“I’ve always had a reasonably optimistic view of where we’re going, and I’ve tended to look at the positive, in terms of progress that we’re making,” he says. “Globally, the world’s in a much better situation than it’s been in past periods, despite the headlines on the war in Syria and other places where bad things are happening. There have been fewer people killed in wars, or genocides, or other forms of violence in the last decade or two than there have been in any other decade. We ought to take consolation in that.”
Month: October 2016
What has happened down here is the winds have changed – Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
the replication crisis has redrawn the topography of science, especially in social psychology
Their substantive theory is so open-ended that it can explain just about any result, any interaction in any direction.
And that’s why the authors’ claim that fixing the errors “does not change the conclusion of the paper” is both ridiculous and all too true. It’s ridiculous because one of the key claims is entirely based on a statistically significant p-value that is no longer there. But the claim is true because the real “conclusion of the paper” doesn’t depend on any of its details—all that matters is that there’s something, somewhere, that has p less than .05, because that’s enough to make publishable, promotable claims about “the pervasiveness and persistence of the elderly stereotype” or whatever else they want to publish that day.
When the authors protest that none of the errors really matter, it makes you realize that, in these projects, the data hardly matter at all.
When it comes to pointing out errors in published work, social media have been necessary. There just has been no reasonable alternative. Yes, it’s sometimes possible to publish peer-reviewed letters in journals criticizing published work, but it can be a huge amount of effort. Journals and authors often apply massive resistance to bury criticisms.
when statistical design analysis shows that this research is impossible, or when replication failures show that published conclusions were mistaken, then damn right I expect you to move forward, not keep doing the same thing over and over, and insisting you were right all along.
We learn from our mistakes, but only if we recognize that they are mistakes. Debugging is a collaborative process. If you approve some code and I find a bug in it, I’m not an adversary, I’m a collaborator. If you try to paint me as an “adversary” in order to avoid having to correct the bug, that’s your problem.
Doctors Without Borders Refuses Vaccines from Pfizer – The Atlantic
The climax of a standoff with the pharmaceutical industry over high prices
The actual problem with vaccines is cost and access.
Of course, the doctors do see donations as valuable—simply not worth the costs in this context, which transcends seemingly straightforward philanthropy and medical science.
cost is the fundamental issue to Jason Cone, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders in the United States. He explained that donations from pharmaceutical companies are ineffective against a problem of this scale. While the donation would benefit people under the care of Doctors Without Borders immediately, accepting it could mean problems for others, and problems longer-term. Donations, he writes, are “often used as a way to make others ‘pay up.’ By giving the pneumonia vaccine away for free, pharmaceutical corporations can use this as justification for why prices remain high for others, including other humanitarian organizations and developing countries that also can’t afford the vaccine.”
Source: Doctors Without Borders Refuses Vaccines from Pfizer – The Atlantic
How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind | Cracked.com
I’m going to explain the Donald Trump phenomenon in three movies. And then some text.
It’s Not About Red And Blue States — It’s About The Country Vs. The City
Step outside of the city, and the suicide rate among young people fucking doubles. The recession pounded rural communities, but all the recovery went to the cities. The rate of new businesses opening in rural areas has utterly collapsed. … See, rural jobs used to be based around one big local business — a factory, a coal mine, etc. When it dies, the town dies. … Cities can make up for the loss of manufacturing jobs with service jobs — small towns cannot. That model doesn’t work below a certain population density.
all the ravages of poverty, but none of the sympathy. … They take it hard. These are people who come from a long line of folks who took pride in looking after themselves. … The rural folk with the Trump signs in their yards say their way of life is dying, and you smirk and say what they really mean is that blacks and gays are finally getting equal rights and they hate it. But I’m telling you, they say their way of life is dying because their way of life is dying. It’s not their imagination. No movie about the future portrays it as being full of traditional families, hunters, and coal mines. Well, except for Hunger Games, and that was depicted as an apocalypse.
Source: How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind | Cracked.com
This Photo Captures Lava, Milky Way, Meteor, and Moon in a Single Shot
Adventure photographer Mike Mezeul II captured something truly extraordinary a couple of weeks ago. While hiking around Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii one night in September, he managed to capture the moon, the milky way, a meteor, and flowing lava in a single frame.
Source: This Photo Captures Lava, Milky Way, Meteor, and Moon in a Single Shot