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CDC data are disappearing

theatlantic.com

341–350 of 656 posts

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#341

Data is the ultimate Fact Check. This is a President that's adamantly opposed to fact checking [1] and has even coerced Facebook to drop fact checking. Of course they don't want data on government sites that disprove their "alternate facts". [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920827-60-minutes-tru...

Data isn't the ultimate fact check - it's just numbers waiting to be twisted. Bias, bad sources, and cherry-picking turn 'facts' into fiction. Real fact-checking needs brains, not just bar graphs.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#342
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed it is, but maybe is time that we detach a person from their proposals. I wonder how that would be achieved.

Because why would you want to judge someone by the quality of their ideas?

I beg your pardon? I mean more in that we stop following a personification of an idea and start vote in a project itself.

It's more a way for people to start see politics in the medium long term.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You intentionally dodged the question. Edit: For reference, the above user edited their comment to include a question that was not present prior, then suggested I was ignoring their prompt. They are acting in bad faith.

I asked for specific examples of what your concern is. You have still not presented a question of any substance.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Trumpian opposition to fact checkers is not based on some principled disagreement of substance. Trump, and by extension Republicans, oppose fact checking because the facts are in contradiction to their goals. Trump himself exists in some post-modern environment where "facts" aren't real and all that matters is spin. He wants what he says to go unquestioned. That's why instead of having a debate about facts, suppo…

[flagged]

So why are they taking so much data offline?

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#347
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please be specific about what you think is dishonest. It sounds like you are conflating a planned information removal with some unspecified amount of upgrade time? Those aren’t equivalent to me.

The specifics: The data is not disappearing. The data and the related tools have been temporarily removed to be cleaned and brought into compliance with Trump’s executive order (basically removing “gender” or replacing it with “sex”) That should be the intellectually honest title and that is what is happening. So lets check in 3 weeks. If data and tools are not back then we can say and complain about data disappearin…

>(basically removing “gender” or replacing it with “sex”)

There's no Gender or Sex component to the CDC's SVI methodology why was that dataset removed?

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/community-stress-resource-center/p...

It's you who is being intellectually dishonest.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#348
post #242

I’m an epidemiology professor and I write a weekly “weather report” outbreaks [1]. These communication and data blackouts are coming at a bad time. We’re having an unusual flu season—activity has rebounded unexpectedly. I’ve been having to scramble for data, last week by visiting each state health department website. It’s really troubling and consequential. [1] https://caitlinrivers.substack.com

I'm a CS professor who used to write and develop the software behind a daily and weekly Pennsylvania covid report. I get the pain here. It's a messy, incompatible jumble without the CDC. Would you like me to see if there are some CS folks here to provide programming support to help with what you're doing? I -hope- this is transient but I'm not holding my breath either. (feel free to reach out at dga@cs.cmu.edu)

Relieved to see it's back online. Hopefully it remains reliable in both senses of the word.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#349

Data is the ultimate Fact Check. This is a President that's adamantly opposed to fact checking [1] and has even coerced Facebook to drop fact checking. Of course they don't want data on government sites that disprove their "alternate facts". [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920827-60-minutes-tru...

Data isn't the ultimate fact check - it's just numbers waiting to be twisted. Bias, bad sources, and cherry-picking turn 'facts' into fiction. Real fact-checking needs brains, not just bar graphs.

So one of the most important things to "fact check" in this election for me was the clear elder abuse of someone with advanced dementia.

How do you fact check that?

Because almost everyone has a grandparent and has seen what it looks like. When push comes to shove and you lie about something everyone can see and has such a visceral reaction to, it's hard to move past it.

And even seeing clear as day for months it kept being denied. If you can't solve for that, there's no point.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#350

Data is the ultimate Fact Check. This is a President that's adamantly opposed to fact checking [1] and has even coerced Facebook to drop fact checking. Of course they don't want data on government sites that disprove their "alternate facts". [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920827-60-minutes-tru...

Data isn't the ultimate fact check - it's just numbers waiting to be twisted. Bias, bad sources, and cherry-picking turn 'facts' into fiction. Real fact-checking needs brains, not just bar graphs.

But surely, the answer to 'data can be twisted' is not to remove the data? We have enough of a problem already with wilful misinformation.

Having the data is the first step towards a reasonable discussion. Otherwise, you have to resort to 'I feel ....' vs 'Based on this interpretation....'

I agree that the first kind of debate is already the dominant form today, however I think we can all agree that it's not been good for society overall.

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