Simpson’s Paradox (2016)
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Simpson’s Paradox (2016)
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Re: Simpson’s Paradox (2016)
#2I like the way this is written. Very clear and to the point, with a tone of "Hey, check out this cool thing".
Re: Simpson’s Paradox (2016)
#3I like the way this is written. Very clear and to the point, with a tone of "Hey, check out this cool thing".
Very accessible, essentially making just one strong point with excellent examples and an easy-to-understand explanation. It does leave me with questions - doesn’t the number of trials in e.g. the kidney stone example count, as well as the relative success rate - but that can only be a good thing!
Re: Simpson’s Paradox (2016)
#4That is not a paradox. It's just the fact that a theory about something might not hold when you take a closer look at that something.
In the articles example, the admission rates of a university seemed to indicate that there is a bias against women.
Zooming in and looking at the admission rates of the individual departments seem to indicate that there is a bias against men.
The article makes it sound like the first theory was wrong. And the second theory - the bias against men - is the real truth.
Zooming in further might indicate the opposite again.
Take two boxers. So far, one of them has won 86% of his fights and the other one has won 100%. According to the article, "The data is clear".
Now we add more data:
One fighter is Mike Tyson. He won 50 of his 58 fights. The other one is me. I did one fight in kindergarden and won it. But to be honest: I would not want to fight Tyson. As paradox as it sounds.
Re: Simpson’s Paradox (2016)
#5In simples case at least, such as with the kidney stones, can we reduce our risk of reaching wrong conclusions by increasing our sample size of patients and randomizing which receive each treatment?
Re: Simpson’s Paradox (2016)
#6That is not a paradox. It's just the fact that a theory about something might not hold when you take a closer look at that something. In the articles example, the admission rates of a university seemed to indicate that there is a bias against women. Zooming in and looking at the admission rates of the individual departments seem to indicate that there is a bias against men. The article makes it sound like the first t…
It’s a paradox because many people find it counterintuitive. It’s the mathematical statement of why correlation does not imply causation. The existence of a confounding variable correlated both with the purported cause (eg gender) and the purported effect (school admissions) can lead to reversals in observed association when grouped or broken out. Thus it is challenging to draw causal conclusions from observational data.
Re: Simpson’s Paradox (2016)
#7That is not a paradox. It's just the fact that a theory about something might not hold when you take a closer look at that something. In the articles example, the admission rates of a university seemed to indicate that there is a bias against women. Zooming in and looking at the admission rates of the individual departments seem to indicate that there is a bias against men. The article makes it sound like the first t…
I don't know, but at some point, aren't we just running up against the definition of "probability"?
Re: Simpson’s Paradox (2016)
#8In simples case at least, such as with the kidney stones, can we reduce our risk of reaching wrong conclusions by increasing our sample size of patients and randomizing which receive each treatment?
Yes absolutely! Random assigment along with statistical power and significance considerations does indeed allow one to draw causal conclusions. It’s the gold standard for causal inference.
Re: Simpson’s Paradox (2016)
#9That is not a paradox. It's just the fact that a theory about something might not hold when you take a closer look at that something. In the articles example, the admission rates of a university seemed to indicate that there is a bias against women. Zooming in and looking at the admission rates of the individual departments seem to indicate that there is a bias against men. The article makes it sound like the first t…
> By doing so, the article makes the exact same mistake
Read further, the article talks about this
Re: Simpson’s Paradox (2016)
#10That is not a paradox. It's just the fact that a theory about something might not hold when you take a closer look at that something. In the articles example, the admission rates of a university seemed to indicate that there is a bias against women. Zooming in and looking at the admission rates of the individual departments seem to indicate that there is a bias against men. The article makes it sound like the first t…
> By doing so, the article makes the exact same mistake Read further, the article talks about this
True. Shame on me. Removed this line from my otherwise wonderful comment :)