. I'm trying to distance myself from though as I'm currently seeing everything as merely corrupt (by power) elite vs. normal people. But yes, perhaps the thing I'm looking after is something like the real equality side, which to me doesn't seem to exist as even the left here in Finland seems to disregard the laws of physics and nature in terms of the impossible ete…

What a coincidence, I'm also Finnish. Vas. definitely has degrowth as a part of their platform, and is often speaking against eternal growth and trying to get climate laws passed. They're only one party, and the last govt's more left-leaning SD was the best partner they could have had here, but Kesk. dragged down their efforts. Of course now, with Antti Lindtman, we have a right-wing SD, I agree that they aren't very…

And yes, IMO left is by clear margin the least worst of the parties, but far from perfect :D

Re: False claims in a widely-cited paper

#163

Post by tovej »

shrubby wrote: post #161
tovej wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a coincidence, I'm also Finnish. Vas. definitely has degrowth as a part of their platform, and is often speaking against eternal growth and trying to get climate laws passed. They're only one party, and the last govt's more left-leaning SD was the best partner they could have had here, but Kesk. dragged down their efforts. Of course now, with Antti Lindtman, we have a right-wing SD, I agree that they aren't very…

Okay, I'm seeing a lot of old industrial/growth speech in the established left too, and the economic talk doesn't differ that drastically from the greens eternal growth vision. I guess I'm thinking anything that doesn't hilight the tax free global narcissist pedi meta-zillionaire class tax evasion scheme to be one (or THE) root causes and also the easy fixes. I talked to a lot of candidates from different parties dur…

I agree that Vas. also talks about economics within the growth framework, but that's because it's how the economy is measured, and how other parties work. And so in order to collaborate, you must at least partially adopt the framework.

But if you read Vas.'s party programme, you'll find a proposed millionaire tax, and a proposed progression to capital gains taxation.

I don't remember if an exit tax is a part of the current program, but it was at least discussed during the previous govt. (iirc, Kesk. killed it).

But I get your frustration, certainly the oikeistodemari -block is just a "nicer" Kok., and doesn't actually question any of the current frameworks.

Kiitos ajatustenvaihdosta, ja hyvää alkanutta viikonloppua.

Re: False claims in a widely-cited paper

#164

Post by tovej »

WalterBright wrote: post #156
WalterBright wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the right is what's causing inequality If people have rights, then they are unequal. If they have no rights, they are equal.

For example, people have a right to create wealth. To make people equal, it is necessary to take that right away.

Nobody said we should make everyone exactly equal, that's a lazy strawman.

Some inequality will always exist, but it should at the very least have a healthy balance point where the poorest get to live a decent life.

Currently, inequality is a labile runaway process, where the Gini-index is running towards a value close to 1.

Re: False claims in a widely-cited paper

#165

Post by chithanh »

toraway wrote: post #146
chithanh wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Medicine figured this out the hard way after thalidomide. Medicine never figured this out. The medical community put Semmelweis in a lunatic asylum, because physicians' ego could not accept the fact that their unclean hands were causing harm to patients. Semmelweis' modern peers continue to let millions of patients die preventable deaths due to errors in medical decisionmaking, and ego plus institutional inertia pr…

Semmelweis died approximately 100 years before the thalidomide scandal so not sure what that is supposed to prove… (other than being a favorite go-to of numerous quacks and charlatans who insist that modern medicine is similarly persecuting them).

It proves that the medical community did not learn from Semmelweis.

Reports on Thalidomide side effects were ignored, suppressed or dismissed. Distributors sat on such reports for months while continuing to sell the drug. Overall it took several years from the first observed birth defects until the drug was banned in most countries.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/25/distillers-k...

Numerous other examples before and after that (including deliberate ignorance of fatigue and medical errors resulting from it) show how medicine elevates institutional interests and groupthink over people's lives.

Re: False claims in a widely-cited paper

#166

Post by zimpenfish »

ernsheong wrote: post #66

I'm very confused because there are 2 Andrews, the author in the blog post only states "Andrew", and by the list of Authors the author seems to be Andrew Gelman, but the slug in the first link is "aking", and then there is also Andrew King, lol.

> the author in the blog post only states "Andrew"

If you click on that "Andrew", it takes you to [0] which is clear that it's Gelman.

