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I'm not the only angry response you've gotten today. Ctrl+F this thread for "hackermom", do you think she liked your post? Just one among several. I know YOU

I'm not the only angry response you've gotten today. Ctrl+F this thread for "hackermom", do you think she liked your post? Just one among several. I know YOU don't believe that women are 77% as productive as men and that explains the pay gap, I get your tongue in cheek tone. The problem is that there are lots of people who use these half cocked "pieces of data" as part of larger arguments and it is exacerbated by a statement like "a random sample of 8,000 people" when clearly, this is not a random sample. It should say "this is not a scientific sample", because it isn't. This is how we got birthers, "logical racists", and conspiracy theorists. Perhaps I am more sensitive to it, I took a class on gender studies, I hung out with some feminists, my wife makes a lot of money (more than I for a while, and she wasn't on a computer nearly as much as I). I think I just get mad at misapplied statistics, the lack of distinction between correlation and causation, and people saying ridiculous things to get attention (of which this does all 3). Suffice to say fivethirtyeight.com is one of my "read every day" sites.

derefr 17y ago
Please don't blame me for inventing a gun that someone later uses to shoot you. The problem is with the sophists misapplying others' research, trying to find evidence to support their pre-formed conclusions instead of following the evidence where it may lead; the problem is not with the researchers themselves, or the objective facts they produce.
- MichaelSalib 17y ago
  Um, what? I've seen research. I've done research. And this is not research. Research implies some knowledge of statistics and familiarity with the relevant science. Just because a three year old child likes to play with toy planes does not mean they're a pilot. And just because some software geeks like to play with numbers does not mean they have any clue what they're doing. This is not the boy scouts. You don't get a research merit badge just for showing up and crunching some numbers.

derefr 17y ago

Please don't blame me for inventing a gun that someone later uses to shoot you. The problem is with the sophists misapplying others' research, trying to find evidence to support their pre-formed conclusions instead of following the evidence where it may lead; the problem is not with the researchers themselves, or the objective facts they produce.

MichaelSalib 17y ago
Um, what? I've seen research. I've done research. And this is not research. Research implies some knowledge of statistics and familiarity with the relevant science. Just because a three year old child likes to play with toy planes does not mean they're a pilot. And just because some software geeks like to play with numbers does not mean they have any clue what they're doing. This is not the boy scouts. You don't get a research merit badge just for showing up and crunching some numbers.