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Matching entries from Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
Create free wealth by narrowing the streets
This note by Robin Hanson (in which he expresses his irritation with state highway departments that leave cones on the highways too long, thus unnecessarily restricting traffic lanes) reminded me of an idea I had when I moved to Berkeley,...
They learn how to fit multilevel models
Robin Hanson is skeptical of my response in the following exchange: Hanson: What do the customers who are paying your salary get from you? Gelman: They learn how to fit multilevel models....
Is it "schlocky" to compare life expectancies between countries?
Greg Mankiw writes: The next time you hear someone cavalierly point to international comparisons in life expectancy as evidence against the U.S. healthcare system, you should be ready to explain how schlocky that argument really is. He points to the...
Another reason I'm glad I'm not an economist
Robin Hanson writes, In academia, one often finds folks who are much more (or less) smart and insightful than their colleagues, where most who know them agree with this assessment. Since academia is primarily an institution for credentialling folks as...
My reply to Robin Hanson's reply to my comment on his attribution of underlying political motivations of conservatives and liberals
Time moves fast in the blogosphere. This particular discussion started four days ago when Robin wrote:...
Once more on the political ideology thing
To continue a discussion from a couple days ago . . . Robin Hanson, an economist who has written about his goal of overcoming bias and obtaining beliefs closer to reality, wrote something recently about "the signaling persona behind common...
Difficulties in trying to understand the views of others
Robin Hanson posted a discussion of the differences between liberals, conservatives, and libertarians in which he considers not just their disagreements on issues, but their differences in who they respect.I have to admit I've never really had a clear understanding...
Different meanings of Bayesian statistics
I had a discussion with Christian Robert about the mystical feelings that seem to be sometimes inspired by Bayesian statistics. Christian began by describing this article that was on the web about constructing Bayes' theorem for simple binomial outcomes with...
Robin Hanson and I discuss adjusting for variables you shouldn't adjust for (for example, adjusting grades given sex, race, or pre-test scores)
In response to something Robin Hanson wrote on his blog (sorry I can't find the exact link, I think it was at the end of July, 2008), I wrote:...
Random restriction as an alternative to random assignment? A mini-seminar from the experts
Robin Hanson suggested here an experimental design in which patients, instead of randomly assigned to particular treatments, are randomly given restrictions (so that each patient would have only n-1 options to consider, with the one option removed at random). I...
Random restriction as an alternative to random assignment?
Robin Hanson writes, To make sense of social complexity we would ideally want to add lots of randomization to people's real choices, and then collect lots of data on what happens to them. But this seems a lot to ask...
Limits on prediction markets?
If a prediction market is not liquid enough, it's possible to manipulate it by throwing in small sums of money (thus, for example, a political candidate could boost his price by buying a bunch of shares). Presumably this could be...
Thou shalt not sit with statisticians nor commit a social science
Robin Hanson writes that "social scientists know lots" and then asks "Why then do so many people think otherwise?" Like Robin, I have worked in both the physical and social sciences and I have a few thoughts on the comparison,...
Google's prediction markets
Chris Masse sent these links: Using Prediction Markets to Track Information Flows: Evidence from Google, by Cowgill, Wolfers, and Zitzewitz, and a news article by Noam Cohen. Here's the abstract of the Cowgill et al. paper: In the last 2.5...
Trendiness or clumpiness in academic research
Robin Hanson writes: It seems obvious - in the vast space of interesting topics, academics clump around a few familiar themes, neglecting vast territories between the currently fashionable clumps. This is sure how it seems to outsiders and students, at...
How Bayesian am I?
I was reminded of the varieties of Bayesians after reading this article by Robin Hanson: [I]n our standard framework systems out there have many possible states and our minds can have many possible belief states, and interactions between minds and...
Are brilliant scientists less likely to cheat?
In this discussion of Allegra Goodman's book novel Intuition, Barry wrote, "brilliant people are at least as capable of being dishonest as ordinary people." The novel is loosely based on some scientific fraud scandals from the 1980s, the one of...
Functional is not optimal: thoughts from a structural engineer
Robin Hanson points out that biological systems that have a useful function are not necessarily optimal when put in new environments. This reminds me of an interesting interesting article by Witold Rybczynski where I learned that the structural engineer Ove...
Total vs. marginal effects, or, Are the overall benefits of health care "probably minor"?
I was having an interesting discussion with Seth about his claim that "the overall benefits of health care are probably minor." The basis of his claim is evidence cited by Aaron Swartz: In the 1970s, the RAND Corporation picked out...
Truth is stranger than fiction
Robin Hanson asks the following question here: How does the distribution of truth compare to the distribution of opinion? That is, consider some spectrum of possible answers, like the point difference in a game, or the sea level rise in...
Will blog posts get credit?
Robin Hanson writes at the Overcoming Bias blog expressing the worry that clever ideas that appear first in blog entries will get used, without credit, by academic researchers, thus leaving the original blog posters with no credit (and, ultimately, less...
Detecting lies
Robin Hanson points to a list of methods for detecting lies: 1. Look for inconsistencies 2. Ask unexpected questions 3. Compare to when they truth-tell 4. Watch for fake smiles and emotions 5. Listen to your gut reaction 6. Watch...
Making fine distinctions in understanding hereditability of attitudes
Tyler Cowen points to Robin Hanson who points to this paper by Olson, Vernon, Harris, and Jang, "The heritability of attitudes: a study of twins". Robin writes, summarizing the paper, your differing attitudes on abortion, birth control, immigrants, gender roles,...
Politically committed research
I was talking with Seth about his and my visits to the economics department at George Mason University. One thing that struck me about the people I met there was that their research was strongly aligned with their political convictions...
Questions about Futarchy
One of the people I met in my visit to George Mason University was Robin Hanson. At lunch we had a lively conversation about democracy--Hanson thinks it's overrated! When I (innocently) told him that representative democracy seemed better than the...
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