[0] https://sites.stat.columbia.edu/gelman/

Re: False claims in a widely-cited paper

#167

Post by jmalicki »

chermi wrote: post #160
gus_massa wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is caused by a misunderstanding of what a journal is. It's just a curated publication, not the ultimate source of truth. Nobody should go and put a "retracted" stamp over "Principia Mathematica", or the "Special Relativity" paper of Einstein. Both are wrong, we know. In this cases cases, you may continue citing them or using them as an approximation. In some other cases they are slowly forgotten and fade away. I…

"Nobody should go and put a "retracted" stamp over "Principia Mathematica", or the "Special Relativity" paper of Einstein. Both are wrong, we know." What does that have to do with this situation? I'm honestly trying to figure out your chain of thought. Do you think the future should have an impact on the present somehow? The fraud in the op post happened at the time of publication. Oh and btw. No fraud in the two you…

Regardless, published papers aren't an authoritative source of truth. Just a note to your friends "hey I did some cool stuff I want to tell you about!"

Sure it's slightly more reviewed than a GitHub repo, but it's not an end all be all.

Re: False claims in a widely-cited paper

#168

Post by shrubby »

tovej wrote: post #163
shrubby wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'm seeing a lot of old industrial/growth speech in the established left too, and the economic talk doesn't differ that drastically from the greens eternal growth vision. I guess I'm thinking anything that doesn't hilight the tax free global narcissist pedi meta-zillionaire class tax evasion scheme to be one (or THE) root causes and also the easy fixes. I talked to a lot of candidates from different parties dur…

I agree that Vas. also talks about economics within the growth framework, but that's because it's how the economy is measured, and how other parties work. And so in order to collaborate, you must at least partially adopt the framework. But if you read Vas.'s party programme, you'll find a proposed millionaire tax, and a proposed progression to capital gains taxation. I don't remember if an exit tax is a part of the c…

Jep, me tarvitaan joku puoluerajat ylittävä kohtuuttomuudenkersintaliike.

Ihmiset ovat ihan kypsiä eliitin elosteluun ja sen varjolla tavallisen ihmisen kurjistamiseen.

Hyvää viikonloppua :)

Re: False claims in a widely-cited paper

#169

Post by tovej »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #158
tovej wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social studies is a school subject, that's irrelevant. You really think sociology is not a science then? Sociologists do way more rigorous statistics than physicists do. They have to, because physical sciences deal with deterministic objects, while social sciences deal with nondeterministic subjects.

Social Studies practitioners' surveys, for which they use statistics, depend heavily on the wording of the questionnaire. https://youtu.be/ahgjEjJkZks It's not a science.

You're aware that surveys are a very small part of sociology? And that sociologists are very aware of the issues with them. The gold standard is register data, but sometimes that's not available.

Still, in the countries it is, that's the data that's used. And then the analysis can be repeated in other countries.

Re: False claims in a widely-cited paper

#170

Post by gus_massa »

chermi wrote: post #160
gus_massa wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is caused by a misunderstanding of what a journal is. It's just a curated publication, not the ultimate source of truth. Nobody should go and put a "retracted" stamp over "Principia Mathematica", or the "Special Relativity" paper of Einstein. Both are wrong, we know. In this cases cases, you may continue citing them or using them as an approximation. In some other cases they are slowly forgotten and fade away. I…

"Nobody should go and put a "retracted" stamp over "Principia Mathematica", or the "Special Relativity" paper of Einstein. Both are wrong, we know." What does that have to do with this situation? I'm honestly trying to figure out your chain of thought. Do you think the future should have an impact on the present somehow? The fraud in the op post happened at the time of publication. Oh and btw. No fraud in the two you…

What about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel#Mendelian_parado... Apparently the numbers of the second generation are too good to be true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment#Millikan's... Apparently the viscosity was wrong, and then everyone else made corrections to get a similar result.

> What does that have to do with this situation?

The problem is how to document error without overwhelming honest authors. Imagine a nightmare with a DMCA like process, where anyone can can fill a retraction request and the authors have a week to reply. [The data is in an obscure folder in a notebook that is dead since 5 years. Most of the processing was done by a guy that is now working in the industry for x10 salary.] [Assuming you didn't work with mice, and you must resurrect them to fill the additional data asked in the retraction request.]

An alternative is let the editors ask a new reviewer to make the decision, but everyone has horror stories of reviewers that made bad reviews in spite the manuscript was correct. Then what? Ask the authors again to defend the paper?

The current method is that anybody can publish a "comment" if they find a journal that agree to publish it.

Post reply on HN